The metaverse had been left for dead. The massive hype for virtual worlds that we saw during the pandemic dissipated once we could all see our fellow humans in person again.
But last week Apple finally revealed its augmented reality device, the Apple Vision Pro. The tech giant that rarely misses the mark with its carefully thought through product releases revealed that it wanted people to strap on ski goggle-like devices, direct a computer with their eyeballs, click with their fingers, and video chat in a digital realm.
I invited Wired senior writer Lauren Goode and Anand Agarawala, CEO of the startup Spatial, on the show to talk about the new device.
Goode got 30 minutes first-hand with the Apple Vision Pro. So we spent the first part of the show interrogating Goode about her experience with the $3,500 device that’s expected to be released next year.
Goode told us that she didn’t think the device is truly augmented reality in the purist sense of the term.
“It’s not using any waveguide technology that refracts light and then puts it into your eyeballs. It’s not holographic or volumetric, but it is AR if you think about the literal definition of AR as augmenting your reality,” Goode said. “Once you are running computer applications into this space in front of you where you would typically be looking at your real world living room but actually you’re seeing apps and playing games and doing stuff, you are augmenting your reality. It’s conceptually AR.”
Agarawala has been hard at work on building tools for augmented reality devices for the past seven years at Spatial. The company builds 3D creation tools and hosts experiences across a range of devices, including virtual reality and augmented reality devices.
Agarawala is cheering for real competition among the big tech giants when it comes to developing these wearable computers. “The market at some point of maturity would need all the Big Tech companies to get involved. If you’re just the one company doing it, that means it’s probably not a big enough market,” he said. Apple’s entry into augmented reality “absolutely validates it,” Agarawala said.
On the episode, we talked about Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s comments on the release of the Apple Vision Pro:
Apple finally announced their headset, so I want to talk about that for a second. I was really curious to see what they were gonna ship. And obviously I haven’t seen it yet, so I’ll learn more as we get to play with it and see what happens and how people use it.
From what I’ve seen initially, I’d say the good news is that there’s no kind of magical solutions that they have to any of the constraints on laws of physics that our teams haven’t already explored and thought of. They went with a higher resolution display, and between that and all the technology they put in there to power it, it costs seven times more and now requires so much energy that now you need a battery and a wire attached to it to use it. They made that design trade-off and it might make sense for the cases that they’re going for.
But look, I think that their announcement really showcases the difference in the values and the vision that our companies bring to this in a way that I think is really important. We innovate to make sure that our products are as accessible and affordable to everyone as possible, and that is a core part of what we do. And we have sold tens of millions of Quests.
More importantly, our vision for the metaverse and presence is fundamentally social. It’s about people interacting in new ways and feeling closer in new ways. Our device is also about being active and doing things. By contrast, every demo that they showed was a person sitting on a couch by themself. I mean, that could be the vision of the future of computing, but like, it’s not the one that I want. There’s a real philosophical difference in terms of how we’re approaching this. And seeing what they put out there and how they’re going to compete just made me even more excited and in a lot of ways optimistic that what we’re doing matters and is going to succeed. But it’s going to be a fun journey.
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00:00:01
Hey, it's Eric newcomer with newcomer, we've got a great
00:00:04
episode for you this week. I have two awesome.
00:00:06
Guests to talk about the Apple Vision grow in the future of
00:00:10
augmented reality and virtual reality.
00:00:13
We've got Lauren good. A senior writer at wired co-host
00:00:16
of wired's have a nice future and Gadget Labs podcast you can
00:00:20
follow writing on wired.com and she got her hands on the device
00:00:24
so she's rare human at the moment so she walked us through
00:00:28
her experience with The Apple Vision, bro, and then also on
00:00:32
the podcast, Anand agrawal of the CEO of spatial company that
00:00:37
helps people build 3D worlds. He's been along for this journey
00:00:40
of virtual reality devices, and sort of has been in the waiting
00:00:45
game of a real hit. And so he had a lot of smart
00:00:48
perspective about the Apple Vision Pro.
00:00:50
So we had a really fun conversation.
00:00:52
I think you'll enjoy the episode.
00:00:54
Thank you both so much for coming on.
00:00:56
I really appreciate it. Thanks Eric.
00:00:58
It's great to be on your show. All right, when you actually
00:01:02
have used the Apple Vision Pro, so we want to start with you.
00:01:05
Like we're going to be sort of speculating and talking about it
00:01:08
but you have experience the product.
00:01:10
So yeah. What was it like can you walk us
00:01:12
through the whole experience of trying it out?
00:01:15
So I'm actually wearing the Gen 3 version right now, you just
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can't see it. Oh yeah, you've got all the
00:01:22
shrunk it down. Yeah, that much.
00:01:24
Okay. So I think it's probably worth
00:01:27
noting that when you first you try the In Pro there's a
00:01:31
preamble, right? And this I think is going to be
00:01:33
the experience for people when they eventually buy it.
00:01:36
You're most likely going to have to go to an Apple store or some
00:01:39
other kind of pop up and get, you know, scanned for this
00:01:42
device because when I first went into the super-secret building
00:01:46
that was I later found out was built specifically to give demos
00:01:50
of this device. An Apple employee, first
00:01:52
scanned, my face, and my eyes, and my ears.
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These ears are the weird one. Yeah, the ears a me, that you
00:01:59
think that, Going to peer directly into your ears.
00:02:02
It's not quite like that. They're measuring the space
00:02:04
between them, so they can Mouse spatial audio to you.
00:02:07
And then an apple employed optometrist measured in my
00:02:10
prescriptive lenses. I was wearing contact lenses
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that day, but I brought my glasses with me anticipating
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that something was gonna happen. And so, by the time I got into
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my private demo room to put the thing on my face, it had been
00:02:23
personally calibrated for optimal fit and optimal like
00:02:27
just Vision I guess. So then the vision.
00:02:29
Pro is waiting for me on a coffee table.
00:02:31
There are two apple representatives.
00:02:33
There they are. Not wearing your headset
00:02:35
muttering at this moment or you like know you have like a
00:02:38
limited window as a reporter, right?
00:02:40
Do you get 30 minutes with it? Yeah, you know, it was about 30
00:02:43
minutes. I didn't get your record
00:02:45
anything. Like, I couldn't record audio, I
00:02:46
couldn't take notes, I couldn't like take a photo of myself, so
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I don't have actual like timestamps.
00:02:52
And you know, when you're in the reality Distortion field, you're
00:02:54
in this vertex and you're like, what is time?
00:02:57
But I think it was approximately 30 minutes And I put it on and I
00:03:01
think the first thing that struck me, was actually how
00:03:03
Hefty it felt, considering that they've offloaded the battery.
00:03:06
Because there is that external battery pack.
00:03:08
I fitted it like, there's the soft strap, that goes over the
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top of the head, the soft rap that goes in the back of the
00:03:13
head. I started to know as I looked at
00:03:15
it. How much of it seemed to borrow
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a little design elements from other Apple products, like the
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soft foam, cushioning that frames your face looks a lot
00:03:23
like the are pods Max and the strap that goes in the top of
00:03:27
the head. Looks a lot like that Apple
00:03:28
watch strap sweet. Talk about that a little bit.
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And then the thing was on and that I did like an eye
00:03:34
calibration thing, that was very aptly, and pretty intuitive.
00:03:38
And that it actually even sort of concluded with this.
00:03:41
Like, little approval, click that sounds like an Apple Watch
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collection. Apple pay click her.
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Something is going to be an apple without something like the
00:03:48
Click was really thought through.
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Yeah. It was really the best time
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ever. Do you want me to keep going?
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Or like, I'm like, I'm like, I don't know, I start the device
00:03:58
start the experience. So we have to stop the
00:04:03
collection is just as exciting like Kelly.
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Usually this way in a podcast I paused because said like the
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host wants to jump in and be like okay, so get to the boy.
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So yeah. So then I put it on and I think
00:04:16
that another thing worth noting is that this isn't exactly a are
00:04:22
and it's not exactly VR. And the company is positioning
00:04:25
it as a spatial Computing platform.
00:04:28
Sorry, on Angela. That shuddering right now he's
00:04:31
like oh what we did, they call it spatial or are they naming?
00:04:35
Its spatial but knowing that it's like, is there obviously,
00:04:38
that is an honest company name, okay, it's right, Google it,
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Google it. So then your face is fully
00:04:45
enveloped and I think Apple made a big point to say that you can
00:04:50
see the world around you but it's a little bit of Miss
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marketing because while you can see the world around you it is
00:04:56
video pass through. It's not like there's any sort
00:04:59
of Trance Spare and see to the lenses of glasses like your face
00:05:03
is in it. The reason why you can see the
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world around you, is because there are so many cameras on the
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device that are recording and streaming to you.
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Okay. Yeah.
00:05:10
Same to you. This is fascinating.
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So does it look like when I'm looking at like an iPhone camera
00:05:14
to take a picture and it's sort of like that or what is sort of
00:05:18
the vibe of the real world as seen through the cameras.
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It feels like a slightly fuzzier version of the real world.
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Like, you know, when you put on, I'm going to assume it on a
00:05:29
dyno. You have the Derek.
00:05:30
I'm going to see me. You have used a quest to.
00:05:32
Yeah I don't do that but you have used a quest.
00:05:36
Yes. We've got to make this happen.
00:05:38
It's basically PR is listening to this right now.
00:05:40
They're like shipping on to you at.
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This is hard. I know you guys are.
00:05:44
We have them here. Will bring one, I'll bring one
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over. Yeah.
00:05:47
Okay, so when you, when you put on the quest, there's a moment
00:05:50
before you get fully immersed. In virtual reality, where you
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map your living room, you create these barriers around your
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living room or wherever you're standing in a real environment.
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So that Creates like these virtual wall so you don't bump
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into things once you can no longer see.
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And so you see in that moment, this very grainy
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black-and-white, although newer versions have color passed
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through. But you see a very grainy
00:06:11
black-and-white like image of your living room, and then a
00:06:14
draws the barriers. It's like that, but like a lot
00:06:18
better in my Serene color. So I was seeing this, you know,
00:06:21
very Normcore, Scandinavian Apple demo living room, but I
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was not seeing it. Like, I would see through
00:06:27
glasses. I was seeing as I would see it
00:06:29
as Like a video broadcast to me. It's weird because I know you
00:06:32
said it didn't feel like a are but like, I mean, they are just
00:06:35
done too many of those paths to demos, but that's usually, after
00:06:39
a few minutes, your brain kind of should be like, yeah, that's
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my living room now. Like, you know what I mean?
00:06:42
You kind of adapt pretty quickly like in true.
00:06:44
A, our devices you're seeing the real world, right?
00:06:47
Is Optical paths 3s. So it's like, you're actually
00:06:49
seeing, like, you're actually your, I like the photons are
00:06:52
going like, the couches. You're right.
00:06:53
Yeah, right, exactly. It's like, it's like glasses and
00:06:56
then there's images on top of the glasses, right?
00:06:58
But that are just Blocking it. Where's?
00:07:01
This is you're looking at a screen that is shown on the
00:07:03
screen thinking, right? Okay.
00:07:05
That's right. That's right.
00:07:06
Yeah, I don't know glad you explained that because I think
00:07:09
it when I say it's not like real AR I think that's what I mean is
00:07:12
that it's not using any kind of waveguide technology that
00:07:15
refracts light and I put it into your eyeballs like it's not
00:07:18
holographic, it's not volumetric but it is AR if you think about
00:07:22
the literal definition of they are as augmenting your reality
00:07:26
and so once you are like running computer application, Ins into
00:07:30
this space in front of you, where you would typically be
00:07:33
looking at your real world living room.
00:07:34
But actually, you're seeing apps and playing games and doing
00:07:37
stuff, like you are augmenting your reality, right?
00:07:39
So, it's like, conceptually a are and the responsiveness part
00:07:43
of what supposed to make this better than the status quo is
00:07:46
just like how quick it is, right?
00:07:48
And also high def, right? Can you get into like this sort
00:07:50
of quality and how much that is or isn't a game changer in your
00:07:55
view? Yeah, I think the obvious were
00:07:57
remarkably good. You are when you first fire up
00:08:01
the you know the home screen you're looking at just almost
00:08:05
like a dock, a floating dock of Apple apps.
00:08:08
I didn't see. There might have been
00:08:09
third-party apps. I'm like the next page I don't
00:08:11
actually recall once again, could not take notice a lot of
00:08:14
these have going off the memory but I mostly saw Apple apps like
00:08:17
Safari and messages and photos and then once I opened some of
00:08:21
them the imagery did actually look remarkably crisp.
00:08:24
So the Optics. Yeah I mean they're pretty good
00:08:27
I think that the eye tracking And gesture control is a bit of
00:08:30
a game changer here. Because typically, when you're
00:08:33
wearing a VR headset, you're using game controllers and order
00:08:37
for your hands to be able to, like, navigate the world around
00:08:41
you. There's so much compute power in
00:08:43
this thing. And so many cameras that Apple
00:08:47
like the device scans your hands, and after that initial
00:08:51
scan, your hands are in the frame.
00:08:52
Your real-life hands and you just use them by tapping your
00:08:57
fingers together, too. To manipulate and scroll through
00:09:00
apps is worse. This is like the future, it's
00:09:03
insane, right? You're going in Optometrist it's
00:09:05
like I feel like every sci-fi movie, this is like it.
00:09:08
I'm not saying that means this is fully functional.
00:09:10
It's going to change society. We're all going to use it.
00:09:12
But like this is like as living sci-fi as you can get, where
00:09:16
your hands are controlling things where like living the
00:09:19
world through cameras, like they have like basically medical
00:09:22
professionals examining you to make it work.
00:09:25
I don't I just want, it's weird like, it's amazing, I don't That
00:09:29
scanning stuff is that critical I mean like you know on an
00:09:32
Oculus like so one of the things they're doing is ipd checking so
00:09:35
that when you get it it just works but like you know Quest
00:09:38
has like those three settings and those get 80% of humans or
00:09:41
90 percent of humans. So I think some of that stuff
00:09:43
and like the spatial audio. Like if you just popped it on to
00:09:46
Lauren setting, I think it would be fine.
00:09:47
You can take that you know that physician part out of it but
00:09:50
otherwise, yes, it is pretty trippy, you know?
00:09:52
Yeah. And the other element of the
00:09:53
gesture control is that the way you select apps?
00:09:57
That's where the eye. Aking comes in because there are
00:10:00
the external facing cameras that see what your hands are doing.
00:10:03
And then there are the internal cameras at see where your eyes
00:10:05
are looking at, and there's almost no latency.
00:10:07
I mean, if they're latency, it's Ms. And Apple has said, like the
00:10:10
threshold should be like 12 milliseconds, or fewer.
00:10:14
And when you look at an app, like when I looked at the in
00:10:17
apple was like sort of guiding me and they were also holding an
00:10:20
iPad off to the side for. They could see what I was
00:10:22
listening. It was very controlled demo.
00:10:25
They said, like look at the photos app and I looked at the
00:10:27
photos app. And it just sort of was like
00:10:30
emphasized in the row of apps, and then it's like look to the
00:10:33
next app and that app. So it just it's just like the
00:10:36
face computer knows where you are looking and then you click
00:10:38
it with your hand to open it. And then there's an expand
00:10:41
option and apps and use your finger to like, select the
00:10:44
expand option. You can, you know, scroll
00:10:48
through the photos. Let's open one up into panoramic
00:10:51
mode. Yeah, everything you're doing.
00:10:53
Because the voice control was not set up.
00:10:56
Yet was not ready, everything you're doing is with your eyes.
00:10:58
Eyes or hands. I think this is one of the most
00:11:01
powerful things and most breakthrough things that they've
00:11:03
done is if like, your eyes are. I think, two orders of magnitude
00:11:06
faster than your hands in terms of response rate and speed and
00:11:09
everything. And this is the thing that I
00:11:11
find, like, in the Tea, Leaves of, all the reviews.
00:11:13
I've read MKBHD said, it's magical.
00:11:15
I think it's a hyper IO device, a hyper input output device that
00:11:18
would speed at, which you can kind of look at stuff and move.
00:11:20
Like, it feels like you're just it's almost like mind control
00:11:23
and like that, it might be the greatest breakthrough of it and
00:11:26
that's maybe why they're leaning towards a productivity
00:11:27
applications. I think it's going to be like
00:11:30
you know, when you're on your phone and you're like I'll
00:11:31
answer this email on my computer because I want to use my
00:11:33
keyboard. It's going to be that same level
00:11:35
of like oh answer this on my Vision Pro you know, it remains
00:11:39
to be seen what you need to do. All that kind of pointing and
00:11:41
stuff for. And I've seen some demos to that
00:11:42
are like you just get used to looking at stuff and it lighting
00:11:45
up like Lauren described, right? And when you look at icons, they
00:11:48
light up and then when you look at the real world when you take
00:11:49
it off, it's not going to do that and you're going to be kind
00:11:51
of like you're gonna want that. Super reality.
00:11:54
It isn't really a thing. But I think that like that
00:11:56
eye-tracking aside from all the other Other stuff.
00:11:59
I'm going to want that on my Mac, you know, without the
00:12:01
headset. You know, like I think that's a
00:12:02
potential real breakthrough. This may be hidden in here and
00:12:05
that fits with sort of like the launch of the iPhone where it
00:12:07
came with this, you know, gesture control.
00:12:10
That was so perfect and human that it felt like okay this
00:12:14
powers and new generation of devices.
00:12:15
Now, Catch swipe your TV right? Like because I just used to it
00:12:19
and people have tried that on the desktop before, you might
00:12:22
roll call me many years ago. There was a startup called Leap
00:12:24
Motion, that was doing, really interesting stuff around gesture
00:12:27
control on PCS and then Another company called, Toby that does
00:12:30
eye tracking and I think those were really cool Technologies in
00:12:34
search of applications. Like maybe they would be good in
00:12:37
games or maybe they would be good.
00:12:38
Even for like consumer surveys to figure out where people were
00:12:41
looking on their machines and like what they were gravitating
00:12:43
towards. But I think with Babble, like,
00:12:45
with anything with apple, there's so much validation that
00:12:48
comes with apple entering a market in the technology, so
00:12:51
good that all of a sudden you're like, oh, this could actually
00:12:54
become mainstream in some other way and your eyes are like the
00:12:57
best. Indicator of your intent, right?
00:13:00
Like even intent, you're not even aware of where you're
00:13:02
looking, you know? I mean think about the
00:13:03
revocation to ads and you know it's just fast.
00:13:06
I mean it is really much closer at your hands.
00:13:09
Your intent of your mind is like two degrees away in your hands
00:13:12
but it's like one degree away in your eyes.
00:13:13
You know what I mean? Like it's much more automatic
00:13:15
right. So then there's the other thing
00:13:17
that I thought was pretty. I don't know if I would call it
00:13:19
stand out but very different about this was the ability to
00:13:21
dial back, the opacity of the immersive - like you could see
00:13:26
the living room and then run, you know, Little window of an
00:13:29
application in front of you. Or you could twist the dial and
00:13:32
then just go almost full of the. Are they when I saw that?
00:13:35
I thought, oh, to me, this seems like it's something that's
00:13:38
geared towards app developers because an app developer has the
00:13:42
option to say I'm building a VR app or an AR app or something in
00:13:45
between what did you make of that as someone on the app
00:13:48
developer side? It's interesting.
00:13:49
You know, the magic leap ship to the reality button and they had
00:13:52
two similar intent. They didn't work out that well
00:13:54
bike. So you click the button.
00:13:55
In the ideas, you go back to reality so much more rudimentary
00:13:57
for. Anything is a switching time.
00:13:58
Was so long that it like because they thought you'd be wearing
00:14:00
this thing all day and you want to be popping in and out of
00:14:02
reality. So it's an interesting through
00:14:04
line to this switch, I think like, it's cool.
00:14:07
I'll I think you need people to feel really grounded and being
00:14:09
able to like someone just walked in the door and you need to say
00:14:12
hello or you know, you're probably just jumped on your lap
00:14:15
like you need that. I don't know if the dial.
00:14:16
I mean, it will be nice. I'm sure it'll be nice and
00:14:19
happily as an app though. Like you can either dim
00:14:22
completely or experience down to reality, or you can dim parts of
00:14:26
it. And so like, for us, like in
00:14:27
spatial like the a Guitars. Like for you can example you can
00:14:30
imagine experience where you DM, just the environment but the
00:14:33
avatars are still there. You know what I mean?
00:14:35
And so that like I think developers could potentially use
00:14:38
it intriguing ways. Like I'm watching, I could be in
00:14:40
that space. You're watching the Mandalorian
00:14:42
on that crazy spaceship that they showed in.
00:14:44
Hopefully my friends are with me and I dim the thing because
00:14:47
other people are the room to and now I can see the friends.
00:14:49
Still let's just go through the Mandalorian, I think like, if
00:14:51
you do selective dimming and he could be quite intriguing but
00:14:54
it's also like you definitely need that switch back and forth
00:14:57
reality should be really smooth. Cuz it is on your phone to me.
00:14:59
The big question here is like, is it enough of an AR device
00:15:02
isn't enough of a VR device? Or is it this weird, like half
00:15:05
and half? And I think like, the dimmer
00:15:07
sort of gets to the, you know, what's interesting?
00:15:10
They showed almost no VR mode at all.
00:15:14
I can't even remember a single real-time 3D thing they showed
00:15:17
except for these immersive panoramas.
00:15:19
And even watching the movies, they even the 3D dinosaur thing,
00:15:22
which everyone thought they were going to do in 3D was like a
00:15:24
pseudo shallow depth Tyrannosaurus, right?
00:15:27
It wasn't like Behind you. There's like a thing.
00:15:29
You know what I mean? It's not a VR device as it was
00:15:31
positioned. I think like didn't show a
00:15:33
single game. I experienced a little bit of
00:15:35
that in the demo. So when I pulled up, I'm trying
00:15:38
to remember which video clip it was.
00:15:40
There were a few video clips that were like set up in
00:15:42
advance, you know, once again, this is a very controlled demo,
00:15:45
I watched Avatar to in 3D I watched this Sizzle reel that
00:15:50
Apple will put together of all of these incredible nature
00:15:52
scenes and then I watched the Jon Favreau directed dinosaur
00:15:56
clip. So at one point Apple said, look
00:15:59
to the left and there were these pre crafted environments that I
00:16:02
could select with my eyes and hands and one of them was called
00:16:05
cinematic mode. So I was watching this, you
00:16:07
know, this video content in front of me in the, you know,
00:16:10
the living room that I was sitting in and when I chose
00:16:12
cinematic mode and actually made it a lot more immersive.
00:16:16
There were some edges there, there are these like weird kind
00:16:18
of wavy or floaty edges. So it's not like I felt like I
00:16:22
could look up at the sky or look behind.
00:16:24
Me and just be like, completely in the world but it was like
00:16:28
Very close. It was up against the edge of
00:16:30
full VR. I would say, but you're not
00:16:32
walking around, right? Like it's kind of a it's
00:16:34
basically, if you 60 video. I mean, not 36 360 3D
00:16:37
stereoscopic video and there's 28 million pixels.
00:16:39
I think they speculated, they don't have the processing power
00:16:42
to actually render real-time 3D in a way that you can move
00:16:45
around. Like, can you game on this
00:16:47
device? Like that?
00:16:48
That is a big question. I didn't do any.
00:16:50
And there were no gaming apps and the demo that I had it was
00:16:53
either like, some Face Time, some messaging, although I
00:16:56
couldn't even message back with a person.
00:16:58
Web browsing and like video watching.
00:17:01
There wasn't anything around gaming and a video, like one of
00:17:04
the things that I experienced and they are headsets that I've
00:17:07
tested like even like snaps spectacles and those are only
00:17:11
available to developers and like they only last a half hour or so
00:17:15
and they heat up really quickly. Like, but they do like pure wave
00:17:18
guide AR and they also do spatial anchoring.
00:17:21
So like you would draw this like artistic squiggly into the world
00:17:25
in front of you and then it would be anchored.
00:17:27
There You could walk up to it, you could scale it up, you can
00:17:31
walk around it, you can manipulate it with your hands.
00:17:34
There were objects floating in space that you could just
00:17:37
manipulate and it lists really cool way.
00:17:38
And like, I did not experience that and apple had set on the
00:17:43
gaming front. I mean, so one of the developer
00:17:44
lab showed apparently I didn't see any yet but Warner
00:17:46
devastating rec room in 3D and so that was like, I think
00:17:49
immersive but it also raises the question, what's the control
00:17:52
scheme for these games, right? If there's just hand tracking
00:17:54
like you know, PlayStation VR, not Quest have joypads with
00:17:57
multiple buttons. You can I can write like we're
00:17:59
just asking how they going to do.
00:18:00
Like I get how you do, shoot in rec room.
00:18:02
But how do you do run? How do you do, jump?
00:18:03
How do you do duck? I mean, you could do those in
00:18:05
real life. It's going to get fatiguing real
00:18:07
quick, so you need controls. You could imagine a gesture
00:18:10
scheme where you do that. They were also like some of the
00:18:12
games were actually in 2D mode. And, you know, when we were
00:18:15
chatting, the guidance to developers is start with your
00:18:18
iPad app and then, you know, that's kind of the 2D frame.
00:18:21
And there's even guidance on like, okay, well you can use
00:18:24
your 2D iPad joystick with your fingers, which is kind of an
00:18:28
awkward way. Play.
00:18:29
So is it a productivity device? Like you think it's built its
00:18:32
it's like really set up to well I guess to like do Zoom type
00:18:36
things and then to watch movies or like what was sort of the one
00:18:38
to use case that they were sort of painting for you.
00:18:42
In this exciting kind of felt like they threw everything at
00:18:44
the wall with this. Frankly, the messaging was a
00:18:46
little bit muddled around it, even the demo video that they
00:18:49
showed during the WWDC keynote showed like every example in the
00:18:52
book, right? There's the person on the flight
00:18:54
with it. There's the dad, browsing
00:18:56
memories, there's the woman who's doing work.
00:18:58
Work. And then goes down to the fridge
00:18:59
to get her sparkling water. It felt that way in the demo to
00:19:02
it was like, here's a little bit of messaging.
00:19:03
Here's a little bit of Face Time.
00:19:05
Here's some entertainment. Also, you and Collie can
00:19:07
collaborate on this design thing and that's a nice signal is that
00:19:10
they don't really have the killer app quite figured out
00:19:13
yet. And actually, in one of the
00:19:15
comparisons I've been making in conversation with folks, is that
00:19:19
it very much reminds me of the iPad in that way.
00:19:22
I think everyone's been saying, oh, but what about the iPhone?
00:19:25
You know, if you're down on this right now, maybe you're a
00:19:27
Luddite because look, Were skeptical about the iPhone and
00:19:30
look how that changed the world. I don't think that that's the
00:19:32
APT comparison. I think much in the way that the
00:19:34
iPad. It's mostly a home device.
00:19:37
Some people are power users and might travel with it, or some
00:19:39
people might use it as their primary PC.
00:19:41
But it is very much a consumption device.
00:19:44
It's at home, you give it to your kids.
00:19:46
Sometimes, occasionally, you do work on it.
00:19:48
It's a little bit more of an isolated experience, right?
00:19:51
Like you're using it yourself for the most part.
00:19:53
Sometimes it casts other content.
00:19:55
I think like, this could potentially.
00:19:58
If it ends up being as successful as the iPad, then
00:20:01
that will be a success for this product because it is
00:20:04
ultimately, very hard. I think, to convince people, to
00:20:06
wear a face computer for an extended period of time Lincoln
00:20:09
on. And I were talking instead of
00:20:10
our prep call about like just like getting people to use these
00:20:14
VR devices, right? They like use them a lot in the
00:20:16
beginning and they fall off and nobody uses them anymore.
00:20:19
And it's just like a phone is much easier to grab than a VR
00:20:23
device and so to me I don't know, I feel like my view is
00:20:26
much more like this is an all-or-nothing thing.
00:20:28
There they get it so that people really want it to put on its
00:20:31
magical. It feels like way ahead of
00:20:33
everything else and so then people are putting it on and
00:20:36
then people get word from their friends, like no, I'm like in
00:20:39
this thing, I'm doing x y z for a long period of time or like
00:20:43
it's early adopters. Who try it?
00:20:45
Don't find a sustained use case and it's not even to iPad level.
00:20:48
Like I don't quite see this sort of middle case purse I think I
00:20:51
can see both I mean I think the iPad thing like you bring your
00:20:56
iPad to the airplane because it's just way better.
00:20:58
There. Now, would you bring this to the
00:21:00
airplane? You know, that's probably the
00:21:01
number one place, right? I think that that said first
00:21:05
class Envy, they're like, oh my God, five hundred dollar device
00:21:09
inverse class wearing these things like that is going to be,
00:21:12
that'll be the symbol of like the class divide in America and
00:21:16
the morning after the event, I got a text message from a CEO,
00:21:20
not a big Tech CEO but more of like a lifestyle CEO who just
00:21:23
wrote in all caps, I will not wear the goggles on a player.
00:21:27
I thought that's interesting. That's the Ali moment.
00:21:29
People lying flat in first class with headset like being
00:21:33
entertained and be fed. It's gonna happen.
00:21:35
That's the future. It's not the scientist, you
00:21:37
know, but I do agree like my number one.
00:21:40
Learning after working VR for seven years day in day out is
00:21:43
like, the transformative moment will be like, when people
00:21:46
actually shifted this device, it needs to be an all-day wear
00:21:49
device. Otherwise there's a switching
00:21:51
cost and the switching cost is always going to be way higher
00:21:54
than your phone, which is in your pocket, and it's so easy.
00:21:56
We can't even switch to our watch because the phone is so Oh
00:21:58
good. And this is like honest the
00:21:59
whole time, right? Like that is the key I think and
00:22:02
that's why the thing I was most excited to hear from morning,
00:22:05
you know, and folks who tried it is, can you use it like all day?
00:22:07
Can you imagine doing that? And I'm hearing not so much.
00:22:10
Like Joanna, stir his face, was quite red after her demo and
00:22:13
they said it was a fitting or whatever.
00:22:14
But I just can't imagine, I mean, I can't wear ski goggles
00:22:16
all day and have no Computing them.
00:22:17
So I think you've got to go from goggles to glasses for this to
00:22:21
be that kind of mainstream thing and that's the path were on and
00:22:23
this is like a huge injection of energy and apple you know sex
00:22:27
appeal this The Ferrari, the Tesla Roadster of that category,
00:22:32
right? And there's a arms race now,
00:22:33
between two trillion dollar companies trying to win your
00:22:35
face. And so that's great, that's
00:22:37
great for the consumer. It's great for the developer
00:22:39
Lauren. How long do you think you could
00:22:41
wear the device? I know you only got like maybe
00:22:44
this 30 minutes with it, but did you feel like at the end you are
00:22:47
fatigued or you felt like, no, I'm comfortable.
00:22:49
I could keep going, you know, I thought I could keep going.
00:22:52
Actually, I have worn. The medic quest to for, I don't
00:22:57
know maybe as long as an hour. Our before some friends and I
00:22:59
used to play beats paper together, we were all in
00:23:02
different cities and we would you know put our headsets and
00:23:05
gossip and play Beat saver and like fetus little disembodied
00:23:08
avatars floating in the metaverse and that was fun.
00:23:11
The setup was always really annoying, like especially if you
00:23:14
hadn't used them at a quest to in a while and then you picked
00:23:16
it up and put it on. There was almost inevitably some
00:23:18
update to download and then you would be like wait, how do I
00:23:20
navigate this thing with this dorky hand controllers, again, I
00:23:23
don't think I ever used it for more than an hour and I always
00:23:26
say that when I take something like that off, it feels like
00:23:28
Forehead is breathing a sigh of relief, right?
00:23:30
I'm sure after an hour or so. In the Apple had said, I'd feel
00:23:33
the same way. I mean, maybe I would get so
00:23:36
engrossed in a movie that I would want to keep wearing it
00:23:39
for the full duration of movie, but I could also picture at some
00:23:42
point being like, you know what? I really just want to take this
00:23:45
off and watch this on a big flat screen because it maybe there's
00:23:48
a little bit of depth here. Maybe there's a little bit of
00:23:50
interactivity like the dinosaur was interacting with me or the
00:23:53
butterfly was interacting with me, but once you're over that
00:23:56
novelty unit, you reminded me of is like Like the first days of
00:23:59
covid-19, spend eight hours a day on zoom and how fatiguing it
00:24:01
wasn't when you're done, you're like it's like that's kind of
00:24:05
the same thing on 2D experience, but you can last eight hours,
00:24:07
you know? Yeah, yeah, that's true.
00:24:10
I've done days where I've like, spent like when we've been
00:24:12
pitching or whatever talking to businesses like 4 hours, 5 hours
00:24:15
and a hololens like it's exhausting for sure.
00:24:17
You do lose yourself in it when you're in there because it
00:24:19
especially there's another human in there with you because you're
00:24:21
just kind of like you know talking but it's tough.
00:24:24
Oh my gosh, I can't believe you've spent four or five hours
00:24:27
and a hololens. Did you get like a special award
00:24:30
for that? That is like my God.
00:24:32
I wrote a story for Wired once that was just entirely about how
00:24:36
long it took me to get set up for a meeting in Hollands.
00:24:39
Like it was so comically bad, that required meetings upon
00:24:42
meetings to anyway, kudos to you on.
00:24:45
And I just curious like, when you mention this inevitability
00:24:48
of shrinking, the form factor, like you think that we're headed
00:24:51
to glasses, I think that would be great, because they would be
00:24:53
a lot more lightweight, but I just think the physical
00:24:57
batteries are still Like there's only so much we can do around,
00:25:00
innovating lithium ion batteries, as long as that's
00:25:03
what we are using in Silicon, is being innovated on in such a way
00:25:06
that it's become a lot more power.
00:25:08
Efficient and that helps with battery life but like we are up
00:25:11
against like, physical and chemical limitations with
00:25:14
batteries. So as long as we have, those are
00:25:15
we ever really going to get super lightweight powerful
00:25:18
glasses? Yeah, I think.
00:25:19
Okay, the wire that is fair and I think the interesting thing
00:25:23
about this is that they say it's all day where they actually said
00:25:26
that it meaning and that shame, I'm sorry.
00:25:28
Well, but I went they mean by that is done, right?
00:25:31
But the quest Pro you actually can't run all day if it's
00:25:33
plugged in because it draws too much.
00:25:35
But you don't like the they fix that and the thing is like this
00:25:38
hats, an apple fix that? Yeah.
00:25:40
Thank it, right? Yeah.
00:25:41
Vision Pro, some fairness in the claim given the quest can't
00:25:45
deliver all day, even plugged in quest Pro.
00:25:47
I don't think Westbrook one, whatever.
00:25:49
But the thing is, they've externalized the battery in this
00:25:51
case. So can you imagine a pair of
00:25:53
glasses and real X? Real?
00:25:54
Now is a couple years old and that's like glasses.
00:25:57
He You know, you can imagine an apple caliber device, delivering
00:26:00
something like that with external battery.
00:26:02
We're not going to solve the battery problem for a while
00:26:04
except for, like, kind of Apple watch scenarios where it's like,
00:26:07
episodically on during your day, but I can imagine a world where
00:26:11
like, that's maybe not too far away.
00:26:12
Maybe it's, you know, like where you have a x real style chunkier
00:26:17
glasses with a wire, it's going to need a wire.
00:26:20
You think people will just get used to carrying around the
00:26:22
battery pack? If the glass is make it
00:26:24
worthwhile enough, well like then what's the world in which
00:26:27
we're carrying around Phones. And we have a watch on her wrist
00:26:30
and we've got this battery pack, and we're wearing glasses, like,
00:26:32
what's the benefit? Then to the glasses that you
00:26:34
can't just do on your phone? But you know, what's crazy?
00:26:37
Apple has made us all carry around headphones, okay?
00:26:40
Who carried around headphones before?
00:26:41
They're winning the pocket. Who would have thought we'd be
00:26:44
carrying around that and this the watch, you know, there's so
00:26:46
much crap were caring for them. If it delivers value, these
00:26:49
deliver airplanes deliver a lot of value.
00:26:51
So, that's the question. The other thing I've learned is
00:26:53
it, the phone is so damn good. And deliver, so much value so
00:26:57
quickly and And it just really hard to be.
00:26:59
So the bar is really high to replace it really that I feel
00:27:03
like optimistic about some of the technology that Apple has
00:27:06
just introduced, especially considering it's the first
00:27:09
version. I still feel very skeptical
00:27:12
about the market the category, the product has a category.
00:27:15
I know you have to run around like a shaman, who's seen the
00:27:18
future. So your schedule is very limited
00:27:20
so we will let you go soon. But like, another writer wrote,
00:27:23
Apple vision isn't the future? Do you agree with something that
00:27:26
straightforward or what's your prediction?
00:27:28
In here. Yeah, that was Kate nibs.
00:27:30
It's great piece for Wired. And I have to say, I give Katie
00:27:32
a lot of respect because I think that a lot of the tech press is
00:27:35
like dancing around the question and maybe being a little bit
00:27:39
nice because I think that you risk a lot less when you are
00:27:45
optimistic and writing something positive about an Apple product
00:27:49
because it's apple and they typically deliver like you're
00:27:52
gambling a little bit less when you take that position versus
00:27:55
hey this is going to be a flop and is this not the future.
00:27:58
And so I give a lot of respect to K for writing that.
00:28:01
I think there's a real possibility.
00:28:03
This is a fault. I'm not saying I'm calling that
00:28:06
right now but I think I tend to think that it's going to find a
00:28:09
niche market and that Apple will find a way because it is an
00:28:13
operations company as much as a computer company to eke out
00:28:16
margins on it or find that Niche, or find a way to make it
00:28:20
valuable to some this, a particular consumer device, The
00:28:22
Vision Pro they're going to sell.
00:28:24
So few of them that they're always going to be able to claim
00:28:26
that they don't have any. They could just sell like Day at
00:28:28
every store and just never have enough and never run out.
00:28:32
You know, I mean it's just obviously Niche product that I
00:28:35
think I feel like the bar it has to step over his so solo.
00:28:39
Yeah. But as a category, people have
00:28:41
been talking about VR headsets for like literally decades at
00:28:45
this point. And by the way, I would say that
00:28:47
the people who have been prognosticating on this are
00:28:49
predominantly men who have these, like techno utopian
00:28:52
visions of such things and, and like, it hasn't come to be now,
00:28:57
like granted So maybe not.
00:29:09
I'm optimistic about the metal, right?
00:29:11
That would be the second half. Once you go we're gonna go into
00:29:13
full techno utopian and we're just gonna be over here like get
00:29:16
out of here already, they don't know anything.
00:29:18
Like once you're not here to really shit on the idea, we're
00:29:21
just going to go wild you know but what I will tune back in and
00:29:24
listen for that later on for sure I want to hear what you
00:29:27
have to say. I tend to think that this is
00:29:29
something, I still think that there's been that vision of,
00:29:32
let's do face Computing for a very long time.
00:29:34
And there is a reason why the majority of the population has
00:29:38
not opted to spend a lot of their time, hours of their time,
00:29:42
wearing something that cuts off, some of the most personal
00:29:45
sensory, organs of your body. Like even with apple owning our
00:29:49
pocket is on on, put it so. Well when you're wearing the air
00:29:51
pods that is augmented reality but you can still see and smell
00:29:55
and all that stuff and actually there's like even passed through
00:29:57
hearing. When you're using the iPhone,
00:29:59
you're still in the real world even though you're digitally
00:30:01
connecting with all of your family and friends.
00:30:03
Like when you're using iPad, you're consuming entertainment.
00:30:05
But you're in your bedroom and your comfy bed and you're like,
00:30:08
I just think like putting something on our faces for an
00:30:10
extended period of time. Is a really big ask?
00:30:13
Yeah, I mean, just, you know, if you said the Tesla, what we saw
00:30:17
the Tesla Roadster, he said this is this is not the future.
00:30:20
I think that would be quite short, sighted.
00:30:21
Like, of course, not everyone's gonna drive a Tesla Roadster,
00:30:23
but V's, like it was the gateway drug to EVS, right?
00:30:27
But Evie's are solving Such a huge societal problem which is
00:30:32
how do we make this particular category of Transportation sexy
00:30:36
enough? So that people are less reliable
00:30:38
on internal combustible engine vehicles that are contributing
00:30:41
and major ways to our climate problem.
00:30:44
I'm not sure why I didn't people don't care about.
00:30:50
So I mean like just to be cynical like people don't really
00:30:52
care about solving the problem, they care about convenience and
00:30:54
luxury. And you know what I mean?
00:30:55
Like, they also made it wasn't a Prius.
00:30:57
It was like, It was sexy, right? Like the other thing just to
00:31:01
respond to something. I said earlier, it's look like,
00:31:03
you know, bite my head off. Is that like I smile before?
00:31:06
I bite somebody like a shark like you know you mentioned like
00:31:11
the is there any use case? Because it's like there's a
00:31:14
whole bunch of stuff there's living room there's like you
00:31:15
know how would you describe? I mean if the bolt case I could
00:31:18
that there is I'm skeptical too but that you know the bull case
00:31:21
is how would you describe how user iPhone is a lot of
00:31:23
different stuff. You know like if you're
00:31:25
describing to an alien species, you know like what would you
00:31:27
say? Eggs are for social, I use it
00:31:29
for email, use it, for wraps true, it's the everything device
00:31:33
it is. So it is a general purpose.
00:31:35
Like, I think, in some ways, it's okay, part of this is like
00:31:37
as VR developers. We never had this caliber of
00:31:40
device before to experiment with.
00:31:42
So, in some ways it's a development platform.
00:31:44
Now that's what I'm really curious about.
00:31:46
Are they going to see these devices like water, like magic
00:31:48
leap and quested to stimulate development because it really
00:31:51
expensive and almost every won't be able to afford them and
00:31:54
you're taking a really big and the economics won't necessarily
00:31:56
work out to this. Something we talked about
00:31:57
earlier is like Like the economics at work in VR.
00:31:59
Today are on Quest. There are companies that are
00:32:02
made tens of millions, hundreds of millions and those have to
00:32:04
charge 2999 out of the gate as a one-time fee.
00:32:08
Because why? Because you don't the retention
00:32:10
is kind of low in these but none of users and engagement to do
00:32:13
freemium and recurring payments, a deadly business, models that
00:32:16
venture capital or 199. Like when can you do 199 app on
00:32:19
a headset? Like you need crazy volumes for
00:32:21
that. So that is a bit out.
00:32:23
That's a really great point at this point on.
00:32:25
And if you had limited resources and you had to develop for
00:32:28
They're The Quest 2 or 3 or this apple Vision Pro, which would
00:32:33
you choose? Well, the good news, what we're
00:32:34
doing both and the good news is for most developers.
00:32:37
It'll be relatively like if you're doing a 3D volumetric
00:32:40
app, like if your 3D developer, if you're doing a 3D volumetric
00:32:43
app, like a rec room or spatial or something, it's quite easy to
00:32:47
like, we already support a, our kids, you know, like our app
00:32:49
already sports are kit. So we already have both, you
00:32:51
know, and so it'll be relatively easy for people to pick both.
00:32:54
And as we talked about yesterday, I think these will
00:32:56
have converge a bit like, I think, Probably Quest will have
00:33:00
a high-end device in the low end and they're kind of, you know,
00:33:03
like a quest Pro in their Quest three or whatever and apples
00:33:07
already rumored to be shipping everyday, you know, five for
00:33:09
five hundred dollar device as well.
00:33:12
So I think like it's pretty easy to support both.
00:33:15
There's nothing that like aside from the eye tracking that like
00:33:17
you know, and that's pretty. I mean Quest, could you know,
00:33:21
definitely support that as well. So I think both answers both
00:33:24
because of the unity. It's not expensive to develop
00:33:27
for both. Well, I Ford trying spatial on
00:33:29
Apple Vision Pro and I think you just made a really good play
00:33:31
here, if like Jaws or Tim or listening that you guys should
00:33:34
send a freak. It's it to a spatial over there.
00:33:37
So. But I do have to run.
00:33:38
Thank you so much for having interest has been really fun.
00:33:40
Yeah, enjoy. Enjoy the metaverse.
00:33:44
We will grate. That was so fun.
00:33:48
I want to just like, is it enough VR or enough?
00:33:51
AR is the thing. I keep coming back to you.
00:33:53
Like, you've got me really worried that it can play video
00:33:56
games, which just feels like such a a key.
00:33:58
Yeah. Early adopter use case for a
00:34:01
product like that and would be classic Apple history to like
00:34:04
underestimate the value of video games.
00:34:07
It is very intriguing that they really didn't show any Gaming,
00:34:10
use cases, on that headset. And it's an entertainment
00:34:13
device. And then, secondly, they did
00:34:15
announce the game Port kit, I don't you notice that, but where
00:34:18
you can easily like they're allowing developers who built PC
00:34:21
games too much easier. Bring them to the Mac, direct
00:34:24
translation, DirectX API is rising wind kind of thing.
00:34:27
So they are Getting game try to improve the Mac.
00:34:30
They changed some settings so that you can move into like a
00:34:33
gaming mode for higher performance, gaming mode and
00:34:35
stuff. So, there is energy in Mac
00:34:38
gaming for Mac. For the first time in a long
00:34:40
time. The funny thing is, the iPhone
00:34:41
is the biggest gaming platform in the world, so it's like now,
00:34:45
yeah, I mean, I think that was probably a conscious Choice,
00:34:47
maybe it's a positioning Thing versus meta because meta so
00:34:50
hardcore, the game's not the game's is the one vertical
00:34:53
that's proven games and then Fitness, you know, to a much
00:34:57
lesser degree but those Are the two verticals that have really
00:34:59
shown to take off for VR and, you know, part of its, I don't
00:35:02
know if they view it as a VR device, as much.
00:35:04
Right. Can you, you know, give a little
00:35:07
bit of your history with a rvr. I feel like we sort of jumped in
00:35:11
understandably for the conversation about, like, what
00:35:13
is this device? Like, please tell us, you've
00:35:15
seen, you've been to the Mountaintop, like, I'm down
00:35:17
with, like, you know, tell us but just like.
00:35:20
So if you have contacts in your sort of Journey, sort of, I feel
00:35:23
like True Believer. But then also sort of exhausted,
00:35:26
by how long it takes. So like, oh man.
00:35:29
I've got to do one more than just be a true.
00:35:31
I don't know. Yeah, charge it out.
00:35:33
That is a fantastic question. Yeah.
00:35:34
So I've been working at 3D user interfaces for like 20 years,
00:35:37
first company called bump top three desktop interface that
00:35:41
used a physics engine back. In 2004 was my Master's thesis
00:35:45
was looking at do a Ted Talk on it.
00:35:46
Sold it to Google in 2010 and I was doing 3D interface on a 2d
00:35:50
screen fully 3D interface on a 2d screen onto T touch screen
00:35:54
and then spatial So I was part of and reaction, maybe it's
00:35:58
worth giving the contact as part of Android starting in 2010,
00:36:01
when it was under 100 people, the team and version eclair
00:36:04
Froyo, and then watching and then, you know, all the way to
00:36:07
Ice Cream Sandwich which was like exponential growth.
00:36:09
These are all operating systems. Yeah.
00:36:11
Yes. Are you don't know any of this
00:36:13
stuff? It's their letters of the
00:36:15
alphabet, so it's like you Claire F Froyo Ice Cream
00:36:18
Sandwich. So, just to give you a little,
00:36:20
you know thing. Yeah.
00:36:21
And now they're just numbers, which is way more boring because
00:36:23
back then the team would get ice cream sandwiches when we finish
00:36:26
The release and stuff. But anyway, that epic expansion
00:36:30
of mobile when I left Google, I was like, yo, that's going to
00:36:34
like I tried the whole lens. I felt like I was looking into
00:36:37
literally a tunnel vision to the Future and that there was a huge
00:36:41
opportunity software opportunity to get in there early.
00:36:44
And that was in 2016. When I started spatial with my
00:36:46
co-founder Jenna, because it was like, Hey, building 3D software
00:36:49
is hard. And there's very few people have
00:36:51
that skill set, that can combine kind of the 3D graphic stuff you
00:36:54
need, which you probably develop.
00:36:56
Was that skill sets typically found in gaming but then also
00:36:59
the UI and design expertise, you need for Like Making Stuff
00:37:02
sensible to the common person. So we started and I anticipated
00:37:08
like a lot of people that the headsets would have been ramped
00:37:11
much closer to the mobile ramp, right?
00:37:13
Like mobile ramped crazy quickly to get to like a billion devices
00:37:17
I think, right? I think it was like five years
00:37:19
from like 1 million smartphones to 1 billion.
00:37:22
Hmm. And so, you know, I think a lot
00:37:23
I mean, you know, these were investing to like Facebook ad
00:37:26
Just bought an Oculus. Oh yeah there was a ton of
00:37:28
excitement. Yeah the whole lens to is out
00:37:31
you know like Rollins want was out like they were serious.
00:37:34
It was the Fast Times and I mean that sounds of any sort of I
00:37:38
mean startup you know you want to time the startup early in
00:37:41
this sort of wave up so that you're in the right position
00:37:43
when things but you don't want to be too early where it's like,
00:37:46
oh it didn't take off at the pace we wanted.
00:37:49
And that's when we start in 2016, we thought 2019 2020 for
00:37:53
an apple headset and it was always, people make the joke.
00:37:55
It was always two to three years out.
00:37:56
And every year were kind of push out.
00:37:57
I think the problems were physics, hard to get it.
00:38:00
Right and you know, I think Apple definitely wanted to
00:38:02
launch glass, it's not goggles and, you know, just stop really
00:38:06
possible to the type of quality they wanted.
00:38:08
So, that's the challenge, you know?
00:38:09
And I think it didn't accelerate as fast as folks.
00:38:12
Some people will be like, I told you so's going to take five to
00:38:14
10 years but you know the Bulls were out there for sure.
00:38:17
And thought we could have gotten further faster so that's into
00:38:20
spatial moves to be more like you're also going to deal with
00:38:23
flat-screen regulars. Yeah, I mean so we We are one of
00:38:27
the few platforms that. So we start off on Hall at we
00:38:30
basically went to bigger and bigger platforms are off on
00:38:32
hololens, which is three thousand dollars.
00:38:34
So we've been there, this is, you know, this this price point
00:38:37
and then covid happen and then we support quest to.
00:38:39
And so our usage grew like 50 x because the market was so much
00:38:44
bigger request to and then we supported mobile and then we
00:38:48
grew again and then we supported web and then we grew at unlike
00:38:51
100x basically, from where we were before.
00:38:53
And so now you can join spatial. And the cool thing is You are a
00:38:57
first-class citizen on all these devices over whether you're on
00:38:59
mobile where they on web or whether you're on VR.
00:39:02
And basically our usage is split across these platforms and no
00:39:05
surprise majority of our platform, 90% over usages, web
00:39:09
and mobile. And then, you know, some
00:39:11
templates for game developers to build like experiences games for
00:39:15
yeah, people to play around with on these different devices.
00:39:18
So anyway, you're deep in. You've been on this journey you
00:39:21
sort of like, okay, wow, we can actually get a lot of users on
00:39:23
web. You would think so like are you
00:39:26
fatigue? Devine optimistic or what's your
00:39:28
like having been through that sort of Journey live through
00:39:31
this and like hope for the future a lot, like where are you
00:39:34
right now with apple Vision Pro? It's that's a great question.
00:39:36
I think you'll be seven years in October on the official journey
00:39:40
of you know, just any of your company.
00:39:43
We gave up on waiting for the perfect headset about halfway
00:39:47
through because every year is like this is the year.
00:39:49
It's going to come, it's going to come and like it was just
00:39:51
like, all right screw this we got to own our own destiny.
00:39:53
We got to go where the users are?
00:39:55
You can have a door we get up. It in the future but we've got
00:39:58
to work for the now or start up. We have to live and survive,
00:40:01
right? And so I'm still like I think
00:40:03
also after I don't know how many hours I've logged in a headset
00:40:07
at this point, I mean, probably 1 plus, you know, like over,
00:40:10
you know, five six years or whatever and watching the
00:40:13
keynote on Monday was really inspiring.
00:40:16
To be honest. It was like a whole team after
00:40:19
was done was cheering. Like we just sent us a lovers in
00:40:21
the moon. Like we almost it felt like we
00:40:23
were launching something and there was a lot of our stuff
00:40:26
that At like, you know, we'd seen a lot of our stuff that we
00:40:28
built in the lab and because we kind of grown a little detached
00:40:31
from it, not detach, but like it's like, hey the collaboration
00:40:33
use case is going to be really tough to make work in this
00:40:36
environment and in this kind of state of the market but it's
00:40:39
such a sexy device and I we all can't wait to use it.
00:40:42
You know it's funny. We did an internal poll about 20
00:40:44
people answered. Who's going to buy one?
00:40:46
Yes no maybe two people said yes.
00:40:49
Think like and the rest were split between know and maybe.
00:40:52
Wow that's not very optimistic if you're a sort of a company
00:40:55
that sort of plays in this. Right, well, the price of
00:40:57
factory. So if it's for 500 bucks, then
00:41:00
it's a different equation, right?
00:41:01
I mean, that's like a lot of money, we did the math, you
00:41:04
know, like a Mac books. Like let's say 3 Grand, we use
00:41:06
it. Roughly, let's say,
00:41:07
optimistically three years, you're roughly pay.
00:41:09
If you used a five hours a day, a work day, you're paying about
00:41:12
a buck an hour to use it which is not bad.
00:41:15
And you know, a Macbook will solve your problem.
00:41:17
Where this you're definitely going to have a MacBook to you
00:41:20
know you're not you're going to need like yeah right I mean yeah
00:41:24
I mean but I'm so energized. Excited.
00:41:27
Like VCS are reaching out and like all these people like press
00:41:30
or reaching out, it's right. There's never been so much
00:41:32
excitement and I think like because of how mainstream apple
00:41:35
is like my sister's reaching out and you know, like I love this
00:41:38
idea that your sister stop talking to you and he's like,
00:41:41
like I've got that brother of mine is sort of always playing
00:41:44
around with this stuff. No, but, you know what I mean?
00:41:46
Like a person, like, the Barista knows about area.
00:41:49
And I mean versus like, like, like, this is Barista, ready.
00:41:52
You know what I mean? Like, it's just, yeah, it's
00:41:53
intriguing. How mass-market apple is, and
00:41:56
how can The imagination and that Fanboy Community, the fanatical
00:41:59
Apple Community can help get the product through, you know, to
00:42:03
the promised land. I think, I really like a lot of
00:42:05
the argument is like, okay, they have this device.
00:42:07
This is the pro. I mean, they expressly branded
00:42:09
is pro and then it's like dot dot dot.
00:42:11
They'll have the are obviously, will be cheaper.
00:42:13
But like, you know, my view has been that like the actual
00:42:15
quality of the experience is, like, what's so key and been the
00:42:18
barrier and that just like, you know, my TV sharper than some of
00:42:22
these VR devices or whatever like those things really matter.
00:42:25
So the question is just like Like will a degraded are version
00:42:29
of this be sort of a mass-market device if it can't even deliver
00:42:33
like the pro level experience, which we're not even sure.
00:42:36
The pro level experience has the graphics processing and
00:42:39
everything to do what people really want.
00:42:41
So are you optimistic about like an air version of this device?
00:42:45
Yeah. Definitely, man.
00:42:46
I'm off to mr. About any Apple device.
00:42:47
They're so good at Hardware. I mean, I'd like, I'm not lucky
00:42:50
okay, guilty as charged of an apple Fanboy, but they've got
00:42:52
the goods, they watch the iMac, the iPhone, the iPad.
00:42:56
IPod. They're so good.
00:42:57
At Hardware. The MacBook like they are pods.
00:43:00
Each one of these is a multi-billion dollar industry on
00:43:03
its own right, but I think the other thing is about this
00:43:06
strategy of going hyper high-end.
00:43:08
As the technology curve goes, you a lot of that stuff.
00:43:12
You'll be able to trickle down or you'll learn stuff about what
00:43:15
you built on the high end that you can actually turns out.
00:43:18
Maybe you can't get in the for 500.
00:43:19
It's like model 3 Model X. I totally agree with the
00:43:23
Testament of for us and you know, apples been doing there
00:43:25
for a long time and that it makes total sense to me and I
00:43:27
think people fixating on the price.
00:43:31
Fucking sucks expensive but it's not it's a niche sort of product
00:43:35
at the. It's a suck.
00:43:35
Not everyone can afford a Ferrari man, it sucks.
00:43:37
I read. It's a bummer that technology
00:43:39
has to be that way with a first gen is not accessible.
00:43:42
But unfortunately, that's just how Tech works.
00:43:44
But you know, computers used to cost thirty thousand dollars so
00:43:47
it will get cheaper, you know, right.
00:43:49
And the beauty of it is that the end of the day they want to be
00:43:52
able to sell a device that they can make money on to everybody.
00:43:55
And so, yeah, it drives the prices down and then and that's
00:43:58
just sort of how this and I think what I About their
00:44:01
strategic positioning. Is that like we've seen the
00:44:03
devices? You can get for 500 bucks.
00:44:05
We're not satisfied with those. And we don't think the public is
00:44:08
satisfied with those. And so, we need to like, go to
00:44:10
the next level. And yes, it's going to be
00:44:12
incredibly expensive, but we hope we can convince the public
00:44:15
with like that device that like, the Vision Pro today is maybe
00:44:20
what the quest 6 will be like, you know, that Quest, six price
00:44:22
point. You know what I mean at that, in
00:44:24
that number of years and so they're trying to do that today
00:44:27
and see. Okay.
00:44:28
What use cases that enable they're trying to really?
00:44:31
Accelerate that path to future. I wanted to pull up like Mark
00:44:34
Zuckerberg is comments about the Vision Pro like and get you to
00:44:39
react. I mean, you know, Apple
00:44:41
announced the headset, you know, I was really curious what they
00:44:43
were going to ship. He hasn't played with it yet and
00:44:46
he says this is Mark Zuckerberg from what I've seen initially.
00:44:49
I'd say the good news is that there's no kind of magical
00:44:52
solutions that they have to any of the constraints on laws of
00:44:55
physics that our teams haven't already explored in thought of
00:44:59
they went with a higher resolution display.
00:45:01
Between that and all the technology they put in there to
00:45:03
power it, it cost seven times, more and requires so much
00:45:06
energy. They now you need a battery and
00:45:08
a wire attached to it to use it. They made that design trade off
00:45:12
and it might make sense for the cases that they're going for.
00:45:15
And basically saying, you know, we want to make things for
00:45:17
everybody. You know, we have different
00:45:19
philosophies, they sell sort of elite stuff and like we feel
00:45:22
good about this. I mean, do you think this is
00:45:26
good for a Facebook in that a validates the category or is it
00:45:29
bad for Facebook in that? That it's a potentially better
00:45:33
product that eats his lunch, I think it's good for Facebook.
00:45:36
The market at some point of maturity would need all the like
00:45:39
all the tech companies to get involved, right?
00:45:41
Like if you're just the one company doing it, that means
00:45:43
it's probably not a big enough market, right?
00:45:45
And so I think that like it absolutely validates it.
00:45:49
People get it. Now, I think, especially let
00:45:51
like now that there's two trillion dollar companies.
00:45:53
I think there's a lot less people you have to answer to in
00:45:56
terms of like Wall Street and stuff.
00:45:57
It's like, okay. Now it's a competitive thing
00:45:59
now, we can't lose, I think. The positioning is interesting,
00:46:03
you know about the like lower price point thing.
00:46:06
You know, I think the social stuff like I get things like hey
00:46:08
this is not the kind of device I want to have, but like there
00:46:11
will be social on right and I sort of trust Apple more to get
00:46:15
like the human to human things and I don't know.
00:46:18
Mark Zuckerberg is company necessarily but he can tell
00:46:21
himself whatever he wants. I mean, yeah, apples great.
00:46:24
It like, I don't know the human if feeling like human company,
00:46:28
like this was built for a person they understand.
00:46:31
You know, like, I feel like they get that.
00:46:32
So I don't quite see what sucks saying on that point.
00:46:36
But certainly the pricing and the accessibility and sort of
00:46:39
their strategic, I think so. Yeah.
00:46:41
I mean, this is, I think this is great.
00:46:43
I may, I think also, I heard on, was it?
00:46:45
I think so, this trajectory podcast that like Mark loves
00:46:48
playing strategy games and he hates to lose very competitive.
00:46:51
And so this will be very intriguing.
00:46:53
This kind of will double down is resolved, you know, to really,
00:46:57
you know, a up, you know, I sure wasn't that was Ronnie saying
00:47:00
that Ronnie above So they have co-founder magically petite and
00:47:02
Henry says, he's met both Tim and Mark it's going to be really
00:47:06
exciting. I mean, it now it valid.
00:47:08
The thing is though, is that like on the cost, the proquest
00:47:13
pros, very expensive and so like, I don't know how much is,
00:47:16
it thousand? Twelve hundred, something like
00:47:18
that. So that's definitely not an
00:47:19
every person's device. Right?
00:47:21
But maybe I mean, it is great. That they are providing
00:47:24
something in a more accessible price point.
00:47:26
Although now it's went up in price, they're not subsidizing
00:47:28
it as much as I used to be 299, which is Double cheap.
00:47:31
And you know, they're done to kind of sensitivity studies were
00:47:34
like what price we have to get. It works like you know you know
00:47:39
there is a period I think it was during the pandemic where if I
00:47:42
like the metaverse was going to be here tomorrow and like we had
00:47:46
that whole discussion, it can become a semantic argument and
00:47:48
I'm guilty of sort of this semantic games where it's like
00:47:52
you know, Fortnight you are Perpetual character and you can
00:47:55
go to a concert and that feels metaverse like, can we expand
00:47:58
that out? But I just wanted to take stock.
00:48:01
You know, now that the metaverse hype sort of died but now we're
00:48:04
sort of like back in this sort of like world again with this
00:48:07
device like how do you see this? The metaverse conversation they
00:48:11
had and what your view on to I think I'm going to be a little
00:48:15
cheesy paraphrase. The metaverse is already here
00:48:17
it's just not evenly distributed right?
00:48:19
Like I think we live in a 2d metaverse the average American
00:48:23
spends ten hours a day on a screen.
00:48:25
I think roughly four of those on a phone for those on his laptop
00:48:28
and then two of those on a TV. So like That is a lot of 2D time
00:48:32
now. And what I mean by that is we
00:48:34
live in a 2d digital. We spent a majority of our day
00:48:39
in digital experiences. All right.
00:48:42
And they are 2D and your future computer will be a headset.
00:48:45
It's really kind of a matter of time.
00:48:47
And so when the device is 3D by Nature, those experiences all
00:48:51
become 3D by nature. And so, Netflix will.
00:48:54
Now be, I look on my couch, and I'm watching.
00:48:56
I've seen my friends with me and we're watching the game
00:48:58
together, you know, or the listener.
00:49:00
ER, is going to be shouting right now.
00:49:02
You sort of did a dot dot dot on.
00:49:03
The future is going to be a headset right there are.
00:49:06
I see obviously that, why? That could seem intuitive.
00:49:09
But there to some, I think there's a perfectly reasonable
00:49:11
thing that like, if you believe in a are especially if you
00:49:14
believe like, oh man. Continued access to the real
00:49:17
world is like a valuable thing of this device.
00:49:19
It's like whoa, let me tell you what's a better version of a are
00:49:22
like everything else besides your screen is still the real
00:49:25
thing. You know what I mean?
00:49:26
It's like in some ways like a screen is a great solution to a
00:49:30
are because Doesn't block you off from the rest of the world
00:49:32
and the part that you want to be a screen.
00:49:34
Is there, you know, like, okay, I remember when I was a kid and
00:49:38
like, I watched, like futuristic visions of the future and maybe
00:49:41
like, I remember like reading I think popular science or
00:49:43
something like that, and they show like you're going to have
00:49:45
your wallpapers are going to be TV screens and you're going to
00:49:48
be like your have like menus will be, you know, TV screens
00:49:52
and stuff. And I'm like, there's no way
00:49:53
like this is back in the CRT era where the freakin TVs were
00:49:56
massive and stuff. I think the big zennith boxes.
00:49:58
I'm not that old. But like, you know what I mean,
00:50:00
they were Chunky. And now like restaurants, give
00:50:03
you an iPad for a menu sometimes.
00:50:05
We're like there's TVs, just plastered everywhere.
00:50:08
So the digital world is kind of like eating, you know, like the
00:50:12
meta versus eating, you know, like sophomore, he eats
00:50:13
everything like the hardware or, you know, is kind of eating the
00:50:16
world to in that sense. So I hear you but I shouldn't
00:50:19
have said, goggles are the future, like, but I do think
00:50:21
glasses. Like if you think about it,
00:50:23
okay? Here's the question.
00:50:25
If you could have a pair of glasses that can be the exact
00:50:28
same or maybe slightly bigger than your current laptop, To
00:50:31
your eye, or your phone. You look down your hand, you see
00:50:33
the phone and it's just a cheap and light, and it's always on.
00:50:36
Would you wear that probably yet?
00:50:38
Yeah, I'm a Believer. So, that is, when does that
00:50:41
happen, right? Why don't you want your screen
00:50:44
on demand? If you can project things out,
00:50:46
like if it if it's lightweight. I mean the problem, you know,
00:50:50
there are these physics questions as Mark Zuckerberg
00:50:53
alluded to as like, apples, clearly run into, you know,
00:50:55
their device uses cameras. It is not sort of optical.
00:51:00
So there are these like intractable physics problems
00:51:03
that have been a real barrier. Those are hard for glasses.
00:51:07
Yeah, those are hard. I mean, I think we'll get there.
00:51:11
I don't know. It feels like inevitable.
00:51:12
I mean, it's just a question of when, right?
00:51:14
It's like 5 years, 10 years, I mean, the contact lens stuff is
00:51:17
kind of crazy too. If you fly, is that talk to
00:51:19
people will just there's a company, I forget what it's
00:51:21
called now. But they've got like a really
00:51:23
compelling contact lens display where you can actually get I
00:51:26
think it's like maybe 512 by 512 pixels or something.
00:51:29
I mean I'm just thinking like Listen to.
00:51:31
Some podcasts are talking about emulating up from the founder of
00:51:34
naughty dog. Jason Rubin.
00:51:35
It was Boz. Has botched the future podcast,
00:51:37
the, you know, inducing a CTO Facebook.
00:51:40
Yeah. So he was just, he was just on
00:51:42
early this week, and he said that, like, he played mu, he's
00:51:45
the founder, Crash Bandicoot, naughty dog.
00:51:47
And he said, he plays PlayStation on emulation and
00:51:50
their resolution was like 512 by 384 or something crazy.
00:51:54
So like we have 4K now in your hand.
00:51:57
And so, just looking at the Arc of tech, like it's kind of Of
00:52:01
insane, you know, like the stuff we had when we were kids like
00:52:04
literally dot matrix, printers. And you know what I mean?
00:52:07
And things are exponentially getting faster in terms of
00:52:10
innovation, right? So like chat gbt you got to 100
00:52:13
million users in months so things are exponentially and
00:52:17
they do kind of compound so I wouldn't bet against they're not
00:52:21
being glasses, you know in 10 years, maybe 20, 24 sure.
00:52:25
I think 20 is of for sure 20. I mean it's the classic thing
00:52:30
where what we're The Vegas odds. What are the Vegas?
00:52:32
I know. I love to see that.
00:52:34
Well, it's been great having you on the podcast.
00:52:35
Super exciting. We all are gonna have to have
00:52:38
the experience for ourselves. That's our episode.
00:52:41
Thanks so much to Lauren, good and Anand agrawal.
00:52:43
Allah for coming on the show I'm Eric newcomer who has been the
00:52:46
newcomer podcast shout out to Tommy Heron, our audio editor,
00:52:50
Riley conselho, my chief of staff, young Chomsky for the
00:52:53
wonderful theme music. Subscribe at newcomer dotco
00:52:57
really appreciate our pains drivers and like Comment,
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00:53:05
Thanks so much and see you next week.
00:53:07
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00:53:00
Comment, subscribe on YouTube and please review us on Apple
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00:53:06
week. Goodbye, goodbye.
00:53:08
Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye.