Exciting time to be a developer, huh? Apple, makers of the laptop, smartphone, and tablet, are making a headset. Each of those devices has a software market with millions of users and revenue to match. The potential of another is immense. Reviewers have focused on one big question: what is it good for?; I want to focus on another: what can we build on it? I'll consider what applications are unlikely, and then pitch one of my own.
I'm going to skip over games, because XR's implications for immersive experiences are already well established. Besides, making games is almost as hard as making miracles.
The Macintosh Portable was 16 pounds, over 7 kilos. It was portable in the sense that you could bring it between desks. Today, headsets are portable in that you can move them between living rooms. They're not comfortable for all day usage, and don't have the battery life for that anyway. That's fine, but it does preclude some apps, like navigation or providing directions, or all-day stuff that doesn't strictly require XR, like word processing, messaging, or email.
The Macintosh Portable was also expensive: $16,000 in 2021 dollars. By comparison, the headset is a steal at a mere $3000. Again: this is fine, but it precludes anything that needs immediate mass adoption. The first customers will likely be developers, nerds, and potentially businesses.
The coincidence of VR with COVID produced a lot of talk about virtual meetings. On the one hand, adding body language, presence, and tracking could revolutionize meetings. On the other hand, lots of people turn off their zoom cameras, opting not to use the hardware that came free with their device. The chance to use a bulkier, more expensive "camera" that occupies more of the attention you don't want to be giving this meeting anyway – not a strong pitch.
I don't mean to pee on this parade. "Exciting time" is not sarcasm. But Apple is not infallible. The first Apple Watch was dirt slow, and wanted to be a fashion star instead of a fitness coach. Every device has some limits, the first generation even more so. Finding the spark of a good idea, if one even exists, is hard.
My idea is virtual whiteboards. Imagine the fluidity of the Apple Pencil, unconstrained from its 13 inch porthole. A chalkboard that you can use in your living room and share with colleagues on laptops around the world. A canvas that lets you copy and paste drawings, cover a wall with virtual yarn, or hang up any image. Then, you can pack it all away, and take it somewhere else.
There are a couple of things going for this. First, rough drawings take advantage of the boundless viewport, while being forgiving of low resolution. Second, only one person needs to use a headset, and that user is probably the presenter, i.e. most driven to try and improve the meeting.
The problem is the tech. No rumors I've heard mention controllers for Apple's headset; most only discuss hand tracking. I aspire to the Apple Pencil, but that's a specialized piece of hardware which samples its position at twice the device frame rate, over 100 times a second.
I'm sure that internally Apple has a kind of XR PencilKit – and that it's wired directly to XR Freeform. But I don't expect a public pencil release, at least not yet.
Assuming no official XR pencil, that leaves 2 options: use the camera, or walk the treacherous path of manufacturing our own peripherals. Both approaches are hard, which is at once terrifying and exhilarating. On the one hand, I probably can't solve this problem. On the other hand, anyone who does will be one of a few.
We'll see how it goes!