For literally decades whenever Apple announces some new product, especially tech literate corners of the internet start talking about how it’s too expensive for what it is and you could just get...
For literally decades whenever Apple announces some new product, especially tech literate corners of the internet start talking about how it’s too expensive for what it is and you could just get or buy xyz to do the same thing if you even wanted to and whatever the new product is, it will never be popular.
It happened with the iPod, the iPhone, and the iPad. All of which flopped just like those predictions said they would.
Now are those corners of the internet wrong? Not necessarily. Honestly, I still struggle to see the point of an iPad. Even if I find myself using one pretty frequently.
So one day, presumably, Apple will drop a flagship product and it won’t sell well. It’s just bound to happen, but I’m not convinced this is it. If for no other reason than I think they’ve earned the benefit of the doubt.
This is why hanging out with just tech circles is just so exhausting sometimes. There's a certain smugness and "oh this is just the right way" kind of mentality that makes me understand why the...
This is why hanging out with just tech circles is just so exhausting sometimes. There's a certain smugness and "oh this is just the right way" kind of mentality that makes me understand why the socially awkward nerd is such a stereotype.
I would say that already happened. Arguably vision pro is one, if not the best, VR glass on the market right now but we're not talking about it one bit. After a week, everyone forgot that it had...
I would say that already happened. Arguably vision pro is one, if not the best, VR glass on the market right now but we're not talking about it one bit. After a week, everyone forgot that it had the highest fidelity screen and lenses. And how seamlessly it does AR and multi monitor setups that you can use your computers with. Capability wise, it matched our earlier visions of VR from decades past. Hell, it even got a second variant last year as a follow up with upped processing power.
Obviously its price and the fact that you can't use it for your pc games* (citation needed) and the fact that VR doesn't exactly live up to our imagination as a medium, doesn't help it. But I find it interesting, as a product, this was Apple's big miss in a very long time. They delivered a great product on paper and still, Apple magic didn't work on moving the needle.
No games. No porn. Too heavy. Too expensive. That’s the story of the Apple Vision. If I could afford the Duo I would probably buy it. We’ll see how the secondhand market plays out, but I’ll...
No games.
No porn.
Too heavy.
Too expensive.
That’s the story of the Apple Vision. If I could afford the Duo I would probably buy it. We’ll see how the secondhand market plays out, but I’ll probably be priced out of that, too. Also not confident that secondhand folding phones are a great idea in general (yet?).
The Steam Frame has me super excited because I can actually treat it like I own it. It’s the true first generation of general consumer face computer. Apple’s out here talking about “spatial...
The Steam Frame has me super excited because I can actually treat it like I own it. It’s the true first generation of general consumer face computer. Apple’s out here talking about “spatial computing” when what I want is “facial computing”.
I just started using it today and look forward to vibe coding various apps to make me like Iron Man when working on hardware. I’ll definitely need the upgraded cameras though.
Even as someone who has no interest in it, the Frame is exceptionally cool tech and has me reevaluating my level of interest. This and Big Screen Beyond.
Even as someone who has no interest in it, the Frame is exceptionally cool tech and has me reevaluating my level of interest. This and Big Screen Beyond.
I just vibe coded a simple tech demo where it runs an object detection model on the live passthrough feed - it even filters detected objects so it only shows the bounding box for the one I'm...
I just vibe coded a simple tech demo where it runs an object detection model on the live passthrough feed - it even filters detected objects so it only shows the bounding box for the one I'm looking at. Super amazing and wonderful technology. I'll try to record a video later to showcase how awesome it really is. I ordered the full color high res camera upgrade module. Right now it's brutally low res and monochrome but I'm excited to see how things feel once it's 10x higher fidelity.
Thanks to the power of AI coding and modern open technology a lot of things only possible in sci fi just a few years ago are going to cost you $1000 and an afternoon.
Brutally low res and monochrome but feels so cool to walk around in pitch black able to see with. And leaves look so different with how much light they reflect! And the controllers are transparent...
Brutally low res and monochrome but feels so cool to walk around in pitch black able to see with. And leaves look so different with how much light they reflect! And the controllers are transparent and you can see the trail cam lights! I would love the better camera but seeing in ir of sorts is cool.
Here you go! I switched from using eye tracking to controller pointing for object selection because you need the headset really well mounted else the eye tracking is off by a few degrees. I'm...
Here you go! I switched from using eye tracking to controller pointing for object selection because you need the headset really well mounted else the eye tracking is off by a few degrees. I'm waiting for the upgraded passthrough cameras before working on it further. The quality difference should be so dramatically different I'm not going to waste time working with the stock cameras.
Wow! That looks like something straight out of a cyber punk movie! Nice to see, that Yolo even recognized this weird chair ;D What happens, if you have it annotate everything it can recognize? Or...
Wow! That looks like something straight out of a cyber punk movie!
Nice to see, that Yolo even recognized this weird chair ;D
What happens, if you have it annotate everything it can recognize? Or put coloured masks on it? Could you find your mouse faster in the clutter? I can see some applications for this.
It also reminds me of PROXIMATE - could you black out everything except for what you are directly looking at?
If you annotate everything it's too visually noisy. The mouse wasn't detected mostly because of its size - the model only sees two 576 pixel wide images. Running on the headset the object...
If you annotate everything it's too visually noisy.
The mouse wasn't detected mostly because of its size - the model only sees two 576 pixel wide images. Running on the headset the object detection runs at 30fps but the program places the bounding boxes in physical space and translates/rotates them as your head moves so they appear fluid. I'm thinking about streaming inference results from a desktop computer to allow for better quality and more capabilities. I might use a segmentation model to highlight the full shape of the distinct object you've selected/looked at and then give you a short description of what it is.
I think a future headset will always do this in the background and highlight humans/pets that get too close so you don't accidentally hit them.
Proximate is definitely possible and could be an awesome escape room.
Update: I’m now working on the human/pet detection that runs in the background while you are gaming so you don’t accidentally punch/kick someone. So far it works reasonably well! A promising start...
Update: I’m now working on the human/pet detection that runs in the background while you are gaming so you don’t accidentally punch/kick someone. So far it works reasonably well! A promising start despite some bugginess.
I think VR’s ship has sailed. I’ve got a PSVR2. Its games look and feel pretty great, it’s comfortable to use… I really do like it. But it’s been months since I touched it! Why? Hard to say. I...
I think VR’s ship has sailed. I’ve got a PSVR2. Its games look and feel pretty great, it’s comfortable to use… I really do like it. But it’s been months since I touched it! Why? Hard to say. I always enjoy my experience with it, but there’s a mental barrier that’s enough to prevent me from turning it on. Specifically: it feels like a hassle. I don’t want to move my coffee table out of the way to create a playable space in the room. I don’t want to fiddle with the headset fit or the lens focus. I don’t want to get the controllers and headphones set up. I don’t want to play standing up, extending my arms, moving around the room. I’m lazy.
In hindsight, it’s not really that much effort and I’m always glad to have done it… but when it’s my wind-down time at the end of the day and the choice is between that, and just plopping down on the couch to play a game on the TV, the latter wins every time. Apple’s clearly lost a ton on the Vision Pro, and don’t get me started on the embarrassing all-in pivot Zuckerberg made with the metaverse.
There could still be an exciting future for AR/VR someday but I’d guess we’ll need to wait another 25 years for a hardware leap that will get us to the other side of the inconvenience valley.
I honestly think it’s just the friction of putting these big clunky things on and taking them off. The same reason I often reach for my phone or iPad rather than going through the comparatively...
I honestly think it’s just the friction of putting these big clunky things on and taking them off. The same reason I often reach for my phone or iPad rather than going through the comparatively mild effort of opening up my Mac.
I think if they got these devices to the point where you can just wear them like ski goggles or welding goggles, and pull them on and off casually and have them hang around your neck comfortably then people would be more inclined to use them. But as is it’s too much effort to be worth the benefit of a more immersive interface.
We’re getting close with the Meta VR Glasses, as far as I know they’re essentially the Quest headsets condensed into something about the same size as sunglasses. I definitely agree that isolating...
We’re getting close with the Meta VR Glasses, as far as I know they’re essentially the Quest headsets condensed into something about the same size as sunglasses. I definitely agree that isolating yourself to get into VR is a big part of the friction of using them.
Interestingly, for me the friction of doing things on my phone makes me get up and go use my laptop/computer instead. I’m just so much more efficient on my laptop, especially if it involves any...
Interestingly, for me the friction of doing things on my phone makes me get up and go use my laptop/computer instead. I’m just so much more efficient on my laptop, especially if it involves any typing or researching information.
But yeah the friction of a full clunky headset that completely takes over my vision and surroundings just isn’t appealing for me and I imagine many others. It’s just not how I want to experience the digital world.
We’re so close to that casual on/off future. Enthusiasts can have that right now if they want it with the Frame, but it could use an upgraded head strap to improve the ergonomics.
We’re so close to that casual on/off future. Enthusiasts can have that right now if they want it with the Frame, but it could use an upgraded head strap to improve the ergonomics.
Fancy man with the ergonomic head strap. They were sold out and people are selling them on eBay for $200. I’m waiting for a 3rd party option or might make something myself.
Fancy man with the ergonomic head strap. They were sold out and people are selling them on eBay for $200. I’m waiting for a 3rd party option or might make something myself.
Tech literate spaces tend to get hung up on spec sheets rather than evaluating the user experience holistically. They hated the iPod because there were cheaper alternatives that outperformed it in...
Tech literate spaces tend to get hung up on spec sheets rather than evaluating the user experience holistically. They hated the iPod because there were cheaper alternatives that outperformed it in this area or that, but anyone who's used both an iPod and one of its many contemporaries can tell you which device was actually enjoyable to use.
The spec sheets always offer such a slim view of things as well. They focus on simple numbers like amount of ram, camera megapixels etc but ignore harder to quantify things like a hinge that...
The spec sheets always offer such a slim view of things as well. They focus on simple numbers like amount of ram, camera megapixels etc but ignore harder to quantify things like a hinge that doesn't crack, optical performance of the lens in front of the sensor, etc.
Apple has always been known for providing a complete package where everything is good rather than allocating all the budget to the line items that show in the spec sheet.
I have a friend who used to work for Sony and he said the Japanese engineers would complain about the American overfixation of spec sheet metrics all the time. (Sony also, notably, was one of the...
I have a friend who used to work for Sony and he said the Japanese engineers would complain about the American overfixation of spec sheet metrics all the time. (Sony also, notably, was one of the few companies that Steve Jobs believed actually understood how to do hardware right. To the point where I think there was a possibility of them opening up the hardware side of things and letting Sony make Mac clones.)
I think it’s because of how we buy stuff here vs. there. It’s not random online reviews and stores staffed by high schoolers there. They used to go to stores with career store clerks who were expected to know and have tried all the inventory. They’d walk them through what works best and curate the selection of products.
...? Random buzz on Twitter is extremely effective marketing in Japan, and the common electronic stores like Bic Camera aren't going to have expert curators for clerks. Plenty of shopping is done...
It’s not random online reviews and stores staffed by high schoolers there
...?
Random buzz on Twitter is extremely effective marketing in Japan, and the common electronic stores like Bic Camera aren't going to have expert curators for clerks. Plenty of shopping is done online which is why Rakuten and Amazon are so huge.
They do tend to worry more about aesthetics though.
The thing a lot of techies don’t understand is that convenience is a factor. So often you’ll get people going “oh but if you get this it’s so much more customizable and it performs similar if not...
The thing a lot of techies don’t understand is that convenience is a factor. So often you’ll get people going “oh but if you get this it’s so much more customizable and it performs similar if not better than apple products on benchmark tests.”
But normies (I’m one of them) don’t care about any of that. Convenience and style are at the forefront. And phones are a status symbol that is relatively more affordable than say buying a nice cars.
I’m someone that tried to do the tech thing and getting alternatives but I got much more comfortable with Apple’s ease of use and how smooth its ecosystem works across different products.
Yeah. The painful reality. Every last one of those - I remember saying "That'll never catch on - it's fiddly, fragile, and a pain to use. Not to mention it costs way too much." Then somebody...
Yeah. The painful reality.
Every last one of those - I remember saying "That'll never catch on - it's fiddly, fragile, and a pain to use. Not to mention it costs way too much."
Then somebody telling me, "But they sold X million units!"
Me, "Only idiots would buy that though."
The somebody, "Yeah, but there are that many idiots, it would seem."
Don't get me wrong. It's appropriate to the market segment. Most people don't want a device they need to maintenance. They want the thing to work with a bare minimum of headaches, and when it breaks they just want to buy a new one. I understand that and can see why a lot of people would flock to it. Me, I've got a Pixel 9a I freaking love that does everything I want, and I can fix it if it starts acting up. (That's why I'm not Apple's target demographic)
These foldables are markedly different than a standard phone in price. That's true for non-Apple phones too. Wouldn't doubt if part of it is that this is one of the upper parts of the K audience...
These foldables are markedly different than a standard phone in price. That's true for non-Apple phones too. Wouldn't doubt if part of it is that this is one of the upper parts of the K audience and the audience that doesn't think people would buy it isn't on that part of the K. Some people can just buy anything and other people are too locked into their own world to realize that those people create a whole class of product they wouldn't consider worth buying. That isn't saying the products aren't good or worth buying, but they're luxury items. They aren't intended for the majority of people with average income, they're intended for the minority with more money than they know what to do with.
That actually reminds me, since there were some Z fold numbers there, with Apple reportedly having 8 million units ready for 2026 (link, that would be in the span of less than an hour they've...
That actually reminds me, since there were some Z fold numbers there, with Apple reportedly having 8 million units ready for 2026 (link, that would be in the span of less than an hour they've already outsold the entire Galaxy Z Fold 8 line.
It's also a minimum floor of $16 billion in sales (in practice, it will be higher, since some of the iphone sold will have memory upgrades pushing the price over $2k).
Without that balance being clear, this is barely news.
This is a combination of strong demand and severely constrained supply for iPhone Duo. It’s impossible to know the exact balance between the two, though.
Without that balance being clear, this is barely news.
While I dislike the continued dominance of Apple phones for a variety of reasons, this does please me to know that the market is not in fact clamoring for an ever-larger, ever-thinner rectangle....
While I dislike the continued dominance of Apple phones for a variety of reasons, this does please me to know that the market is not in fact clamoring for an ever-larger, ever-thinner rectangle.
At this point in my life I want off the smartphone train. We need laws that mandate that 2FA (and passkeys) must always have an option that doesn't require the use of a specific app. That's the biggest thing holding me to one right now.
A good point. I was thinking about this myself. At what point has work managed to encroach on my own device via 2FA? I can say No to installing work apps, I have not been forced to have a work...
A good point. I was thinking about this myself. At what point has work managed to encroach on my own device via 2FA? I can say No to installing work apps, I have not been forced to have a work phone (thankfully), and yet the 2FA somehow slides under the radar. First it was some app called Duo, not work switched to the Microsoft Authenticator. I do think there is an option to use text messaging, but it’s not the default and can’t be set as the default. I would always have to click on “use another method”.
Earlier this year they said “if you enrol your phone with the corporate mobile management system we’ll pay you $20 a month towards your phone bill”. My boss was pretty surprised when I said no, and was the only one in the team to say no. “But it’s free money!” Yeah, free money and the capability for the company to wipe my device if they see fit. No thank you.
I use GrapheneOS. Google's hardware attestation has started to make it literally impossible to use some applications that I previously used. People are going nuts with security. I don't need 2FA...
I use GrapheneOS. Google's hardware attestation has started to make it literally impossible to use some applications that I previously used.
People are going nuts with security. I don't need 2FA for my rent payment gateway. What's somebody going to do, pay my rent for me?
I have 2FA forced on my ISP account, which is also my mobile phone account. I also live in an area that has turned out to be a bit of a blank spot for their mobile coverage. Whenever I log in, I'm...
I have 2FA forced on my ISP account, which is also my mobile phone account. I also live in an area that has turned out to be a bit of a blank spot for their mobile coverage. Whenever I log in, I'm forced to wait for an SMS, which has varied from about 10s (great!) to more than 30 minutes (arrived expired) to just never arriving. It's very much not ideal. I'm sure someone at the company got a little box ticked for their performance eval. that they implemented 2FA for all customers...
To be fair, I've been hearing anyone even vaguely knowledgeable about cybersecurity talking about how insecure SMS is and how we shouldn't use it for MFA for years now.
To be fair, I've been hearing anyone even vaguely knowledgeable about cybersecurity talking about how insecure SMS is and how we shouldn't use it for MFA for years now.
Here's the thing. Nobody needs perfect security for everything. SMS is fine for like 60% of use cases. A secondary email is fine for about the next 20%. For the next 25%, a very standardized TOTP...
Here's the thing. Nobody needs perfect security for everything. SMS is fine for like 60% of use cases. A secondary email is fine for about the next 20%. For the next 25%, a very standardized TOTP is fantastic.
Most everything beyond that has always felt more like a solution in search of a problem than a material cybersecurity risk.
Once we got past servers storing passwords in plaintext, authenticating over cleartext, and implementing rudimentary fail-to-ban, the primary vector left has been the fuzzy grey matter that will accidentally hand over the keys, no matter how good any other factors.
The real risk IMO is people using biometrics in place of passwords. Those are only as secure as your consciousness preventing a bad actor moving your body.
SMS insecurity could easily be solved with basic e2e encryption. Instead of a number, you get an app hyperlink like mfa://<encrypted message> But that doesn't further enable vendor lockin and analytics.
SMS isn't adequate for Microsoft's use case though. You really don't want enterprise accounts being compromised. A very low stakes website account might be fine if they get compromised though. And...
SMS isn't adequate for Microsoft's use case though. You really don't want enterprise accounts being compromised. A very low stakes website account might be fine if they get compromised though.
And an app hyperlink doesn't solve the biggest problem with SMS, which are SIM swap attacks. If you send a hyperlink or a code, it doesn't really matter if someone else gets the message. In SMS OTP MFA, being able to receive SMS messages at a specified phone number is used as proof of identity, which is a flawed approach due to how vulnerable SMS is.
Yes, but that's what I'm saying. The odds of being victim of a sim swap, especially with the retiring of 3G, are infantesimally small. Especially since it would also require an unchanged breeched...
Yes, but that's what I'm saying. The odds of being victim of a sim swap, especially with the retiring of 3G, are infantesimally small. Especially since it would also require an unchanged breeched password.
Agree that SMS should never be used as an identity beyond "this is probably not a bot." I had always taken it to be more of a measure to minimize bot and (more importantly to eshop sites) preventing people creating many accounts to take advantage of coupons.
My idea is that the link would be an encrypted message on its own, just to signal that your chosen MFA app would open it and decrypt it with your chosen key. Doesn't matter if the SIM is swapped if e2e encryption is in play.
Yeah, I don't disagree with that decision, SMS is a pretty bad MFA method, and something as important as the accounts Entra gets used for shouldn't use it as a method, but the transition is still...
Yeah, I don't disagree with that decision, SMS is a pretty bad MFA method, and something as important as the accounts Entra gets used for shouldn't use it as a method, but the transition is still going to be painful for a lot of organizations.
This is the plan at my organization: we have two options for MFA, the Microsoft authenticator app, either on your issued corporate phone, or your personal phone if you don't have a corporate...
This is the plan at my organization: we have two options for MFA, the Microsoft authenticator app, either on your issued corporate phone, or your personal phone if you don't have a corporate phone, or a hardware based OTP generator.
We have thousands of employees, and the vast majority of them choose the authenticator app (as do I), because I don't want to have to carry around a separate hardware device and be responsible for keeping track of it, manually putting codes in, etc.
There are some people who go for the hardware token, but they usually regret it within a couple weeks.
They're not USB dongles, they're little OTP generators with screens. We have a lot of users that use shared workstations. If we had USB dongles, people would end up leaving them plugged in and...
They're not USB dongles, they're little OTP generators with screens. We have a lot of users that use shared workstations. If we had USB dongles, people would end up leaving them plugged in and losing track of which one is theirs.
I looked at it and priced out the one I wanted, which came in at $2,600 plus tax. I just can’t justify that much for a phone - and I paid full price for a Z Fold 4 ($1,999) and own a Vision Pro...
I looked at it and priced out the one I wanted, which came in at $2,600 plus tax. I just can’t justify that much for a phone - and I paid full price for a Z Fold 4 ($1,999) and own a Vision Pro (definitely did not pay full price for that one), so it’s easy to get me to part with my money for a cool piece of tech.
There was a blind item back in September that the new Apple CEO went to a bunch of Emmy’s after parties where he offered a bunch of celebs the Duo for free and all of them said no. But, I guess...
There was a blind item back in September that the new Apple CEO went to a bunch of Emmy’s after parties where he offered a bunch of celebs the Duo for free and all of them said no.
But, I guess they didn’t need that advertising after all lol.
Looks like the hypothetical iPhone Duo buyer was found.
For literally decades whenever Apple announces some new product, especially tech literate corners of the internet start talking about how it’s too expensive for what it is and you could just get or buy xyz to do the same thing if you even wanted to and whatever the new product is, it will never be popular.
It happened with the iPod, the iPhone, and the iPad. All of which flopped just like those predictions said they would.
Now are those corners of the internet wrong? Not necessarily. Honestly, I still struggle to see the point of an iPad. Even if I find myself using one pretty frequently.
So one day, presumably, Apple will drop a flagship product and it won’t sell well. It’s just bound to happen, but I’m not convinced this is it. If for no other reason than I think they’ve earned the benefit of the doubt.
This is why hanging out with just tech circles is just so exhausting sometimes. There's a certain smugness and "oh this is just the right way" kind of mentality that makes me understand why the socially awkward nerd is such a stereotype.
I would say that already happened. Arguably vision pro is one, if not the best, VR glass on the market right now but we're not talking about it one bit. After a week, everyone forgot that it had the highest fidelity screen and lenses. And how seamlessly it does AR and multi monitor setups that you can use your computers with. Capability wise, it matched our earlier visions of VR from decades past. Hell, it even got a second variant last year as a follow up with upped processing power.
Obviously its price and the fact that you can't use it for your pc games* (citation needed) and the fact that VR doesn't exactly live up to our imagination as a medium, doesn't help it. But I find it interesting, as a product, this was Apple's big miss in a very long time. They delivered a great product on paper and still, Apple magic didn't work on moving the needle.
No games.
No porn.
Too heavy.
Too expensive.
That’s the story of the Apple Vision. If I could afford the Duo I would probably buy it. We’ll see how the secondhand market plays out, but I’ll probably be priced out of that, too. Also not confident that secondhand folding phones are a great idea in general (yet?).
The Steam Frame has me super excited because I can actually treat it like I own it. It’s the true first generation of general consumer face computer. Apple’s out here talking about “spatial computing” when what I want is “facial computing”.
I just started using it today and look forward to vibe coding various apps to make me like Iron Man when working on hardware. I’ll definitely need the upgraded cameras though.
Even as someone who has no interest in it, the Frame is exceptionally cool tech and has me reevaluating my level of interest. This and Big Screen Beyond.
I just vibe coded a simple tech demo where it runs an object detection model on the live passthrough feed - it even filters detected objects so it only shows the bounding box for the one I'm looking at. Super amazing and wonderful technology. I'll try to record a video later to showcase how awesome it really is. I ordered the full color high res camera upgrade module. Right now it's brutally low res and monochrome but I'm excited to see how things feel once it's 10x higher fidelity.
Thanks to the power of AI coding and modern open technology a lot of things only possible in sci fi just a few years ago are going to cost you $1000 and an afternoon.
Brutally low res and monochrome but feels so cool to walk around in pitch black able to see with. And leaves look so different with how much light they reflect! And the controllers are transparent and you can see the trail cam lights! I would love the better camera but seeing in ir of sorts is cool.
I would love to see that demo, still. :)
Here you go! I switched from using eye tracking to controller pointing for object selection because you need the headset really well mounted else the eye tracking is off by a few degrees. I'm waiting for the upgraded passthrough cameras before working on it further. The quality difference should be so dramatically different I'm not going to waste time working with the stock cameras.
Wow! That looks like something straight out of a cyber punk movie!
Nice to see, that Yolo even recognized this weird chair ;D
What happens, if you have it annotate everything it can recognize? Or put coloured masks on it? Could you find your mouse faster in the clutter? I can see some applications for this.
It also reminds me of PROXIMATE - could you black out everything except for what you are directly looking at?
So many intriguing ideas!
If you annotate everything it's too visually noisy.
The mouse wasn't detected mostly because of its size - the model only sees two 576 pixel wide images. Running on the headset the object detection runs at 30fps but the program places the bounding boxes in physical space and translates/rotates them as your head moves so they appear fluid. I'm thinking about streaming inference results from a desktop computer to allow for better quality and more capabilities. I might use a segmentation model to highlight the full shape of the distinct object you've selected/looked at and then give you a short description of what it is.
I think a future headset will always do this in the background and highlight humans/pets that get too close so you don't accidentally hit them.
Proximate is definitely possible and could be an awesome escape room.
Update: I’m now working on the human/pet detection that runs in the background while you are gaming so you don’t accidentally punch/kick someone. So far it works reasonably well! A promising start despite some bugginess.
I think VR’s ship has sailed. I’ve got a PSVR2. Its games look and feel pretty great, it’s comfortable to use… I really do like it. But it’s been months since I touched it! Why? Hard to say. I always enjoy my experience with it, but there’s a mental barrier that’s enough to prevent me from turning it on. Specifically: it feels like a hassle. I don’t want to move my coffee table out of the way to create a playable space in the room. I don’t want to fiddle with the headset fit or the lens focus. I don’t want to get the controllers and headphones set up. I don’t want to play standing up, extending my arms, moving around the room. I’m lazy.
In hindsight, it’s not really that much effort and I’m always glad to have done it… but when it’s my wind-down time at the end of the day and the choice is between that, and just plopping down on the couch to play a game on the TV, the latter wins every time. Apple’s clearly lost a ton on the Vision Pro, and don’t get me started on the embarrassing all-in pivot Zuckerberg made with the metaverse.
There could still be an exciting future for AR/VR someday but I’d guess we’ll need to wait another 25 years for a hardware leap that will get us to the other side of the inconvenience valley.
I honestly think it’s just the friction of putting these big clunky things on and taking them off. The same reason I often reach for my phone or iPad rather than going through the comparatively mild effort of opening up my Mac.
I think if they got these devices to the point where you can just wear them like ski goggles or welding goggles, and pull them on and off casually and have them hang around your neck comfortably then people would be more inclined to use them. But as is it’s too much effort to be worth the benefit of a more immersive interface.
We’re getting close with the Meta VR Glasses, as far as I know they’re essentially the Quest headsets condensed into something about the same size as sunglasses. I definitely agree that isolating yourself to get into VR is a big part of the friction of using them.
Interestingly, for me the friction of doing things on my phone makes me get up and go use my laptop/computer instead. I’m just so much more efficient on my laptop, especially if it involves any typing or researching information.
But yeah the friction of a full clunky headset that completely takes over my vision and surroundings just isn’t appealing for me and I imagine many others. It’s just not how I want to experience the digital world.
We’re so close to that casual on/off future. Enthusiasts can have that right now if they want it with the Frame, but it could use an upgraded head strap to improve the ergonomics.
With the top strap, I find it quite comfortable.
Fancy man with the ergonomic head strap. They were sold out and people are selling them on eBay for $200. I’m waiting for a 3rd party option or might make something myself.
The ergo accessories seemed like a must, and they do work well. Hopefully they'll restock soon.
I'm kind of upset they didn't have more. There's a chip shortage, not a fabric and plastic shortage.
Valve seems consistently surprised by demand.
Tech literate spaces tend to get hung up on spec sheets rather than evaluating the user experience holistically. They hated the iPod because there were cheaper alternatives that outperformed it in this area or that, but anyone who's used both an iPod and one of its many contemporaries can tell you which device was actually enjoyable to use.
The wheel was bizarre but worked surprisingly well!
The spec sheets always offer such a slim view of things as well. They focus on simple numbers like amount of ram, camera megapixels etc but ignore harder to quantify things like a hinge that doesn't crack, optical performance of the lens in front of the sensor, etc.
Apple has always been known for providing a complete package where everything is good rather than allocating all the budget to the line items that show in the spec sheet.
I have a friend who used to work for Sony and he said the Japanese engineers would complain about the American overfixation of spec sheet metrics all the time. (Sony also, notably, was one of the few companies that Steve Jobs believed actually understood how to do hardware right. To the point where I think there was a possibility of them opening up the hardware side of things and letting Sony make Mac clones.)
I think it’s because of how we buy stuff here vs. there. It’s not random online reviews and stores staffed by high schoolers there. They used to go to stores with career store clerks who were expected to know and have tried all the inventory. They’d walk them through what works best and curate the selection of products.
...?
Random buzz on Twitter is extremely effective marketing in Japan, and the common electronic stores like Bic Camera aren't going to have expert curators for clerks. Plenty of shopping is done online which is why Rakuten and Amazon are so huge.
They do tend to worry more about aesthetics though.
The thing a lot of techies don’t understand is that convenience is a factor. So often you’ll get people going “oh but if you get this it’s so much more customizable and it performs similar if not better than apple products on benchmark tests.”
But normies (I’m one of them) don’t care about any of that. Convenience and style are at the forefront. And phones are a status symbol that is relatively more affordable than say buying a nice cars.
I’m someone that tried to do the tech thing and getting alternatives but I got much more comfortable with Apple’s ease of use and how smooth its ecosystem works across different products.
Yeah. The painful reality.
Every last one of those - I remember saying "That'll never catch on - it's fiddly, fragile, and a pain to use. Not to mention it costs way too much."
Then somebody telling me, "But they sold X million units!"
Me, "Only idiots would buy that though."
The somebody, "Yeah, but there are that many idiots, it would seem."
Don't get me wrong. It's appropriate to the market segment. Most people don't want a device they need to maintenance. They want the thing to work with a bare minimum of headaches, and when it breaks they just want to buy a new one. I understand that and can see why a lot of people would flock to it. Me, I've got a Pixel 9a I freaking love that does everything I want, and I can fix it if it starts acting up. (That's why I'm not Apple's target demographic)
Who predicted this would flop, though?
It’s a new sexy iPhone. It was always going to sell.
Yeah, and it's the first iPhone in years that does something different. For bragging rights alone, people were always going to buy it.
These foldables are markedly different than a standard phone in price. That's true for non-Apple phones too. Wouldn't doubt if part of it is that this is one of the upper parts of the K audience and the audience that doesn't think people would buy it isn't on that part of the K. Some people can just buy anything and other people are too locked into their own world to realize that those people create a whole class of product they wouldn't consider worth buying. That isn't saying the products aren't good or worth buying, but they're luxury items. They aren't intended for the majority of people with average income, they're intended for the minority with more money than they know what to do with.
That actually reminds me, since there were some Z fold numbers there, with Apple reportedly having 8 million units ready for 2026 (link, that would be in the span of less than an hour they've already outsold the entire Galaxy Z Fold 8 line.
It's also a minimum floor of $16 billion in sales (in practice, it will be higher, since some of the iphone sold will have memory upgrades pushing the price over $2k).
Do we know the typical number of iPhones sold? I have to imagine RAM purchasing was a constraint for Apple in how much inventory they had prepared.
I mean that’s a full cycle, so 12 months. 8 million in 2 months ain’t bad.
Based on rumors about QA failure rates, the primary barrier seems to have been scaling new and novel production.
Depends how many of those initial purchases are scalpers
Without that balance being clear, this is barely news.
I hope Apple continues to make phones thinner and more foldable until I can make calls on an origami crane.
...Now I'm trying to imagine using a touchscreen folded into an origami crane. Imagine designing an app or site with "crane mode" in mind.
While I dislike the continued dominance of Apple phones for a variety of reasons, this does please me to know that the market is not in fact clamoring for an ever-larger, ever-thinner rectangle.
At this point in my life I want off the smartphone train. We need laws that mandate that 2FA (and passkeys) must always have an option that doesn't require the use of a specific app. That's the biggest thing holding me to one right now.
A good point. I was thinking about this myself. At what point has work managed to encroach on my own device via 2FA? I can say No to installing work apps, I have not been forced to have a work phone (thankfully), and yet the 2FA somehow slides under the radar. First it was some app called Duo, not work switched to the Microsoft Authenticator. I do think there is an option to use text messaging, but it’s not the default and can’t be set as the default. I would always have to click on “use another method”.
Earlier this year they said “if you enrol your phone with the corporate mobile management system we’ll pay you $20 a month towards your phone bill”. My boss was pretty surprised when I said no, and was the only one in the team to say no. “But it’s free money!” Yeah, free money and the capability for the company to wipe my device if they see fit. No thank you.
I use GrapheneOS. Google's hardware attestation has started to make it literally impossible to use some applications that I previously used.
People are going nuts with security. I don't need 2FA for my rent payment gateway. What's somebody going to do, pay my rent for me?
I have 2FA forced on my ISP account, which is also my mobile phone account. I also live in an area that has turned out to be a bit of a blank spot for their mobile coverage. Whenever I log in, I'm forced to wait for an SMS, which has varied from about 10s (great!) to more than 30 minutes (arrived expired) to just never arriving. It's very much not ideal. I'm sure someone at the company got a little box ticked for their performance eval. that they implemented 2FA for all customers...
Microsoft's MFA is deprecating text messaging as an option in a few months, so I expect we'll see a lot of people in similar situations.
To be fair, I've been hearing anyone even vaguely knowledgeable about cybersecurity talking about how insecure SMS is and how we shouldn't use it for MFA for years now.
Here's the thing. Nobody needs perfect security for everything. SMS is fine for like 60% of use cases. A secondary email is fine for about the next 20%. For the next 25%, a very standardized TOTP is fantastic.
Most everything beyond that has always felt more like a solution in search of a problem than a material cybersecurity risk.
Once we got past servers storing passwords in plaintext, authenticating over cleartext, and implementing rudimentary fail-to-ban, the primary vector left has been the fuzzy grey matter that will accidentally hand over the keys, no matter how good any other factors.
The real risk IMO is people using biometrics in place of passwords. Those are only as secure as your consciousness preventing a bad actor moving your body.
SMS insecurity could easily be solved with basic e2e encryption. Instead of a number, you get an app hyperlink like
mfa://<encrypted message>But that doesn't further enable vendor lockin and analytics.SMS isn't adequate for Microsoft's use case though. You really don't want enterprise accounts being compromised. A very low stakes website account might be fine if they get compromised though.
And an app hyperlink doesn't solve the biggest problem with SMS, which are SIM swap attacks. If you send a hyperlink or a code, it doesn't really matter if someone else gets the message. In SMS OTP MFA, being able to receive SMS messages at a specified phone number is used as proof of identity, which is a flawed approach due to how vulnerable SMS is.
Yes, but that's what I'm saying. The odds of being victim of a sim swap, especially with the retiring of 3G, are infantesimally small. Especially since it would also require an unchanged breeched password.
Agree that SMS should never be used as an identity beyond "this is probably not a bot." I had always taken it to be more of a measure to minimize bot and (more importantly to eshop sites) preventing people creating many accounts to take advantage of coupons.
My idea is that the link would be an encrypted message on its own, just to signal that your chosen MFA app would open it and decrypt it with your chosen key. Doesn't matter if the SIM is swapped if e2e encryption is in play.
Not really, unfortunately. Telcos are very, very vulnerable to social engineering. It happens very regularly.
Yeah, I don't disagree with that decision, SMS is a pretty bad MFA method, and something as important as the accounts Entra gets used for shouldn't use it as a method, but the transition is still going to be painful for a lot of organizations.
Ah damn there goes my Plan B of switching to a dumb phone. Or having one as a secondary emergency line.
I've always used a YubiKey, but I'm sure it's employer specific.
This is the plan at my organization: we have two options for MFA, the Microsoft authenticator app, either on your issued corporate phone, or your personal phone if you don't have a corporate phone, or a hardware based OTP generator.
We have thousands of employees, and the vast majority of them choose the authenticator app (as do I), because I don't want to have to carry around a separate hardware device and be responsible for keeping track of it, manually putting codes in, etc.
There are some people who go for the hardware token, but they usually regret it within a couple weeks.
They can't just keep it plugged into their work device?
They're not USB dongles, they're little OTP generators with screens. We have a lot of users that use shared workstations. If we had USB dongles, people would end up leaving them plugged in and losing track of which one is theirs.
Ah, I've heard some workplaces give out physical keychains for situations like that.
I looked at it and priced out the one I wanted, which came in at $2,600 plus tax. I just can’t justify that much for a phone - and I paid full price for a Z Fold 4 ($1,999) and own a Vision Pro (definitely did not pay full price for that one), so it’s easy to get me to part with my money for a cool piece of tech.
There was a blind item back in September that the new Apple CEO went to a bunch of Emmy’s after parties where he offered a bunch of celebs the Duo for free and all of them said no.
But, I guess they didn’t need that advertising after all lol.
I wouldn't accept a phone from a strange man at a party either.
I'm still so annoyed that they didn't make them look like a traditional flip phone. I would 100% have traded my current phone in for one like that.