Okay that's a perspective I can understand a little better. Making AR more accessible by using cheaper VR technology to implement it seems like a good reason to be interested.
I'm still not seeing the excitement as a consumer because the apps aren't there yet. From a development perspective it also just feels… iterative.
>I'm still not seeing the excitement as a consumer because the apps aren't there yet.
Why would the apps ever be there if the hardware isn't? Wouldn't that statement be like complaining "the apps aren't there yet" for the iPhone 1 or Android launch? We know how that movie plays out.
>From a development perspective it also just feels… iterative.
But "iterative" is generally by far the most important part of technical success where mainstream adoption is required to get the most out of it. Nobody builds Rome in a day, it takes years reaching a critical mass of iterative improvements.
Cheaper, better devices... about an order of magnitude here. A larger user base, by more than that. A better understanding of UX paradigms. ETC.
The majority of successful products of the last generation were conceptualized and attempted during the dotcom, circa 95-00. Smartphones, social media, online dating, ecommerce, travel, cloud computing.... The user base, infrastructure, technology, culture and such just weren't there yet.
If you wrote off everything that was attempted but failed to catch fire in the 90s, you would have written off almost every tech product created since.
Hololens (and most other AR headsets) is an additive display on a transparent waveguide. The Quest2 is passthrough video on a full face LCD.
The display technologies are fundamentally different. HL is additive so you can't show blacks. You have to make due with tricking the eye with grays. Its a lot harder to get realistic lighting on objects. The FOV on the Quest2 is much better.
The Quest2 is a couple SOC generations ahead of the HL2.
It a practice platform for when the tech catches up with the dream. Anyone who isn’t excited by augmented reality tech is just.... I dunno... bored of life?
Its also a great chance, to virtualize large swathes of the "non-touch" economy - and thus be another step stone to a carbon reduced world. No need for a plastic gnome on the front lawn, just place it. No need for birthday deco, just place it in virt, no need for other deco, just place it in virt. No need for a fancy car display, just use virt-hud, with a basic-backup.
I’m not excited for AR at all. Conversely, I’m extremely excited for VR and have only become more so after getting my first headset (Quest 2 primarily used with SteamVR).
Possibly this is not a great analogy but if there was just one car company in the world for example Ford, I don't think cars would be as versatile or as commonly adopted.
Therefore I'm seeing any progress on the part of multiple companies signaling that this is more than just a one-off.
Another example would be the very early handheld iPad predecessors (Palm Pilot). Look like nothing was going to happen there. But after several failures it started to take hold.
It's a HN guideline not to accuse others of shilling without evidence. (It's such a common pattern that it makes for boring reading, among other reasons.)
Hololens price is $3,500 where as Quest 2 price is 300$. Quest 2 has the potential to become a mainstream device with that price.