There is no tech company who’ve had more of an impact than Apple. Apple devices are not inexpensive. You can get more bang for your buck elsewhere. But the Apple I (and II) were the first massively successful person computers, the Mac was the first massively successful computer with a mouse and windowing, the iPhone was the first massively successful smartphone, the iPad was the first massively successful tablet. And the new Apple Vision Pro will be the first model of an industry-defining augmented/mixed reality device. And 10 years from now these types of glasses will be everywhere.
But there’s another angle to this – the Apple I, the original Mac, the first iPhone, and the first iPad all had something else in common – they weren’t very good. Version 1 of changing the future often isn’t. But every smartphone before the iPhone looked like a Blackberry. And every smartphone since the iPhone looks like an iPhone. Now that Apple has shown the way forward, other companies will take these concepts and run with them. You’ll be able to buy a crappy knockoff of this for $800 within a year or two.
Why am I so up on this thing? Because the concept of being able to have a bunch of virtual screens of any size floating in the air in my room is revolutionary. OK, I suffer from motion sickness whenever I try to use any type of virtual simulation. I can’t play first person shooters on a big TV because I start to feel sick. So this type of thing may or may not work for me. And version 1 of this thing is $3,500, but… you want watch a 100 foot long movie screen on this. Rich people are going to make this thing an instant sell out. They won’t make them fast enough for the next 2 years.
Implications for mixing are crazy cool. Imagine a 64 channel mixing board in front of you, at a slight angle, and then several other displays showing you whatever you want to see, and any size you want to see. Once this tech comes down in price it’ll change everything.
But for now, we have the version 1 model T of the future. People will point out the failings of this thing, just like they did with the original iPhone.
Look how that turned out.