I'm curious if and what the next big computer thing is. I think a lot of people saw the iPhone coming at least 10 years before it got here. I bought palm pilots realizing they weren't what I really wanted but the hope has been there for a while. Is there anything right now that will reach that?

Obviously VR is the hope but I think we're pretty split on whether we want that. I can't really see Google Glass type thing replacing the iphone. There's some intresting stuff in this microsoft future of computing video about surfaces and glass, but It doesn't feel like one revolutionary consumer leap to get there:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wraF2DjALls

I suspect AR glasses, if done well, will be the next big world changing thing. Each WWDC conference releases more SDK advancements directly related to AR. They are also moving more of their AI features (Siri, text recognition, etc) to be on device rather than processed on a remote server. Something necessary for a smooth AR experience. Lots of releases and updates over the last couple of years all point to AR glasses.

WWDC sessions https://developer.apple.com/wwdc22/sessions/ https://developer.apple.com/wwdc22/sessions/ https://developer.apple.com/videos/wwdc2020/

The big issue with AR is that many people prefer to use eyeglasses instead of contact lenses. Many also wear sunglasses outdoors. I don't see a big AR breakthrough coming until someone figures out how to combine AR with the other functionality people expect from their glasses.

> that many people prefer to use eyeglasses instead of contact lenses

Apple has a patent for a tunable and foveated lens systems allowing it to accomodate glasses, contact lenses etc.

https://appleinsider.com/articles/22/01/11/apple-glass-could...

All very good points. I don't wear glasses, so hadn't thought about some of those. I do wonder if the usefulness would change peoples preferences or behavior.

The meta demo video I saw recently clearly shows that they're trying to seamlessly integrate prescriptions into their product via software and dynamic lenses.

Yeah this makes sense, and the Microsoft video I linked to does seem to be solving the same kind of problem, the ability to access the data available to a computer in any context, on any surface.

Hasn't it been like 2 or 3 years since Apple has even mentioned AR at the main keynote?

I think most are betting on AR.

Humane (some ex-iPhone people) is working on some sort of projection like UI, but they have put out very little detail about it.

Apple is working on some sort of AR related heads up display. If the hardware can work well for that, the benefits there seem obvious if you can get the UX right. Looking at the world and pulling up information in your visual field would be really useful. Could still pull up flat 'screens' in your visual field for normal text/web interaction.

It's hard to do well given latency issues (need very low) and no real ability to draw black (AR uses ambient light), but if it can be pulled off I'd expect that as the next platform/device shift.

Just as Steve Jobs camped out by the river and waited for economical capacitive touchscreen technology to come floating by, somebody somewhere is waiting for adaptive optics to become practical at the consumer level. At that point it'll become possible for AR glasses to begin to replace conventional eyeglasses for presbyopes and myopes, and that'll be the NBT.

Everybody working in the AR field now is starting too early. In 2003 the iPhone was impossible, while by 2007 it was inevitable.

My bet: pens that both work with traditional ink and also by creating a digital copy at the same time of your notes for a seamless sync everywhere.

Paper's never going to be replaced but I have definitely wished countless times for something that could copy a paper for storage instantaneously.

(Given Wacom's technology with cintiqs, I'm actually surprised this isn't a thing already.)

Livescribe tried to launch that 15 years ago. The Rocketbook Wave tried a very different tech too.

The reMarkable is probably close to what you're describing. People who use them love them, but I'm still a fan of real paper and ink.

I can't see this being "the next big thing". Can't you just take a picture of your document with your phone if you want a digital copy for storage?

The Fly[0] came out in 2005, but it requires special paper that told it where it was on the page. It even worked as an MP3 player! I had one; It was big and clunky, and didn't work well if you wrote fast (which I did). It was still a neat thing.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fly_(pentop_computer)

Is this better than taking a photograph of a page and applying OCR?

The reMarkable was supposed to replace notebooks, but I gave up on my reMarkable 2 after a month.

may i ask why you gave up on it, having considered one also?

Is this satire? I see ads for these all the time and I can't imagine this approaches a category like smart phones.

I had something called an Equil smartpen 2 that did mostly this in 2015. Now I just take notes on my iPad.

This isn't a smartphone level money maker...

I think it’s the computer.

Microsoft’s platform has never been weaker. For all the growth in phones, every professional worker on the planet is sitting in front of a PC.

> Microsoft’s platform has never been weaker. For all the growth in phones, every professional worker on the planet is sitting in front of a PC.

Or a Mac, or a Chromebook, or an iPad. It's hard to talk about this as a monolith since there are pretty distinct groups — most of the people I know who get to choose their device are using Mac or Linux (which is admittedly an atypical crowd of developers, scientists, lawyers, architects, etc.) but there are a ton of people who have professional jobs where that's not the case (e.g. everyone I know who works in healthcare uses some kind of Windows device which is so locked down that it might as well be an iPad, and I know some people at government agencies who are favoring ChromeOS for security reasons since you can lock those devices down so hard).

I make that distinction because it doesn't help Microsoft very much strategically if the cashier at McDonald's is sitting in front of a Windows box because they're interacting with a single application and will use whatever their next employer has standardized on when, say, they go somewhere which uses Square. Someone who uses Office is a bit more but as an increasing percentage of people aren't doing anything which they couldn't do in a browser, that's not as strong as it used to be. None of that means that Microsoft is going away but I think it does leave them really wondering how to avoid falling behind the next trend like they did with mobile devices.

Not sure if that's what you mean but that could be understood as "the price/earnings ratio has gone down to just 27 because the growth expected currently is lower than what it used to be".

In 2010-2019 it was rarely above 20 and it even went below 10. The decade average was 15.

This will probably never happen, but what I want is: 1) only two personal devices (Apple Watch and small iPhone) that both contain my digital life, use biometrics to securely identify me, etc. 2) larger "environmental" devices from many manufacturers like wall displays, beautiful furniture that has magically appearing keyboards, mice as needed, perfect car integration, etc.

The large environmental devices would be 100% securely sharable and be in private homes, hotels, offices, metro stations, etc. With either my Watch or iPhone, no matter where I am, if I need to, I would have my work life, entertainment life, etc. at my fingertips.

iPadOS 16 beta has StageManager that is sort-of OK for providing a more general desktop environment. I would expect my Watch or iPhone to trigger whatever I need in my environment.

I get so tired of being "sys admin" for my digital devices. I want to spend as close to zero time doing this as possible. Similarly, my Dad is having his 101 year old birthday next month and although he has always been very good with computers, it is frustrating trying to help him remotely. So:

In addition to what I mentioned above, I would like to have VR/AR for quick telepresence to help him and other family members who might be 100s of miles away physically.

They basically won the smartphone round of the game. We don't know what the Next Thing is, they don't either, nobody does. If they are (unknowingly) working on what will be the Next Thing, it is probably in "wearables and accessories" because that seems to be where their experiments live. But the fact that that section of their company is basically noise at the moment just reflects the fact that the Next Thing hasn't arrived yet.

I don't think we should put too much thought (as the article seems to) into their quarter-to-quarter results in the Land of Lost Devices. The point there isn't to sell lots of devices, it is to either try new ideas (which will probably fail because we only get like one big new device class per generation) and have a foundation to quickly try and catch up if their competition finds the Next Thing.

Sure it is. A company that actually isn't really growing like Exxon or AT&T have P/Es below 10. 27 is pretty high for a value investment.

What happened to their self-driving car and AR goggles?

Cars are an expensive industry to get established in with a lot of details to get right and major regulatory concerns. My guess is that they looked at that, the struggles the entire field is having (Google's been at it for ages and is nowhere near ready for a consumer product), and decided that the better outcome is to build better integrations with existing companies which are really good at building cars — I know multiple people who decided what to buy in part based on who did the best job with CarPlay.

AR is more complicated: there are some neat ideas but the form-factors are brutal in terms of hardware design and there is weak consumer demand. Apple has one of the most popular AR products now (AirPods) but that took a while to mitigate the compromises forced by the physical limits. I'm expecting some additional hardware from them soonish based on the references in recent developer builds but will not be at all surprised if that takes a while to find popular adoption. I think it's easy to underestimate just how hard it is to deliver an application which is compelling enough to get people to pay non-trivial amounts for. VR has been educational in that regard going from something which was too hard / expensive to fairly available but not yet having found mainstream demand.

Moonshots. And Apple is never first to market with anything. They take ideas that have traction and marketplace and then try to build a better one. The car wont make it because there is not a a successful industry to steal from yet. They have a chance with AR, but there is not enough adoption yet for Apple to be successful here yet (And apple is terrible with gaming).

AR isn’t only gaming. It’s to become the interface for a person’s world, instead of just the internet. It’s an extremely powerful position to influence what someone sees everywhere they look.

This is why companies are trying to break into it. Hardware is the main gap at the moment but Apple is the best hardware manufacturer in the world. The M chips are a step in this direction (high performance, low power).

> AR isn’t only gaming

100% but Apple always follows others leads and then makes a better product. Right now AR/VR leans heavily into gaming as for the audience is already built in. AR has so many applications I think eventually it will destroy the VR market usability wise. Im just saying for Apple it stands a better chance than their car efforts.

That's a common take but I think it's based more on PC/Android fans looking for an easy dismissal than any serious understanding of the history of the field. You saw this a lot when the iPod or, especially, iPhone came out which both ignored the degree to which devices were substantially different from other ones and, especially, that there were older experiments going back to the 1990s or even 1980s but that they chose not release products which were seriously compromised by the hardware.

In the case of VR/AR, we know Apple has been working on VR products since at least the early 90s but those never made it very far other than a few things like QuickTime VR. As we can see from the rest of the field it was only until the last half-decade that people were getting things like the visual quality or especially latency to acceptable levels and battery life / weight still seem to be a substantial problem.

> Right now AR/VR leans heavily into gaming as for the audience is already built in

If you look at the numbers for VRChat it shows there is a market outside gaming.

https://steamcharts.com/app/438100

> It’s to become the interface for a person’s world, instead of just the internet

I imagine you will still use the internet in AR, otherwise how will you get information? What you probably meant is a web browser on desktops and phones.

This is the correct take. True innovation (the uncanny valley stage) is left to pioneers. Apple will spot trends with potential and claim to be the innovator. It would show courage and humility to acknowledge this, but I understand it doesn't fit their PR narrative.

Wireless earbuds and ARM64 desktop computers look like new products to me.

Wireless earbuds did not originate from Apple, neither did desktop ARM. First True Wireless Earbuds are probably the Japanese Onkyo W800BT (2015) Windows Surface / Windows RT was the first major ARM based desktop/laptop consumer device (2012)

I said ARM64. Surface is not a desktop computer as it’s not fast enough.

I’ve been waiting for apple made ar goggles for a while now. I suspect the technology is not there yet. Facebooks mobile vr oculus sucks big time in terms of fidelity, so i cant see how decent wearable ar can be made. Cars tho yes. Cant wait for a new premium brand as european carmakers are a tad boring (unless of course you like revamped bling).

The self driving car project is looking like more of a software package that they're selling to vehicle manufacturers.

https://www.macrumors.com/2022/06/06/apple-announces-multi-d...