June 1, 2023 • 46 mins
Apple is going to do something that none of us could have predicted. The company is about to announce its most ambitious product in years: a headset that looks like ski goggles that allows you to experience both virtual and augmented reality. How do we know this? Because of our guest Mark Gurman — a Bloomberg reporter and master of the Apple scoop. On this episode, Gurman takes us deep inside the bunker, reveals the inner turmoil that led to this device, and ponders what the future might hold for the world's most valuable company. Discussed: laser surgery, cartoon eyes, Steve Jobs hating the internet.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Hey, and welcome to What Future. I'm your host Joshua Topolski,
and today on the podcast, boy have we got one
for you? Boy oh boy. I'm very excited because I
have been thinking a lot about reality and how terrible
it is and how I'd like to escape it. I
(00:38):
feel like I'm not giving reality a good affair shake.
The truth is reality is actually pretty excellent, unless you
read the news. I don't recommend that. But there's been
a lot of talk recently about a new Apple product
that is coming out which is supposedly going to be
a headset, a thing you wear on your face that
does virtual reality and augmented reality, and suppose will have
(01:00):
a screen that shows your eyeballs on it when you're
using it, which sounds very normal and not dystopian at all,
and I'm sure lots of people will really enjoy that. Anyhow,
there has been a ton of great writing done by
Mark German at Bloomberg. I am a huge fan of his,
and we've got him on the show today to get
into the guts of the Apple headset and all of
what the company's working on around that. So let's get
(01:22):
into this conversation because I have got a lot to say.
(01:43):
You are like probably at the top of the pyramid
of Apple scoopers, Like you have more inside info on
this company than I think anybody has ever had in
my experience, and I've been reading, as you well know,
I've been reading and writing about this shit for a
long time. You are consistently one hundred percent correct with them,
which is or like ninety percent correct with them, which
(02:04):
is very rare. So first, I want to say kudos
to you for being some kind of Apple Ninja's very
strange situation. But I applaud you, Thank you. But the
reason I want to talk to you is because we
are on the precipice supposedly, as so you claim on
the precipice of Apple releasing a mixed reality headset? Does
(02:26):
VR and AR? Correct? Stop me if any of this
sounds incorrect. Okay, they've been working on this headset. It's
a thing you wear on your face, you wear over
your eyes. It does VR, it does AR. It is
a product that you claim that Apple is going to announce.
Tim Cook is going to announce on stage at WWDC
on June Is it fifth? Is that the date? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (02:47):
June fifth, Monday, June fifth.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
Literally like next week, right, Yes, just give us the
quick like where did this come from? Because I have
a lot of questions about it? Yes, you just share
whatever you think is like a good setup for this thing.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Kicked off after the Apple Watch came out in twenty fifteen.
They were sort of looking for their next idea, right.
The hardware engineering group hired a guy named Mike Rockwell,
who was the CTO of Dolby and before that was
the CTO of Avid super Into Displays, super Into VR,
super Into high quality Audio. They hired Tom Holmansen, who
(03:23):
was the creator of THHX, which is the studio behind
the audio from Star Wars, which is, as everyone knows,
one of the paramount reasons people love Star Wars is
because of the soundtrack, right, and so this is a
music expert, and Apple's design team at the same time
was looking at virtual reality, augmented reality head worn devices,
(03:47):
and you know, one thing led to another. They came
together and they started working on this device. They did
many explorations around use cases. They used Samsung Gear vrs,
they used HDC vibes, they used every Nascent and VR
headset that was available eight years ago to run demos
on demo to Tim Cook, the executive team, the board
of directors.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
Right, eight years ago they started working on this.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
This is eight years ago, right. And you remember when
Steve Jobs announced the original iPhone, he said, this is
a day I've been looking forward to for two and
a half years, right.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
Right.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
You remember when the Apple Watch was announced, they said
that was about a two to three year development process. Right,
We're talking seven eight years here. Now there's more to it,
but you know that's a long development process.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
I mean, here's what I'll say. I mean, I want
to hear all this backstory, but like I mean, I'm
a little bit in disbelief, like if you're in. By
the way, your scoop record, as I said at the
top of this, is very good. So you know, it's
rare that you write something and with this much detail,
Like look at the background here that you're sharing and
the stuff that you shared in your stories on Bloomberg. Right,
And I tweeted about this. I was and a lot
(04:52):
of people responded to this feels like the most unlike
Apple thing that I've ever heard of. It's like the
development process, the infighting. You you wrote about the infighting there,
the fact that this is a device that sits on
your face. Apple often comes into a market and like
it's like there's a little bit of a market and
they blow it up and they turn it into a
(05:12):
huge market. I don't even know if there is a
market for this in a widespread way, because like, getting
people to wear anything on their face is difficult. People
get laser surgery on their eyes to avoid wearing glasses, right,
and I like glasses, Like I'm a glass.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
I'll tell you so. A few years ago, they were
trying to figure out how they can get the weight
down right in the device and the overall size. So
you're kind of screw your glasses my front because you're
not going to be able to wear those and the
headset together.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
Okay, I mean that alone sounds okay. See everything you're saying.
See when I hear this shit, what I think is
and this is why I'm so like I wanted to
talk to you because I this just sounds like it's
not going to happen.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
Well, there's going to be a prescription system where you
pay a couple hundred bucks and you'scriptions.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
Does that sound like something Apple would do?
Speaker 2 (05:59):
Like?
Speaker 1 (05:59):
Does it? Actually?
Speaker 2 (06:01):
It does? Okay, that specific feature, yes, but if you're
asking about this device in general, the answer would be no,
this is definitely the new Apple so to speak. Right, right,
this is they're trying something new. You know, depending on
who you talk to there, there's mixed confidence in how
this thing is going to do. But I think the
(06:21):
through line, what most people at the company, the decision
makers have understood, is that this thing is going to
start off remarkably slow. I think even maybe slower than
the Apple Watch. Right, actually, probably much slower than the
Apple Watch.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
I would imagine it's going to be expensive too, right,
It's not cheap.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
It's going to be expensive. It's going to be roughly
three thousand dollars. So I would say anywhere from the
high twos to the low threes. Now that's pretty you know,
eye melting. But if you look at the XR market
in general, they're probably in the Hollow Lens to Magic
Leap price range. Yeah, we know those two devices failed.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
But I was going to say, Magic Leap is like
a they'll teach the story of Magical Leap in business
classes about like this vaporware company. Right, Like Magic Leap
was a company that was making a headset that people
were like, this is like magic. Literally when you put
it on, you're transported. It can do anything. It's the
it's the be all, end all, it's the next iPhone whatever.
And then the company just has fizzled out, like they'd
(07:19):
never been able to ship any real meaningful product, certainly
not a consumer facing product, right, Hollo lens. That's Microsoft's entrant, right,
which was a mixed reality. I mean, I think they
basically wanted to target enterprise, right. It was like a business,
a lab maybe like a warehouse type of device you
might use like for some ar assisted stuff. That's also
(07:41):
kind of fizzled, right, it has.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
But Apple's going to shoehorn this thing into working out.
I mean that's my belief.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
You think this is not only that this is going
to happen for real, you believe that that they're going
to announce this product.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
I'm in trouble if they don't.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
But yes, right of course, yes, But I mean, you know, listen,
the way you write it, though, is the kind of
product that they could get very close to and then
look at it, do the demo and say, you know what,
like it's not there yet, right, Like that that has
happened well.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
Back to the like the more comparing the timelines on
development processes three years for the previous two products and
then eight years for this. Let's see, this has been
delayed three or four times. The original original original pipe
dream was twenty twenty. Obviously that got pushed to twenty one,
then twenty two, and then twenty three. They were going
to announce it in January, then they were gonna announce
(08:33):
it in the spring. Right, and here we are WWDC.
It's it's locked, It's it's locked and loaded. At this point,
I don't see any way around that.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
Can you describe it like physically? Do you know? Have
you seen it? Have you tried it?
Speaker 2 (08:46):
I have not tried it. I've tried the Quest three,
but I have not tried this one.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
Okay, but the Quest three is not we're not talking it.
That's not in the same ballpark. No I know has
this right? So you wrote about it having an external
battery pack. First off, is that staying.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
You know, like the mag Safe battery like they started
selling a few years that you can put on the
back of the iPhone anchor if you other companies sell
that looks like that about bigger. It's about the size
of an iPhone and you connected over a cable. The
cable is lodged into the battery pack, you plug it
into the headset and it goes over a wire. And
the two considerations there were safety and weight. Obviously, with
(09:21):
the product like this, you wanted as portable as possible
and as light as possible, right, and getting the battery
out of there was a big help in my thinking,
is even though they wanted to get the battery in
there initially, and even though for these types of products
you do want the battery to eventually be in the
frame itself. Remember the Apple Wash they launched with one
day of battery life, and the initial speculation was, oh,
(09:45):
over time, they're going to increase the battery life. Now sure,
ten years later we got the Apple Watch Ultro.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
Yeah, it's only a little bit increased. It's like, right,
two three days instead of one. It's not that great,
that's right.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
But in what they did, they had two options, right,
they had let's add to the battery life, or let's
add more and more power and functionality without reducing the
battery life.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
Right.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
They've done that with the iPad as well. Obviously, the
iPhone's a bit different they had to go in a
situation where they had to increase the performance and increase
battery life. Right, but I think the headset were probably
locked into this external battery situation for years to come,
and ideas people are gonna be okay with that, let's
add more performance rather than sort of taper it down
(10:27):
and get the battery back inside. I want to talk
about the naming thing.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
For a minute though, Yeah, yeah, please do it, please
do So.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
They've trademarked quite a few names, right, So, they trademarked
the name Reality one. They trademarked the name Reality Pro.
They've trademarked a few potential operating system names. They've trademarked
the name Reality OS. They've trade marked the name XROS.
They've trademarked the name Reality PROS and XR pros. Right,
(10:55):
here's what I can tell you for fact, Right, for fact,
the OS itself is going to be called XR OS.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
Right.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
They were originally going to call it Reality OS. It
was sort of the working title, so to speak. It
was your this is my next before the verbs. Right.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
We don't like that, yeah, yeah, right, So it was.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
Going to be Reality OS, and then last year they
moved from the working title to the real name, which
is XR OS right. Now. I think there are a
couple of reasons for that. One. I think the word
reality probably doesn't translate so cleanly internationally, right, But I
think it's a more understandable term, at least in the
(11:34):
English language than x R.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
Right. Yeah, XR sounds like a motorcycle, right.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
But it also sounds a little bit more high tech, right,
And Apples tries to sort of bridge that idea of
mixing tech with you know, mass understanding. So it's a
little odd there. But this is a highly technical product,
and I think it's initially going to appeal to a
very niche audience, So perhaps it makes sense. What they
really are trying to do is sort of, in their minds,
create this x mixed reality market, and so it would
(12:02):
help them own that market from a marketing standpoint, the
XR market. Back to the naming conventions, so they went
from reality OS right to XROS. And if you have
an operating system called reality OS, the logic would be
that the device itself would be called the reality right
or the Reality pro, just like the iPad runs iPad OS,
(12:23):
the watch, watch OS, TV t v OS et cetera. Right,
they've switched to XROS on the operating system name. Does
that mean the device is called the XR Pro running XROS.
Does it make sense to have a Reality Pro running
XROS or does it make more sense to have an
XR pro running XROS? What Apple release a product called
(12:44):
the XR Pro, Like the mass consumer is not going
to know what XR pro means? Right? And so those
are the questions I'd like to see answered, which will
obviously be answered. It's WWDC, Right, That's what's been on
my mind lately.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
That's interesting. XR is I mean presumably that means mixed reality, right?
Is that what we're supposed to be XR is? Or
I mean x has usually not used the mixed but
crossed reality, mixed reality whatever let's call it. That makes
sense in a global way of describing it, right, like
the for the format. Forget about whether they call it
reality or XR. Look, I've seen a lot of really
(13:21):
impressive demos of mixed reality, and I'm sure you have
as well. I've seen a lot of and no doubt
Apple can do this better than anybody. Like, I'm not
questioning that they can't execute something that's a better product, right,
we know that they can. They can take a smartphone,
You've seen a million of them, and they can make
it something really special and really like cohesive. What I
wonder though, in what's sort of not in your in
(13:42):
that bigger piece, is a question about the consumer aspect
of it, the relationship to consumer desire. Listen, as a
guy who's tried all the VR headsets, was unbelievably excited
about Oculus when they first appeared. Was like the biggest
fan in the world. I've dreamed of VR my whole life.
Like all of the experiences have not only have they
(14:03):
been like ultimately sort of impressive, but disappointing in the
long run. What I found is like, oh, wearing this
thing on my head and being removed from reality and
having these experiences, it's a very kind of like singular
private experience that you can only do once in a while.
And I'm a nerd, Okay, remember I'm one of the
biggest fucking nerds in the world. They also make me
(14:24):
motion sick, Okay, Like, those experiences.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
Have problems, right, I don't want to get too tmi.
But the first time I tried the quest this was
the original quest. I had lunch before using it. It
wasn't so pretty and so, oh my god, you really
got to get the IPD correct right, the pupil distance.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
Right, you have to the latency has to be But
even then, I don't know that. Like you still are
challenged by lots of different things. But so this is
the thing, Like I understand consumers wear watches, right, Like
I can make an art. I can hear the argument
at Apple like, hey, they wear these things in their wrists, right,
maybe more people I would wear it if we could
give them a reason to put it on. You know,
there's already health trackers. We know that's a big market.
(15:04):
We could bite into that market. There's already a watch market.
It's a big market. We know we could bite into
that market. Maybe not everybody wants to wear the Apple Watch,
but we can bring people around over time, and they
certainly did. Like I'm one of those people's like I
don't want I don't need it, And then I was like, wow,
I love wearing it.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
I was the same, I could believe it or not.
I didn't wear an Apple Watch until the series five.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
Yeah, I mean I tried a couple of them, and
I was like, it's not for me. I wore regular
analog watches, and then like the last couple of years,
I was started wearing a garment for exercise and I
was like oh. When the Aultra came out, I was like, Okay,
this is like actually what I want. Yeah, But here's
(15:43):
the thing I am not hearing or seeing. And I
say this as a person who would love to see
a real broad consumer use case. I feel like when
you write about it, it feels like this product from
that era that you describe as like which where the
HCC is getting into it and quest is coming, you know, meta,
it buys oculus and they start doing question and again
(16:05):
and I get it. Samsung was trying to do VR stuff.
It's like many many years ago. This feels like a
product from a time when the excitement around that still
seem new and like possible.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
Right.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
I don't think consumers have embraced these products and even
want them. And so what is Apple saying internally or
what are they how are they testing internally? I know
they're like the consumer doesn't know what it wants or whatever,
but can you give me some color on like what's
going on with their relationship to a consumer audience for this.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
Yeah, I mean that is a good question. You know,
if you pull one hundred people on the street to
ask them if this is something that they're going to
use on a daily basis, the number is going to
probably be incredibly small. What I think is that they
see this as a very very long term thing, like
ten years long term. And one thing I believe they're
going to try to do is position it as quote,
the future of the computer. I think they see this
(16:56):
as something that's a Mac replacement or an iPad replacement,
So maybe five years from now you won't own a Mac,
you'll own a headset instead. I say that as being
around long enough to know how many people were saying
that about the iPad, and I know very few people
personally who've transitioned from a Mac to an iPad. Fully,
(17:16):
I will say there are millions of people who have right,
so don't get me wrong, but I think it's going
to play out similarly to that. I mean, the best
estimates that I'm hearing are the most optimistic estimates I'm hearing.
Is this bringing in about twenty five billion a year
in revenue. That puts it on part the iPad and
the Apple Watch, which is not nothing. It's not nothing
for Apple to show growth that's good enough. They're going
(17:38):
to make a big return on this investment. Within a
few years. They're going to become the market leader in
XR in terms of unit sales and revenue probably within
six months, or revenue within six months. Unit sales probably
not as quickly. So you know, from a market standpoint,
it's going to be a success out of the gate.
Apple standpoint, it's going to be a flop out of
(18:01):
the gate, I think, but eventually be hugely successful. Like
I really believe in this long term you do because
of the investment, Yeah, I do. The ga Apple's not
going to give up on this, right, even if it
takes five ten years. They're going to shoehorn this thing
till it works out. You know, the price is going
to come down eventually too. You're going to get new
features like cellular. There are going to be big enough
improvements and a big marketing budget behind it to get
(18:23):
people interested in this. Right, They're going to make a
whole big deal about this thing in Apple retail stores.
It's going to drive foot traffic. They're going to try
selling other products to people who are just coming in
to try this thing on. It'll be a big marketing exer,
so a.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
Lot of accessories, I'm sure a lot of accessories. Right. So,
like everything you're describing sounds very app right, and I
think like the long the long play is possible, right,
They definitely like the I mean, I've had a good
example of something that has never found a perfect home,
but definitely there's a big market for it. And they've
created that market really for tablets, right, right, And I
think you're right, Like I've grown to become an iPad user,
(18:59):
and in fact, they just released some greats that like Logic,
the music software that has been Mac only for a
really long time. They were a music guy before this, right,
I used to produce music.
Speaker 2 (19:08):
Right, I'm curious what you think, Well, I'll.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
Tell you what I think. I think it's fucking amazing.
And I have been sitting on my iPad at night,
like in my downtime, making music in Logic. Now there's
some stuff that's like a little bit yanky because it's
like the iPad the way it works is just weird
for things where you need lots of windows, like it
just doesn't want to do that. But like in terms
of a tool. It's like unbelievably powerful and really really
(19:30):
good for what it's like what you want it to be.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
And I think it's going to work in the headset.
I think that app run in the headset.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
So that sounds like a super fun like I can see,
like listen, I mean Jaron Lanier, who is the guy
who basically invented VR, who's written about technology for years,
for decades and decades, he's really like become like a
philosopher when it comes to this technology. Originally, you know,
kind of created VR for this purpose of working in
a larger space, Like he was dealing with these really
large numbers that you couldn't look out on a monitor.
(19:59):
So I see the commercial applications there, right, I can
see like there's going to be places, like I said,
where hollow Lens was maybe targeting, or where magic Leap
hope to target where I can see more of a
retail or commercial application. What's so weird to me though,
is if you look at the landscape of today, right
so peak COVID, I'd see this as being a really
(20:20):
attractive product, right like when we were had peak COVID,
when everybody was at home we had lockdowns, we had
like everybody was scared to kind of go out and socialize.
Like I think that's when you know, that's when Facebook
tried to kind of capture with their metaverse bullshit. They
kind of tried to capture this moment of like, hey,
we're going to all move to this different kind of
like way of communicating and computing and working and blah
(20:41):
blah blah. But I feel like if you look at
the hit rate now again and maybe this Apple sees
that as a market opportunity, it feels like such an
off key entry. Like we've seen so many versions of
this that had been really rejected and in fact, like
none surprisingly, but Facebook's huge pivot was basically rejected as
this concept of the metaverse and being more like what
(21:04):
I see from society. And frankly, what Tim Cook has
actually said at many intervals on stage is like people
want less of this, like of this stuff in their life.
They want to be less immersed in technology. When they
talked about the watch, they were like, we want you
to be less distracted by your phone and you can
get up on your you know, do your thing. You
can just glance at your watch and all this it
(21:26):
just feels like it flies in the face of And
Tim Cook was a big part of this, right, Like
he pushed this, This is like his product in some way,
he wanted this to happen. I mean, he runs the company.
This doesn't feel like it flies in the face of
everything that, like the industry has told us and that
consumers have told us about this.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
Yes, but I think one of the most fundamental aspects
from early on in development was how you make VR
socially acceptable and how you take people in VR without
removing them from the real world. And there's a few
tricks they have up their sleeve on that. One is
this external display that they've been working on from the
very beginning for the headset, where it's essentially you can
(22:05):
see you have this front ole a display and you
see the person's eyes who's wearing it, and so like
it's sort of like they're there or not there.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
Yeah, I mean this sounds insane, right, Like just hearing
you describe that, you're saying that on the outside of
these basically look like ski goggles, right right, this device
is something like that you're saying on the outside surface
of it, is it covering the whole surface of the
outside the screen.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
Do you know the screen A portion of it, Yeah,
where your eyes would be, and you can you know
you're moving your eyes and you can you know you're blinking.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
And so there's cameras inside of the there's some kind
of camera inside of the goggles that are tracking your
eye movements.
Speaker 2 (22:44):
Yeah, eye tracking, right.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
And so then it's showing people on the outside. So
do they think that you'd be walking around in public
wearing this headset?
Speaker 2 (22:51):
There was a demo internally, and not only that, that
you would wear it to a party, which I think
is ridiculous.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
But I mean, this is the thing, Like, think about
a bunch of people at a party wearing the things
on their face and try to imagine a desire there.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
I would leave.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
Now, I'm kidding right now, you probably, I mean, if
you didn't have one, you certainly would leave. Right, That's
the point, right.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
I don't think they're gonna they're going to try to
make this socially acceptable. The other thing they've done from
a technology standpoint, it is a it's a VR headset,
but they've shoehorned AR into there as a very core
component of it. Because you have these dozen external cameras
and you have the crown on the Apple Watch. You
have a bigger version of that on the headset, right.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
So it's like that. And it's like the headphones. I
have the big yeah Apple they have that big crown
on them to adjust volume and stuff.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
Right, So it's like going between VR and AR mode, right,
and so you are seeing right.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
Oh, you can dial it. You can dial it to
by degrees in and out. Oh is that the idea?
Speaker 2 (23:48):
I don't know. I was described to me as on
or off.
Speaker 1 (23:51):
Oh really, okay, because I was thinking like, actually, it's
a cool idea. If you could go, like I want,
like sixty percent you know, virtual reality and forty percent
you know, real or whatever. I don't know.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
Just that that I don't know that actually would make sense.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
I mean, it's a dial it's just my thought. Yeah,
well that too.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
But also the idea of XR being a spectrum as
much VR as you want or as much AR as
you want, that would make a lot of sense to
me too. I think most people will probably use it
in VR mode, but you have the AR mode there too, right.
I think that it's going to be a really interesting
differentiator from the competition, like I was using the Quest
three the other day. There's no dial to go in
(24:26):
and out of vr AR. It's like a sending.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
I mean, on the Quest you can switch into a
mode where you're to a pass through mode right as
flipping a dial on the top of the headset.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
That's going to be something every headset maker is going
to take, you know, for sure.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
And it would have to I mean presumably would have
to be able like if they imagine people at a
party with this, then the view it gives you has
to be as like close to one to one of
your vision as like you have when you're not wearing
the headset, right, because like otherwise you're going to be
bumping into shit and like you know, falling on things.
Because like you need to be able to see, like
imagine walking around and you don't have like perfect vision,
(25:02):
like you can't see the law or whatever.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
Put it this way, I used the Quest three. This
was a prototype. By the way, this thing's not being
announced for several months. I used the Quest three and
it was pretty on point in terms of what you're describing,
being able to walk and see what you're doing.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
That has two cameras, okay, right, this has a dozen.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
Roughly a dozen, so I would say anywhere between ten
to fourteen, right, And so you're talking about three to
five x performance of something that, to me, someone who
uses this stuff was pretty damn good, right, and talking
about the metaproduct, and so this is going to be
this is going to be unbelievable. People who have demoed
this thing like is rocked off their socks. I mean,
they've been blown away.
Speaker 1 (25:43):
See here's the thing. It's like, I believe that Apple
can execute on something like this better than anybody. Like
that's what I was saying earlier, like the thing that
just breaks my brain. I don't mean to keep coming
back to it, but it's just like I just like,
I'm like, even in the best executed sense, there's so
many things that are off putting about this. And again
I say this as a person who desires to be
(26:03):
able to have these experiences, like I think this is
a cool technology that we haven't yet seen the end of.
But I personally have gotten a little bit deflated in
terms of like what it can provide, not just because
the experience has been bad or not as good as
I would hope, but because societally, like culturally, I feel
(26:24):
like we are all feeling really burnt on being inside
the box, right, being inside this thing here that we're
talking on and looking at this thing all day long, right,
being immersed has become a thing that I think for
a lot of people. I mean, listen, you're much younger
than me. I'm an old man now, I'll be dead
at any day now. But you know, like having lived
(26:46):
through the boom of this stuff of like the social
media era and the phone era, I'm like, yeah, like
I kind of want less of it. And Apple is saying, okay,
but what if you put your entire fucking face inside
of it all the time? Right? That's kind of like their
bat here, which seems weird to me.
Speaker 2 (27:05):
It's scary, it's scary. I mean, they do make these
comments about like you said, they want you to lose it,
use your devices less. They don't want you using these things.
They don't want you to be addicted to them. But
if people weren't addicted to them and using them as
much as they did, they wouldn't be making they wouldn't
be a three trillion dollar company, right, So there is
some nuance there, right, They want to toe that line.
You know, what I heard from a few people is
(27:25):
that at the get go of this project, you know,
Apple had serious reservations and considerations internally about creating a
product that would run counter to this idea we're talking about.
Speaker 1 (27:34):
Right.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
They didn't want to create something that would keep people
out of the real world. And one idea that they
came up with internally was this argument that if we
don't do it and do it in a responsible way,
this external display, the mixed reality focus, someone else will
do it poorly and you know, hurt society. Now, right,
that's that opinion. It's a preventative measure, right Yeah, No, yeah,
(27:58):
buy it at Walgreens. No, But that's one end of
the spectrum. The other idea here is if Apple doesn't
do this, Amazon, Meta, Google, someone else will come with
a VR headset and destroy Apple in that market. Like
Apple was hurting smart speakers and voice assistants and such, right.
Speaker 1 (28:14):
The speaker thing I was thinking of when you were
saying how they stick with stuff long term, Like.
Speaker 2 (28:18):
They just continued that after a year.
Speaker 1 (28:20):
Right. There are places where Apple tries to fight and
doesn't ever really gain a footholder. Just for for whatever reason,
they can't get the fit right, Like there's something about
the market doesn't want their version of it. It's too
you know, so it's like, well, I just.
Speaker 2 (28:38):
They totally screwed up at the home pod at the
get go right. And if you think about you know,
it depends how you look at these things. If you
consider the home pod a major product category, that could
have been in the same vein as you know, the iPhone,
the iPod, right, the iPad, the mac right, I consider
it more in the accessories category, something akin to like
an Apple TV or air pods.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
It's smaller, it's smaller.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
They okay, that was a five six year development process.
Also because there were numerous times where they were thinking,
let's not do it, let's do it. They had many delays.
They screwed up twofold pricing, three point fifty out the door,
awful decision, right yep iPhone exclusive serie exclusive, no app integration,
(29:20):
no ecosystem. I mean that was just.
Speaker 1 (29:23):
Are you describing describing the headset right now? Well, high
price point out.
Speaker 2 (29:27):
Of the gates, high price point out of the gate.
Speaker 1 (29:28):
It's definitely not going to work with anybody else's device, right,
You're not going to able to use an Android phone.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
With this, it's not going to work with anyone else's device,
but it is going to run a million iPad apps
when you take it out of the box, and so
they are not going to have a content issue, and
from day one they're going to have the biggest XR
app ecosystem of any provider.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
I got to tell you, I mean, I'm just I
was thinking through this. Like you mentioned that they were
talking about doing logic. It's a studio app. It is
something that people use in professional studios to produce music.
Probably most of the music you listen to, either pro
Tools or Logic is where they people produce it. So
you're saying they just brought it to the iPad. You're saying,
now they can take that and expand it to XR
(30:08):
and create. Presumably you're in the headset and you can
see your score. You can see what you're working on
from like the beginning of a ten minute song to
the end of it in one glance.
Speaker 2 (30:17):
Right, all right, let me take a step back. First,
iPad launched Okay, two options for apps, full scale iPad apps,
iPhone app to x moon't run on the iPad, right,
and the iPhone only apps died pretty quickly because they
were crappy.
Speaker 1 (30:32):
I don't like where this is going.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
It was a thing, right, and so this is going
to be a much better version of that. It'll run
your iPad os apps out of the box.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
But you're saying like it'll run up. You're saying it'll
run a window. It'll run a window, right, and then
that's interesting.
Speaker 2 (30:47):
Right, But if the developer wants to create a native,
native XR version of that app, they can do that also.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
Right, right, So it's like an operating system literally in
the sense that I will be able to open and
look at like multiple iPad apps running as I would
see them, or some variation of how I would see
them on an iPad, like a in a windowed scenario essentially,
but then possibly like at a later day. Okay, so
so I can So that's really interesting. I mean again,
(31:17):
but here's the thing. What I was going to say
is last night I was in my living room. I
was messing around with logic. I had my headphones on
and I had noise cancelation on, right, so I couldn't
hear anything, that's just hearing. And my wife walked in
the living room and I literally jumped because I didn't
know she was there and I looked up and there
was like a person standing there, and I fucking jumped,
you know. And then I was like, Okay, well, I
(31:38):
can't sit in the room with her listening to my
like logic project I'm working on while she's like trying
to talk to me or we're like, you know, you know, going, hey,
we should watch a show or something. Like. You can't
be in a room with noise cancelation unless you expressly
want to shut the world out, right, Like, I'm sure
you've used noise cancelation on your on your AirPods and
you know what I'm talking about. This is like noise
(32:00):
cancelation for your fucking eyes, I assume additionally for your ears, right, Like,
so I'm trying to imagine that same scenario, right, but
like you're sitting in it. You're sitting in a room,
you're doing something, You're totally isolated from people in that room.
It's such a weird vulnerability that I just feel like,
I don't know, does Apple really think people want that?
(32:21):
Like do people want that? I guess I don't know.
Speaker 2 (32:24):
I personally, you know, I'm a nerd like you I'll
be first in line, right, not freaking wait to try it.
Speaker 1 (32:30):
We'll buy it. Don't get me wrong, I'm going to
buy it and use it because I'm a total like gonna,
I'm a total freak for this shit. But like, right,
but I have I have quests, and I have all
kinds of other stuff, and you know, like it comes
comes out occasionally, but it's just a very unusual experience.
Speaker 2 (32:46):
That's exactly right. My question is is how long until
this thing is charging on a daily basis on my
desk rather than being used? How long until it turns
into uh, you know, something that just sits there and
gathers dust.
Speaker 1 (33:09):
Here's an interesting anecdote and I think maybe speaks to
this question about immersion. Yeah, I started to use my
iPad more in the evenings when I wasn't working because
I wanted to have an experience that made me less
immersed in like the windowed noisiness of a laptop. Right,
Like on my laptop, I've got like Gmail open, I've
got Twitter open, I've got all this shit, and everything's
(33:29):
like pinging, there's all this noise, and on an iPad
it's like very singular. You're like when I'm working on
logic on the iPad. You know, I'm in like do
not Disturb, and it's like everything is gone. There's no
other windows, there's no little pop ups. It's like very
and you know, for even for browsing or watching shit
on YouTube. I do like I'll just go into that
kind of like singular sort of focused zone. It's like
(33:50):
a bigger workspace, but it's like less noisy and less
immersive than being in a computer in the sense you know,
it will take time. I agree with you, but.
Speaker 2 (33:59):
I'm us it. By the way, I was a big
iPad user until the m one computer started coming out, Yeah,
because the Intel machines were so crappy and slow and fans.
I was like, I need to get anything horrible battery, Yeah,
I need to use the iPad.
Speaker 1 (34:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:13):
But since I've had this m one Max MacBook Pro,
the iPad is not as useful because I actually can
get stuff done on this now.
Speaker 1 (34:21):
So but I want to talk about that. Actually, like
this brings us to an interesting point about all of this,
which is like we are very much in the Tim
Cook era here. I mean, there's no question that.
Speaker 2 (34:30):
We're deep in the Tim Cook era.
Speaker 1 (34:32):
He's not gonna be CEO forever. Obviously he's not that old,
but you know there's going to be a CEO after
Tim Cook. This could be his big like moment, right.
The era of Tim Cook produced this product, But the
era of Tim Cook has produced a lot of middling
just okay, not that exciting me too, products that feel like,
(34:53):
you know, like like Apple music is It's fine. You know,
it didn't change the world. It didn't destroy Spot, it
didn't you know, it's didn't iTunes the situation, right, It
wasn't like one day we're all got our rios and
then the next day nobody is using anything but iTunes.
The lack of definition of this feels very of a
type of Tim Cook sort of product. Not to say
(35:15):
that that and you mentioned this in your article that
he's not a product guy. So can you talk a
little bit about how this is like a part of
his legacy if you know what type of legacy he
would have like in a post Tim Cook era.
Speaker 2 (35:26):
Well, I really think they see this as the third
major new computing paradigm in Apple's history, right, the first
one being the Mac, the second one really being the iPhone,
with the Apple Watch of the iPad as an extension
of that. Like I would say, you know, the Mac
is one, the iPhone is two, and the iPad and
watch are two A and two B, right, And then
(35:49):
I really think this is number three, right. I think
they really believe that the future of computing could be
living in these mixed reality environments. Certainly more immersive, it's
certainly brings a lot of power with it. There's a
lot more flexibility in the types of apps you can use,
there's a lot more ways that you can actually interact
with your content. But it is so early stage one.
(36:11):
I mean it really I think could take ten years
to take off. And I think if they successfully create
this XR market, because let's be honest, it's really nascent,
it basically doesn't exist, and they take it into how
people use computers in the future instead of laptops and desktops, right,
or instead of iPads and phones, I think that's a
pretty cool legacy. Right. It's also an extremely big bet
(36:32):
because there is a very high chance that never happens
and it doesn't work out. On the other hand, Apple
has so much market cachet and has so much money
and so many resources that I think that this thing.
Becoming a massive, massive failure would not break the company.
But I think this being a big hit would do
(36:55):
wonders for the company.
Speaker 1 (36:56):
Like you would change that the path of where they're
focused like pretty much for the future, right, it.
Speaker 2 (37:02):
Would change a lot. It would change a lot. And
so I think that is one aspect of it. Another
part of it that I don't think people are talking
about enough, and I tried to flick at this through
my articles in this conversation, is the app situation, right.
I think the idea is that the Apple user of
Tim Cook's dream has all of these products, the phone,
the watch, the iPad, the Mac, et cetera, right right
(37:25):
at the headset, and you have one app that can
run across the ecosystem. So whatever Apple device you're on,
you can run any app you have in a different form.
You can run logic on your Mac, you can run
logic on your iPad, you can run logic on your headset,
you can I message from your watch, from your headset,
your phone, whatever, and it all just integrates together.
Speaker 1 (37:43):
And that's their biggest that's their biggest asset when you
get down to it, Like obviously the hardware or the
software that the acumen, a building, and but like the
way all of these things work together is ultimately at
the core of Apples sort of mastery of this industry.
It's like, but it's a.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
Double edged sword. It's a double edged sword because this
has been a Timcook thing. I mean, Steve Jobs are
sort of laying the groundwork for that with iCloud and
the initial post PC devices as they called it. But
that's really been a thing, this Timcook era has been pushing.
I don't mean to credit him specifically, but it has
been his company the last decade and change, so you know,
we'll credit leadership to that it has. It's a double
(38:20):
edged sword because it necessitates Apple doing everything because if
they miss one potential major consumer technology category, you break
the ecosystem. The example I like to give is, let's
say Amazon comes out with an amazing AR headset. Apple
doesn't have one. Right, everyone wants to buy this Amazon
(38:41):
ar headset. Then they get exposed to other Amazon products,
whether it's the Amazon tablets, the Amazon phone, if they
bring that back to the e buds.
Speaker 1 (38:48):
Right, Right, it's all about ecosystem sort of dominates.
Speaker 2 (38:52):
Right.
Speaker 1 (38:52):
It's like, you don't just want one product, you want
to be inside of the entire thing.
Speaker 2 (38:56):
So the reliance by Apple on this idea where you're
owning the whole ecosystem, if they miss one element of it, right,
even though the HomePod was a complete failure, that's why
they had to do a HomePod and try a HomePod right, right.
And so their bet is if the technology industry is
going to push into headsets, they have to have one too,
because if they miss on that, yeah, one crack in
the ecosystem could cost them big time across their other products.
Speaker 1 (39:18):
But you see, you actually just raised an interesting point
that I meant to bring up earlier and I wanted
to talk about before we ended. This is what's so interesting,
Like you're talking about the ecosystem, you're talking about Apple
missing things. And I think that like one of the
blind spots Apple has had in some ways historically has
been things like the Internet and search and these like
(39:39):
large sort of like online projects that like look at
maps for instance, right, Like they've they've been playing for
years playing catch up to Google in all of these
areas of just like they're like, hey, we just didn't
see this, we didn't put any money into it. My
understanding wasn't I feel like this has been said before.
Steve Jobs actually didn't like the Internet. He wasn't like
a fan of being online, and like so a lot
(39:59):
of us were kind of built with like not online
as a component. But I'm looking now at the landscape,
and I'm looking at what is the emergent moment that
is happening. And listen, we're not done with any of
this stuff yet. We're at the very early endings of
a lot of this technology that we're starting to see.
But if you look at what's happening with AI right now,
for instance, right in these large models, you know whether
(40:20):
it's mid journey or open AI. Obviously you see Microsoft,
you see Google now suddenly getting into this like huge
race for dominance in computing that goes beyond the known
space that I think we've been in right a type
of computing that is about us interacting with the machine
(40:40):
in a way that is naturalistic and responsive, beyond anything
I think we could have imagined even ten years ago.
And by the way, Siri is a good example of
where Apple tried to get into this like assistant game.
They obviously have a huge foothold there, but everybody knows
that Siri is worse at everything than many of the
other assistants, notably Google's assistant right, And so to me,
(41:03):
like a bold, exciting Apple has got it figured out
for the future or has sees a pathway forward would
be something like Apple announces it has acquired open ai, right,
or Apple has built an AI that is far more
sophisticated but also focused on privacy and respecting copyright and
all this other stuff that people are worried about. And
(41:24):
yet what I see is, this is what's so odd
to me about this this headset, is that it feels
like the industry and the Internet and its users are
going in one direction over here to a different new
thing that is it's not and I don't think it's
just hype. I think part of it is like there's
something underpinning that that's very real.
Speaker 2 (41:42):
I agree.
Speaker 1 (41:42):
Whereas Apple's over here going into this again almost this
like internal inside the box, not really about outside, not
really about the Internet, not in some ways even about
being able to be social. And it just feels like
these two really divergent paths, and I I I just wonder,
like does that fit anywhere into this, like the AI
stuff that's happening and is there any from your sense
(42:06):
anywhere at Apple or that's starting to be like a
conversation because it feels like they're missing something right now right.
Speaker 2 (42:12):
I've seen a few people point this out where the
industry is heading into AI and Apple is a week
away from heading into XR. Right, two diverging paths, and
that's certainly true. The way I look at it sort
of off the cuff here because I haven't given it
much thought. The XR situation is a platform. AI is
(42:33):
in my opinion, more feature than platform, and I think
AI is something that they play very heavily on XR,
So I don't think it's two different paths. I think
the two can go together. On the top of my head,
I can't come up with the most interesting use cases
for AI in XR, but certainly Apple needs to get
the ball rolling. I think these chat bots that you see,
(42:56):
like the chat GPT stuff, Yeah, this is weird, but
I call it like raw AI. It's like a raw
implementation of what artificial intelligence can do. And I think
what Apple does is they take these raw technologies and
they apply them.
Speaker 1 (43:09):
Right.
Speaker 2 (43:09):
It's like if you look up the definition of technology
right in Mirriam Webster. I believe the definition is applied sciences, right.
I think chat GPT's science. I think technology is applied science.
And I think the ultimate way of showing AI's power
is applying that. And so if Apple is able to
(43:30):
take AI and apply it to real world use cases, right,
to make things easier, to make things better, I think
that's where AI can really shine. I think Microsoft, from
the little I've seen so far of what they've shown,
these things like Copilot, these things that can assist you
in day to day development of things, I think that's
where AI can really shine. So I think Microsoft is
doing a great job. THEAI stuff you're starting to see
(43:51):
in Google Search and bar and being and such. I
think that's happening there. I think we're a couple of
years away from Apple really showing some big news in AI.
I'm not anticipating rights they had a five year lead,
another five years behind, right, and so.
Speaker 1 (44:05):
Well, that's the thing is like they feels like they're
always playing ketchup in these areas that actually end up
to be huge, huge, like massively important moments in computing.
It's not to say, look, Apple's like the most valuable
company in the world, right, like you can't knock. You
can't be like, well they're bad at business or something.
That's not it.
Speaker 2 (44:19):
They're doing something right.
Speaker 1 (44:20):
They're doing something right, So like you have to be
inclined to go like, well, maybe they've got a good
idea with the headset, but yeah, it just feels like
it's interesting because because when I was reading your writing
on this, and there's so much of it that's so
good and I encourage everybody listen to go and read it,
but like it just feels like a weird almost an artifact.
And so I guess their challenge here will be can
(44:42):
they make something that feels like yesterday's sort of tech
or yesterday's future feel like tomorrow's You know.
Speaker 2 (44:51):
I think yes, because that future never took off, right,
I mean I think they really believe that it never
took off, And you know, based on the tech that's
going to be in there, I really think it's going
to blow the water off of anything. I mean, it's
it's extremely powerful, extremely advanced device. The bigger question to
me is do people really want that and are people
going to be sold on that? And I think that's
(45:12):
something that's going to take time. I certainly could be
sold on it. But you know I haven't used it, right,
I haven't played with these things for an extended period
of time.
Speaker 1 (45:19):
So you claim right, So I claim you claim. Mark.
Speaker 2 (45:21):
We're actually talking to you from one right now and
it has this in feat right there.
Speaker 1 (45:25):
That's that's fucking amazing.
Speaker 2 (45:27):
I mean, how cool would it be if we were
doing this in virtual reality where it felt like we
were in the same living room together, right?
Speaker 1 (45:32):
Well, would it be cool? That's a question. I think
that I have done that. I have done podcasts in
virtual reality and it was but this was like five, six,
seven years ago. It was like shit, you know, yeah,
what would it be like? I guess we're going to
find out in a few days. Mark, listen, I know
you got to go. Thank you so much for doing this.
Speaker 2 (45:50):
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (45:51):
It's this a brilliant conversation, super interesting. You got to
come back. We're going to talk more about all of
the unearthed secrets that you've that you've gotten into because
it's fascinating stuff.
Speaker 2 (46:00):
Thank you. And if I can just give a shout
out anyone wants to read more, it's Bloomberg dot com
slash power on or Twitter dot com slash Mark Erman
and thanks Josh. It was an honor to bear with
you and looking forward to next time.
Speaker 1 (46:10):
Thanks for joining. Well that is our show. I mean,
there are several hundred more hours of conversation I would
like to have with Mark, but we all have things
we've got to do. Anyhow, we will be back next
week with more what future as you know, and as always,
(46:33):
I wish you and your family the very best
Hey, and welcome to What Future. I'm your host Joshua Topolski,
and today on the podcast, boy have we got one
for you? Boy oh boy. I'm very excited because I
have been thinking a lot about reality and how terrible
it is and how I'd like to escape it. I
(00:38):
feel like I'm not giving reality a good affair shake.
The truth is reality is actually pretty excellent, unless you
read the news. I don't recommend that. But there's been
a lot of talk recently about a new Apple product
that is coming out which is supposedly going to be
a headset, a thing you wear on your face that
does virtual reality and augmented reality, and suppose will have
(01:00):
a screen that shows your eyeballs on it when you're
using it, which sounds very normal and not dystopian at all,
and I'm sure lots of people will really enjoy that. Anyhow,
there has been a ton of great writing done by
Mark German at Bloomberg. I am a huge fan of his,
and we've got him on the show today to get
into the guts of the Apple headset and all of
what the company's working on around that. So let's get
(01:22):
into this conversation because I have got a lot to say.
(01:43):
You are like probably at the top of the pyramid
of Apple scoopers, Like you have more inside info on
this company than I think anybody has ever had in
my experience, and I've been reading, as you well know,
I've been reading and writing about this shit for a
long time. You are consistently one hundred percent correct with them,
which is or like ninety percent correct with them, which
(02:04):
is very rare. So first, I want to say kudos
to you for being some kind of Apple Ninja's very
strange situation. But I applaud you, Thank you. But the
reason I want to talk to you is because we
are on the precipice supposedly, as so you claim on
the precipice of Apple releasing a mixed reality headset? Does
(02:26):
VR and AR? Correct? Stop me if any of this
sounds incorrect. Okay, they've been working on this headset. It's
a thing you wear on your face, you wear over
your eyes. It does VR, it does AR. It is
a product that you claim that Apple is going to announce.
Tim Cook is going to announce on stage at WWDC
on June Is it fifth? Is that the date? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (02:47):
June fifth, Monday, June fifth.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
Literally like next week, right, Yes, just give us the
quick like where did this come from? Because I have
a lot of questions about it? Yes, you just share
whatever you think is like a good setup for this thing.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Kicked off after the Apple Watch came out in twenty fifteen.
They were sort of looking for their next idea, right.
The hardware engineering group hired a guy named Mike Rockwell,
who was the CTO of Dolby and before that was
the CTO of Avid super Into Displays, super Into VR,
super Into high quality Audio. They hired Tom Holmansen, who
(03:23):
was the creator of THHX, which is the studio behind
the audio from Star Wars, which is, as everyone knows,
one of the paramount reasons people love Star Wars is
because of the soundtrack, right, and so this is a
music expert, and Apple's design team at the same time
was looking at virtual reality, augmented reality head worn devices,
(03:47):
and you know, one thing led to another. They came
together and they started working on this device. They did
many explorations around use cases. They used Samsung Gear vrs,
they used HDC vibes, they used every Nascent and VR
headset that was available eight years ago to run demos
on demo to Tim Cook, the executive team, the board
of directors.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
Right, eight years ago they started working on this.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
This is eight years ago, right. And you remember when
Steve Jobs announced the original iPhone, he said, this is
a day I've been looking forward to for two and
a half years, right.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
Right.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
You remember when the Apple Watch was announced, they said
that was about a two to three year development process. Right,
We're talking seven eight years here. Now there's more to it,
but you know that's a long development process.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
I mean, here's what I'll say. I mean, I want
to hear all this backstory, but like I mean, I'm
a little bit in disbelief, like if you're in. By
the way, your scoop record, as I said at the
top of this, is very good. So you know, it's
rare that you write something and with this much detail,
Like look at the background here that you're sharing and
the stuff that you shared in your stories on Bloomberg. Right,
And I tweeted about this. I was and a lot
(04:52):
of people responded to this feels like the most unlike
Apple thing that I've ever heard of. It's like the
development process, the infighting. You you wrote about the infighting there,
the fact that this is a device that sits on
your face. Apple often comes into a market and like
it's like there's a little bit of a market and
they blow it up and they turn it into a
(05:12):
huge market. I don't even know if there is a
market for this in a widespread way, because like, getting
people to wear anything on their face is difficult. People
get laser surgery on their eyes to avoid wearing glasses, right,
and I like glasses, Like I'm a glass.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
I'll tell you so. A few years ago, they were
trying to figure out how they can get the weight
down right in the device and the overall size. So
you're kind of screw your glasses my front because you're
not going to be able to wear those and the
headset together.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
Okay, I mean that alone sounds okay. See everything you're saying.
See when I hear this shit, what I think is
and this is why I'm so like I wanted to
talk to you because I this just sounds like it's
not going to happen.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
Well, there's going to be a prescription system where you
pay a couple hundred bucks and you'scriptions.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
Does that sound like something Apple would do?
Speaker 2 (05:59):
Like?
Speaker 1 (05:59):
Does it? Actually?
Speaker 2 (06:01):
It does? Okay, that specific feature, yes, but if you're
asking about this device in general, the answer would be no,
this is definitely the new Apple so to speak. Right, right,
this is they're trying something new. You know, depending on
who you talk to there, there's mixed confidence in how
this thing is going to do. But I think the
(06:21):
through line, what most people at the company, the decision
makers have understood, is that this thing is going to
start off remarkably slow. I think even maybe slower than
the Apple Watch. Right, actually, probably much slower than the
Apple Watch.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
I would imagine it's going to be expensive too, right,
It's not cheap.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
It's going to be expensive. It's going to be roughly
three thousand dollars. So I would say anywhere from the
high twos to the low threes. Now that's pretty you know,
eye melting. But if you look at the XR market
in general, they're probably in the Hollow Lens to Magic
Leap price range. Yeah, we know those two devices failed.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
But I was going to say, Magic Leap is like
a they'll teach the story of Magical Leap in business
classes about like this vaporware company. Right, Like Magic Leap
was a company that was making a headset that people
were like, this is like magic. Literally when you put
it on, you're transported. It can do anything. It's the
it's the be all, end all, it's the next iPhone whatever.
And then the company just has fizzled out, like they'd
(07:19):
never been able to ship any real meaningful product, certainly
not a consumer facing product, right, Hollo lens. That's Microsoft's entrant, right,
which was a mixed reality. I mean, I think they
basically wanted to target enterprise, right. It was like a business,
a lab maybe like a warehouse type of device you
might use like for some ar assisted stuff. That's also
(07:41):
kind of fizzled, right, it has.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
But Apple's going to shoehorn this thing into working out.
I mean that's my belief.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
You think this is not only that this is going
to happen for real, you believe that that they're going
to announce this product.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
I'm in trouble if they don't.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
But yes, right of course, yes, But I mean, you know, listen,
the way you write it, though, is the kind of
product that they could get very close to and then
look at it, do the demo and say, you know what,
like it's not there yet, right, Like that that has
happened well.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
Back to the like the more comparing the timelines on
development processes three years for the previous two products and
then eight years for this. Let's see, this has been
delayed three or four times. The original original original pipe
dream was twenty twenty. Obviously that got pushed to twenty one,
then twenty two, and then twenty three. They were going
to announce it in January, then they were gonna announce
(08:33):
it in the spring. Right, and here we are WWDC.
It's it's locked, It's it's locked and loaded. At this point,
I don't see any way around that.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
Can you describe it like physically? Do you know? Have
you seen it? Have you tried it?
Speaker 2 (08:46):
I have not tried it. I've tried the Quest three,
but I have not tried this one.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
Okay, but the Quest three is not we're not talking it.
That's not in the same ballpark. No I know has
this right? So you wrote about it having an external
battery pack. First off, is that staying.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
You know, like the mag Safe battery like they started
selling a few years that you can put on the
back of the iPhone anchor if you other companies sell
that looks like that about bigger. It's about the size
of an iPhone and you connected over a cable. The
cable is lodged into the battery pack, you plug it
into the headset and it goes over a wire. And
the two considerations there were safety and weight. Obviously, with
(09:21):
the product like this, you wanted as portable as possible
and as light as possible, right, and getting the battery
out of there was a big help in my thinking,
is even though they wanted to get the battery in
there initially, and even though for these types of products
you do want the battery to eventually be in the
frame itself. Remember the Apple Wash they launched with one
day of battery life, and the initial speculation was, oh,
(09:45):
over time, they're going to increase the battery life. Now sure,
ten years later we got the Apple Watch Ultro.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
Yeah, it's only a little bit increased. It's like, right,
two three days instead of one. It's not that great,
that's right.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
But in what they did, they had two options, right,
they had let's add to the battery life, or let's
add more and more power and functionality without reducing the
battery life.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
Right.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
They've done that with the iPad as well. Obviously, the
iPhone's a bit different they had to go in a
situation where they had to increase the performance and increase
battery life. Right, but I think the headset were probably
locked into this external battery situation for years to come,
and ideas people are gonna be okay with that, let's
add more performance rather than sort of taper it down
(10:27):
and get the battery back inside. I want to talk
about the naming thing.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
For a minute though, Yeah, yeah, please do it, please
do So.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
They've trademarked quite a few names, right, So, they trademarked
the name Reality one. They trademarked the name Reality Pro.
They've trademarked a few potential operating system names. They've trademarked
the name Reality OS. They've trade marked the name XROS.
They've trademarked the name Reality PROS and XR pros. Right,
(10:55):
here's what I can tell you for fact, Right, for fact,
the OS itself is going to be called XR OS.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
Right.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
They were originally going to call it Reality OS. It
was sort of the working title, so to speak. It
was your this is my next before the verbs. Right.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
We don't like that, yeah, yeah, right, So it was.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
Going to be Reality OS, and then last year they
moved from the working title to the real name, which
is XR OS right. Now. I think there are a
couple of reasons for that. One. I think the word
reality probably doesn't translate so cleanly internationally, right, But I
think it's a more understandable term, at least in the
(11:34):
English language than x R.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
Right. Yeah, XR sounds like a motorcycle, right.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
But it also sounds a little bit more high tech, right,
And Apples tries to sort of bridge that idea of
mixing tech with you know, mass understanding. So it's a
little odd there. But this is a highly technical product,
and I think it's initially going to appeal to a
very niche audience, So perhaps it makes sense. What they
really are trying to do is sort of, in their minds,
create this x mixed reality market, and so it would
(12:02):
help them own that market from a marketing standpoint, the
XR market. Back to the naming conventions, so they went
from reality OS right to XROS. And if you have
an operating system called reality OS, the logic would be
that the device itself would be called the reality right
or the Reality pro, just like the iPad runs iPad OS,
(12:23):
the watch, watch OS, TV t v OS et cetera. Right,
they've switched to XROS on the operating system name. Does
that mean the device is called the XR Pro running XROS.
Does it make sense to have a Reality Pro running
XROS or does it make more sense to have an
XR pro running XROS? What Apple release a product called
(12:44):
the XR Pro, Like the mass consumer is not going
to know what XR pro means? Right? And so those
are the questions I'd like to see answered, which will
obviously be answered. It's WWDC, Right, That's what's been on
my mind lately.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
That's interesting. XR is I mean presumably that means mixed reality, right?
Is that what we're supposed to be XR is? Or
I mean x has usually not used the mixed but
crossed reality, mixed reality whatever let's call it. That makes
sense in a global way of describing it, right, like
the for the format. Forget about whether they call it
reality or XR. Look, I've seen a lot of really
(13:21):
impressive demos of mixed reality, and I'm sure you have
as well. I've seen a lot of and no doubt
Apple can do this better than anybody. Like, I'm not
questioning that they can't execute something that's a better product, right,
we know that they can. They can take a smartphone,
You've seen a million of them, and they can make
it something really special and really like cohesive. What I
wonder though, in what's sort of not in your in
(13:42):
that bigger piece, is a question about the consumer aspect
of it, the relationship to consumer desire. Listen, as a
guy who's tried all the VR headsets, was unbelievably excited
about Oculus when they first appeared. Was like the biggest
fan in the world. I've dreamed of VR my whole life.
Like all of the experiences have not only have they
(14:03):
been like ultimately sort of impressive, but disappointing in the
long run. What I found is like, oh, wearing this
thing on my head and being removed from reality and
having these experiences, it's a very kind of like singular
private experience that you can only do once in a while.
And I'm a nerd, Okay, remember I'm one of the
biggest fucking nerds in the world. They also make me
(14:24):
motion sick, Okay, Like, those experiences.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
Have problems, right, I don't want to get too tmi.
But the first time I tried the quest this was
the original quest. I had lunch before using it. It
wasn't so pretty and so, oh my god, you really
got to get the IPD correct right, the pupil distance.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
Right, you have to the latency has to be But
even then, I don't know that. Like you still are
challenged by lots of different things. But so this is
the thing, Like I understand consumers wear watches, right, Like
I can make an art. I can hear the argument
at Apple like, hey, they wear these things in their wrists, right,
maybe more people I would wear it if we could
give them a reason to put it on. You know,
there's already health trackers. We know that's a big market.
(15:04):
We could bite into that market. There's already a watch market.
It's a big market. We know we could bite into
that market. Maybe not everybody wants to wear the Apple Watch,
but we can bring people around over time, and they
certainly did. Like I'm one of those people's like I
don't want I don't need it, And then I was like, wow,
I love wearing it.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
I was the same, I could believe it or not.
I didn't wear an Apple Watch until the series five.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
Yeah, I mean I tried a couple of them, and
I was like, it's not for me. I wore regular
analog watches, and then like the last couple of years,
I was started wearing a garment for exercise and I
was like oh. When the Aultra came out, I was like, Okay,
this is like actually what I want. Yeah, But here's
(15:43):
the thing I am not hearing or seeing. And I
say this as a person who would love to see
a real broad consumer use case. I feel like when
you write about it, it feels like this product from
that era that you describe as like which where the
HCC is getting into it and quest is coming, you know, meta,
it buys oculus and they start doing question and again
(16:05):
and I get it. Samsung was trying to do VR stuff.
It's like many many years ago. This feels like a
product from a time when the excitement around that still
seem new and like possible.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
Right.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
I don't think consumers have embraced these products and even
want them. And so what is Apple saying internally or
what are they how are they testing internally? I know
they're like the consumer doesn't know what it wants or whatever,
but can you give me some color on like what's
going on with their relationship to a consumer audience for this.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
Yeah, I mean that is a good question. You know,
if you pull one hundred people on the street to
ask them if this is something that they're going to
use on a daily basis, the number is going to
probably be incredibly small. What I think is that they
see this as a very very long term thing, like
ten years long term. And one thing I believe they're
going to try to do is position it as quote,
the future of the computer. I think they see this
(16:56):
as something that's a Mac replacement or an iPad replacement,
So maybe five years from now you won't own a Mac,
you'll own a headset instead. I say that as being
around long enough to know how many people were saying
that about the iPad, and I know very few people
personally who've transitioned from a Mac to an iPad. Fully,
(17:16):
I will say there are millions of people who have right,
so don't get me wrong, but I think it's going
to play out similarly to that. I mean, the best
estimates that I'm hearing are the most optimistic estimates I'm hearing.
Is this bringing in about twenty five billion a year
in revenue. That puts it on part the iPad and
the Apple Watch, which is not nothing. It's not nothing
for Apple to show growth that's good enough. They're going
(17:38):
to make a big return on this investment. Within a
few years. They're going to become the market leader in
XR in terms of unit sales and revenue probably within
six months, or revenue within six months. Unit sales probably
not as quickly. So you know, from a market standpoint,
it's going to be a success out of the gate.
Apple standpoint, it's going to be a flop out of
(18:01):
the gate, I think, but eventually be hugely successful. Like
I really believe in this long term you do because
of the investment, Yeah, I do. The ga Apple's not
going to give up on this, right, even if it
takes five ten years. They're going to shoehorn this thing
till it works out. You know, the price is going
to come down eventually too. You're going to get new
features like cellular. There are going to be big enough
improvements and a big marketing budget behind it to get
(18:23):
people interested in this. Right, They're going to make a
whole big deal about this thing in Apple retail stores.
It's going to drive foot traffic. They're going to try
selling other products to people who are just coming in
to try this thing on. It'll be a big marketing exer,
so a.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
Lot of accessories, I'm sure a lot of accessories. Right. So,
like everything you're describing sounds very app right, and I
think like the long the long play is possible, right,
They definitely like the I mean, I've had a good
example of something that has never found a perfect home,
but definitely there's a big market for it. And they've
created that market really for tablets, right, right, And I
think you're right, Like I've grown to become an iPad user,
(18:59):
and in fact, they just released some greats that like Logic,
the music software that has been Mac only for a
really long time. They were a music guy before this, right,
I used to produce music.
Speaker 2 (19:08):
Right, I'm curious what you think, Well, I'll.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
Tell you what I think. I think it's fucking amazing.
And I have been sitting on my iPad at night,
like in my downtime, making music in Logic. Now there's
some stuff that's like a little bit yanky because it's
like the iPad the way it works is just weird
for things where you need lots of windows, like it
just doesn't want to do that. But like in terms
of a tool. It's like unbelievably powerful and really really
(19:30):
good for what it's like what you want it to be.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
And I think it's going to work in the headset.
I think that app run in the headset.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
So that sounds like a super fun like I can see,
like listen, I mean Jaron Lanier, who is the guy
who basically invented VR, who's written about technology for years,
for decades and decades, he's really like become like a
philosopher when it comes to this technology. Originally, you know,
kind of created VR for this purpose of working in
a larger space, Like he was dealing with these really
large numbers that you couldn't look out on a monitor.
(19:59):
So I see the commercial applications there, right, I can
see like there's going to be places, like I said,
where hollow Lens was maybe targeting, or where magic Leap
hope to target where I can see more of a
retail or commercial application. What's so weird to me though,
is if you look at the landscape of today, right
so peak COVID, I'd see this as being a really
(20:20):
attractive product, right like when we were had peak COVID,
when everybody was at home we had lockdowns, we had
like everybody was scared to kind of go out and socialize.
Like I think that's when you know, that's when Facebook
tried to kind of capture with their metaverse bullshit. They
kind of tried to capture this moment of like, hey,
we're going to all move to this different kind of
like way of communicating and computing and working and blah
(20:41):
blah blah. But I feel like if you look at
the hit rate now again and maybe this Apple sees
that as a market opportunity, it feels like such an
off key entry. Like we've seen so many versions of
this that had been really rejected and in fact, like
none surprisingly, but Facebook's huge pivot was basically rejected as
this concept of the metaverse and being more like what
(21:04):
I see from society. And frankly, what Tim Cook has
actually said at many intervals on stage is like people
want less of this, like of this stuff in their life.
They want to be less immersed in technology. When they
talked about the watch, they were like, we want you
to be less distracted by your phone and you can
get up on your you know, do your thing. You
can just glance at your watch and all this it
(21:26):
just feels like it flies in the face of And
Tim Cook was a big part of this, right, Like
he pushed this, This is like his product in some way,
he wanted this to happen. I mean, he runs the company.
This doesn't feel like it flies in the face of
everything that, like the industry has told us and that
consumers have told us about this.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
Yes, but I think one of the most fundamental aspects
from early on in development was how you make VR
socially acceptable and how you take people in VR without
removing them from the real world. And there's a few
tricks they have up their sleeve on that. One is
this external display that they've been working on from the
very beginning for the headset, where it's essentially you can
(22:05):
see you have this front ole a display and you
see the person's eyes who's wearing it, and so like
it's sort of like they're there or not there.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
Yeah, I mean this sounds insane, right, Like just hearing
you describe that, you're saying that on the outside of
these basically look like ski goggles, right right, this device
is something like that you're saying on the outside surface
of it, is it covering the whole surface of the
outside the screen.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
Do you know the screen A portion of it, Yeah,
where your eyes would be, and you can you know
you're moving your eyes and you can you know you're blinking.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
And so there's cameras inside of the there's some kind
of camera inside of the goggles that are tracking your
eye movements.
Speaker 2 (22:44):
Yeah, eye tracking, right.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
And so then it's showing people on the outside. So
do they think that you'd be walking around in public
wearing this headset?
Speaker 2 (22:51):
There was a demo internally, and not only that, that
you would wear it to a party, which I think
is ridiculous.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
But I mean, this is the thing, Like, think about
a bunch of people at a party wearing the things
on their face and try to imagine a desire there.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
I would leave.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
Now, I'm kidding right now, you probably, I mean, if
you didn't have one, you certainly would leave. Right, That's
the point, right.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
I don't think they're gonna they're going to try to
make this socially acceptable. The other thing they've done from
a technology standpoint, it is a it's a VR headset,
but they've shoehorned AR into there as a very core
component of it. Because you have these dozen external cameras
and you have the crown on the Apple Watch. You
have a bigger version of that on the headset, right.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
So it's like that. And it's like the headphones. I
have the big yeah Apple they have that big crown
on them to adjust volume and stuff.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
Right, So it's like going between VR and AR mode, right,
and so you are seeing right.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
Oh, you can dial it. You can dial it to
by degrees in and out. Oh is that the idea?
Speaker 2 (23:48):
I don't know. I was described to me as on
or off.
Speaker 1 (23:51):
Oh really, okay, because I was thinking like, actually, it's
a cool idea. If you could go, like I want,
like sixty percent you know, virtual reality and forty percent
you know, real or whatever. I don't know.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
Just that that I don't know that actually would make sense.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
I mean, it's a dial it's just my thought. Yeah,
well that too.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
But also the idea of XR being a spectrum as
much VR as you want or as much AR as
you want, that would make a lot of sense to
me too. I think most people will probably use it
in VR mode, but you have the AR mode there too, right.
I think that it's going to be a really interesting
differentiator from the competition, like I was using the Quest
three the other day. There's no dial to go in
(24:26):
and out of vr AR. It's like a sending.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
I mean, on the Quest you can switch into a
mode where you're to a pass through mode right as
flipping a dial on the top of the headset.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
That's going to be something every headset maker is going
to take, you know, for sure.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
And it would have to I mean presumably would have
to be able like if they imagine people at a
party with this, then the view it gives you has
to be as like close to one to one of
your vision as like you have when you're not wearing
the headset, right, because like otherwise you're going to be
bumping into shit and like you know, falling on things.
Because like you need to be able to see, like
imagine walking around and you don't have like perfect vision,
(25:02):
like you can't see the law or whatever.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
Put it this way, I used the Quest three. This
was a prototype. By the way, this thing's not being
announced for several months. I used the Quest three and
it was pretty on point in terms of what you're describing,
being able to walk and see what you're doing.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
That has two cameras, okay, right, this has a dozen.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
Roughly a dozen, so I would say anywhere between ten
to fourteen, right, And so you're talking about three to
five x performance of something that, to me, someone who
uses this stuff was pretty damn good, right, and talking
about the metaproduct, and so this is going to be
this is going to be unbelievable. People who have demoed
this thing like is rocked off their socks. I mean,
they've been blown away.
Speaker 1 (25:43):
See here's the thing. It's like, I believe that Apple
can execute on something like this better than anybody. Like
that's what I was saying earlier, like the thing that
just breaks my brain. I don't mean to keep coming
back to it, but it's just like I just like,
I'm like, even in the best executed sense, there's so
many things that are off putting about this. And again
I say this as a person who desires to be
(26:03):
able to have these experiences, like I think this is
a cool technology that we haven't yet seen the end of.
But I personally have gotten a little bit deflated in
terms of like what it can provide, not just because
the experience has been bad or not as good as
I would hope, but because societally, like culturally, I feel
(26:24):
like we are all feeling really burnt on being inside
the box, right, being inside this thing here that we're
talking on and looking at this thing all day long, right,
being immersed has become a thing that I think for
a lot of people. I mean, listen, you're much younger
than me. I'm an old man now, I'll be dead
at any day now. But you know, like having lived
(26:46):
through the boom of this stuff of like the social
media era and the phone era, I'm like, yeah, like
I kind of want less of it. And Apple is saying, okay,
but what if you put your entire fucking face inside
of it all the time? Right? That's kind of like their
bat here, which seems weird to me.
Speaker 2 (27:05):
It's scary, it's scary. I mean, they do make these
comments about like you said, they want you to lose it,
use your devices less. They don't want you using these things.
They don't want you to be addicted to them. But
if people weren't addicted to them and using them as
much as they did, they wouldn't be making they wouldn't
be a three trillion dollar company, right, So there is
some nuance there, right, They want to toe that line.
You know, what I heard from a few people is
(27:25):
that at the get go of this project, you know,
Apple had serious reservations and considerations internally about creating a
product that would run counter to this idea we're talking about.
Speaker 1 (27:34):
Right.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
They didn't want to create something that would keep people
out of the real world. And one idea that they
came up with internally was this argument that if we
don't do it and do it in a responsible way,
this external display, the mixed reality focus, someone else will
do it poorly and you know, hurt society. Now, right,
that's that opinion. It's a preventative measure, right Yeah, No, yeah,
(27:58):
buy it at Walgreens. No, But that's one end of
the spectrum. The other idea here is if Apple doesn't
do this, Amazon, Meta, Google, someone else will come with
a VR headset and destroy Apple in that market. Like
Apple was hurting smart speakers and voice assistants and such, right.
Speaker 1 (28:14):
The speaker thing I was thinking of when you were
saying how they stick with stuff long term, Like.
Speaker 2 (28:18):
They just continued that after a year.
Speaker 1 (28:20):
Right. There are places where Apple tries to fight and
doesn't ever really gain a footholder. Just for for whatever reason,
they can't get the fit right, Like there's something about
the market doesn't want their version of it. It's too
you know, so it's like, well, I just.
Speaker 2 (28:38):
They totally screwed up at the home pod at the
get go right. And if you think about you know,
it depends how you look at these things. If you
consider the home pod a major product category, that could
have been in the same vein as you know, the iPhone,
the iPod, right, the iPad, the mac right, I consider
it more in the accessories category, something akin to like
an Apple TV or air pods.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
It's smaller, it's smaller.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
They okay, that was a five six year development process.
Also because there were numerous times where they were thinking,
let's not do it, let's do it. They had many delays.
They screwed up twofold pricing, three point fifty out the door,
awful decision, right yep iPhone exclusive serie exclusive, no app integration,
(29:20):
no ecosystem. I mean that was just.
Speaker 1 (29:23):
Are you describing describing the headset right now? Well, high
price point out.
Speaker 2 (29:27):
Of the gates, high price point out of the gate.
Speaker 1 (29:28):
It's definitely not going to work with anybody else's device, right,
You're not going to able to use an Android phone.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
With this, it's not going to work with anyone else's device,
but it is going to run a million iPad apps
when you take it out of the box, and so
they are not going to have a content issue, and
from day one they're going to have the biggest XR
app ecosystem of any provider.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
I got to tell you, I mean, I'm just I
was thinking through this. Like you mentioned that they were
talking about doing logic. It's a studio app. It is
something that people use in professional studios to produce music.
Probably most of the music you listen to, either pro
Tools or Logic is where they people produce it. So
you're saying they just brought it to the iPad. You're saying,
now they can take that and expand it to XR
(30:08):
and create. Presumably you're in the headset and you can
see your score. You can see what you're working on
from like the beginning of a ten minute song to
the end of it in one glance.
Speaker 2 (30:17):
Right, all right, let me take a step back. First,
iPad launched Okay, two options for apps, full scale iPad apps,
iPhone app to x moon't run on the iPad, right,
and the iPhone only apps died pretty quickly because they
were crappy.
Speaker 1 (30:32):
I don't like where this is going.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
It was a thing, right, and so this is going
to be a much better version of that. It'll run
your iPad os apps out of the box.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
But you're saying like it'll run up. You're saying it'll
run a window. It'll run a window, right, and then
that's interesting.
Speaker 2 (30:47):
Right, But if the developer wants to create a native,
native XR version of that app, they can do that also.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
Right, right, So it's like an operating system literally in
the sense that I will be able to open and
look at like multiple iPad apps running as I would
see them, or some variation of how I would see
them on an iPad, like a in a windowed scenario essentially,
but then possibly like at a later day. Okay, so
so I can So that's really interesting. I mean again,
(31:17):
but here's the thing. What I was going to say
is last night I was in my living room. I
was messing around with logic. I had my headphones on
and I had noise cancelation on, right, so I couldn't
hear anything, that's just hearing. And my wife walked in
the living room and I literally jumped because I didn't
know she was there and I looked up and there
was like a person standing there, and I fucking jumped,
you know. And then I was like, Okay, well, I
(31:38):
can't sit in the room with her listening to my
like logic project I'm working on while she's like trying
to talk to me or we're like, you know, you know, going, hey,
we should watch a show or something. Like. You can't
be in a room with noise cancelation unless you expressly
want to shut the world out, right, Like, I'm sure
you've used noise cancelation on your on your AirPods and
you know what I'm talking about. This is like noise
(32:00):
cancelation for your fucking eyes, I assume additionally for your ears, right, Like,
so I'm trying to imagine that same scenario, right, but
like you're sitting in it. You're sitting in a room,
you're doing something, You're totally isolated from people in that room.
It's such a weird vulnerability that I just feel like,
I don't know, does Apple really think people want that?
(32:21):
Like do people want that? I guess I don't know.
Speaker 2 (32:24):
I personally, you know, I'm a nerd like you I'll
be first in line, right, not freaking wait to try it.
Speaker 1 (32:30):
We'll buy it. Don't get me wrong, I'm going to
buy it and use it because I'm a total like gonna,
I'm a total freak for this shit. But like, right,
but I have I have quests, and I have all
kinds of other stuff, and you know, like it comes
comes out occasionally, but it's just a very unusual experience.
Speaker 2 (32:46):
That's exactly right. My question is is how long until
this thing is charging on a daily basis on my
desk rather than being used? How long until it turns
into uh, you know, something that just sits there and
gathers dust.
Speaker 1 (33:09):
Here's an interesting anecdote and I think maybe speaks to
this question about immersion. Yeah, I started to use my
iPad more in the evenings when I wasn't working because
I wanted to have an experience that made me less
immersed in like the windowed noisiness of a laptop. Right,
Like on my laptop, I've got like Gmail open, I've
got Twitter open, I've got all this shit, and everything's
(33:29):
like pinging, there's all this noise, and on an iPad
it's like very singular. You're like when I'm working on
logic on the iPad. You know, I'm in like do
not Disturb, and it's like everything is gone. There's no
other windows, there's no little pop ups. It's like very
and you know, for even for browsing or watching shit
on YouTube. I do like I'll just go into that
kind of like singular sort of focused zone. It's like
(33:50):
a bigger workspace, but it's like less noisy and less
immersive than being in a computer in the sense you know,
it will take time. I agree with you, but.
Speaker 2 (33:59):
I'm us it. By the way, I was a big
iPad user until the m one computer started coming out, Yeah,
because the Intel machines were so crappy and slow and fans.
I was like, I need to get anything horrible battery, Yeah,
I need to use the iPad.
Speaker 1 (34:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:13):
But since I've had this m one Max MacBook Pro,
the iPad is not as useful because I actually can
get stuff done on this now.
Speaker 1 (34:21):
So but I want to talk about that. Actually, like
this brings us to an interesting point about all of this,
which is like we are very much in the Tim
Cook era here. I mean, there's no question that.
Speaker 2 (34:30):
We're deep in the Tim Cook era.
Speaker 1 (34:32):
He's not gonna be CEO forever. Obviously he's not that old,
but you know there's going to be a CEO after
Tim Cook. This could be his big like moment, right.
The era of Tim Cook produced this product, But the
era of Tim Cook has produced a lot of middling
just okay, not that exciting me too, products that feel like,
(34:53):
you know, like like Apple music is It's fine. You know,
it didn't change the world. It didn't destroy Spot, it
didn't you know, it's didn't iTunes the situation, right, It
wasn't like one day we're all got our rios and
then the next day nobody is using anything but iTunes.
The lack of definition of this feels very of a
type of Tim Cook sort of product. Not to say
(35:15):
that that and you mentioned this in your article that
he's not a product guy. So can you talk a
little bit about how this is like a part of
his legacy if you know what type of legacy he
would have like in a post Tim Cook era.
Speaker 2 (35:26):
Well, I really think they see this as the third
major new computing paradigm in Apple's history, right, the first
one being the Mac, the second one really being the iPhone,
with the Apple Watch of the iPad as an extension
of that. Like I would say, you know, the Mac
is one, the iPhone is two, and the iPad and
watch are two A and two B, right, And then
(35:49):
I really think this is number three, right. I think
they really believe that the future of computing could be
living in these mixed reality environments. Certainly more immersive, it's
certainly brings a lot of power with it. There's a
lot more flexibility in the types of apps you can use,
there's a lot more ways that you can actually interact
with your content. But it is so early stage one.
(36:11):
I mean it really I think could take ten years
to take off. And I think if they successfully create
this XR market, because let's be honest, it's really nascent,
it basically doesn't exist, and they take it into how
people use computers in the future instead of laptops and desktops, right,
or instead of iPads and phones, I think that's a
pretty cool legacy. Right. It's also an extremely big bet
(36:32):
because there is a very high chance that never happens
and it doesn't work out. On the other hand, Apple
has so much market cachet and has so much money
and so many resources that I think that this thing.
Becoming a massive, massive failure would not break the company.
But I think this being a big hit would do
(36:55):
wonders for the company.
Speaker 1 (36:56):
Like you would change that the path of where they're
focused like pretty much for the future, right, it.
Speaker 2 (37:02):
Would change a lot. It would change a lot. And
so I think that is one aspect of it. Another
part of it that I don't think people are talking
about enough, and I tried to flick at this through
my articles in this conversation, is the app situation, right.
I think the idea is that the Apple user of
Tim Cook's dream has all of these products, the phone,
the watch, the iPad, the Mac, et cetera, right right
(37:25):
at the headset, and you have one app that can
run across the ecosystem. So whatever Apple device you're on,
you can run any app you have in a different form.
You can run logic on your Mac, you can run
logic on your iPad, you can run logic on your headset,
you can I message from your watch, from your headset,
your phone, whatever, and it all just integrates together.
Speaker 1 (37:43):
And that's their biggest that's their biggest asset when you
get down to it, Like obviously the hardware or the
software that the acumen, a building, and but like the
way all of these things work together is ultimately at
the core of Apples sort of mastery of this industry.
It's like, but it's a.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
Double edged sword. It's a double edged sword because this
has been a Timcook thing. I mean, Steve Jobs are
sort of laying the groundwork for that with iCloud and
the initial post PC devices as they called it. But
that's really been a thing, this Timcook era has been pushing.
I don't mean to credit him specifically, but it has
been his company the last decade and change, so you know,
we'll credit leadership to that it has. It's a double
(38:20):
edged sword because it necessitates Apple doing everything because if
they miss one potential major consumer technology category, you break
the ecosystem. The example I like to give is, let's
say Amazon comes out with an amazing AR headset. Apple
doesn't have one. Right, everyone wants to buy this Amazon
(38:41):
ar headset. Then they get exposed to other Amazon products,
whether it's the Amazon tablets, the Amazon phone, if they
bring that back to the e buds.
Speaker 1 (38:48):
Right, Right, it's all about ecosystem sort of dominates.
Speaker 2 (38:52):
Right.
Speaker 1 (38:52):
It's like, you don't just want one product, you want
to be inside of the entire thing.
Speaker 2 (38:56):
So the reliance by Apple on this idea where you're
owning the whole ecosystem, if they miss one element of it, right,
even though the HomePod was a complete failure, that's why
they had to do a HomePod and try a HomePod right, right.
And so their bet is if the technology industry is
going to push into headsets, they have to have one too,
because if they miss on that, yeah, one crack in
the ecosystem could cost them big time across their other products.
Speaker 1 (39:18):
But you see, you actually just raised an interesting point
that I meant to bring up earlier and I wanted
to talk about before we ended. This is what's so interesting,
Like you're talking about the ecosystem, you're talking about Apple
missing things. And I think that like one of the
blind spots Apple has had in some ways historically has
been things like the Internet and search and these like
(39:39):
large sort of like online projects that like look at
maps for instance, right, Like they've they've been playing for
years playing catch up to Google in all of these
areas of just like they're like, hey, we just didn't
see this, we didn't put any money into it. My
understanding wasn't I feel like this has been said before.
Steve Jobs actually didn't like the Internet. He wasn't like
a fan of being online, and like so a lot
(39:59):
of us were kind of built with like not online
as a component. But I'm looking now at the landscape,
and I'm looking at what is the emergent moment that
is happening. And listen, we're not done with any of
this stuff yet. We're at the very early endings of
a lot of this technology that we're starting to see.
But if you look at what's happening with AI right now,
for instance, right in these large models, you know whether
(40:20):
it's mid journey or open AI. Obviously you see Microsoft,
you see Google now suddenly getting into this like huge
race for dominance in computing that goes beyond the known
space that I think we've been in right a type
of computing that is about us interacting with the machine
(40:40):
in a way that is naturalistic and responsive, beyond anything
I think we could have imagined even ten years ago.
And by the way, Siri is a good example of
where Apple tried to get into this like assistant game.
They obviously have a huge foothold there, but everybody knows
that Siri is worse at everything than many of the
other assistants, notably Google's assistant right, And so to me,
(41:03):
like a bold, exciting Apple has got it figured out
for the future or has sees a pathway forward would
be something like Apple announces it has acquired open ai, right,
or Apple has built an AI that is far more
sophisticated but also focused on privacy and respecting copyright and
all this other stuff that people are worried about. And
(41:24):
yet what I see is, this is what's so odd
to me about this this headset, is that it feels
like the industry and the Internet and its users are
going in one direction over here to a different new
thing that is it's not and I don't think it's
just hype. I think part of it is like there's
something underpinning that that's very real.
Speaker 2 (41:42):
I agree.
Speaker 1 (41:42):
Whereas Apple's over here going into this again almost this
like internal inside the box, not really about outside, not
really about the Internet, not in some ways even about
being able to be social. And it just feels like
these two really divergent paths, and I I I just wonder,
like does that fit anywhere into this, like the AI
stuff that's happening and is there any from your sense
(42:06):
anywhere at Apple or that's starting to be like a
conversation because it feels like they're missing something right now right.
Speaker 2 (42:12):
I've seen a few people point this out where the
industry is heading into AI and Apple is a week
away from heading into XR. Right, two diverging paths, and
that's certainly true. The way I look at it sort
of off the cuff here because I haven't given it
much thought. The XR situation is a platform. AI is
(42:33):
in my opinion, more feature than platform, and I think
AI is something that they play very heavily on XR,
So I don't think it's two different paths. I think
the two can go together. On the top of my head,
I can't come up with the most interesting use cases
for AI in XR, but certainly Apple needs to get
the ball rolling. I think these chat bots that you see,
(42:56):
like the chat GPT stuff, Yeah, this is weird, but
I call it like raw AI. It's like a raw
implementation of what artificial intelligence can do. And I think
what Apple does is they take these raw technologies and
they apply them.
Speaker 1 (43:09):
Right.
Speaker 2 (43:09):
It's like if you look up the definition of technology
right in Mirriam Webster. I believe the definition is applied sciences, right.
I think chat GPT's science. I think technology is applied science.
And I think the ultimate way of showing AI's power
is applying that. And so if Apple is able to
(43:30):
take AI and apply it to real world use cases, right,
to make things easier, to make things better, I think
that's where AI can really shine. I think Microsoft, from
the little I've seen so far of what they've shown,
these things like Copilot, these things that can assist you
in day to day development of things, I think that's
where AI can really shine. So I think Microsoft is
doing a great job. THEAI stuff you're starting to see
(43:51):
in Google Search and bar and being and such. I
think that's happening there. I think we're a couple of
years away from Apple really showing some big news in AI.
I'm not anticipating rights they had a five year lead,
another five years behind, right, and so.
Speaker 1 (44:05):
Well, that's the thing is like they feels like they're
always playing ketchup in these areas that actually end up
to be huge, huge, like massively important moments in computing.
It's not to say, look, Apple's like the most valuable
company in the world, right, like you can't knock. You
can't be like, well they're bad at business or something.
That's not it.
Speaker 2 (44:19):
They're doing something right.
Speaker 1 (44:20):
They're doing something right, So like you have to be
inclined to go like, well, maybe they've got a good
idea with the headset, but yeah, it just feels like
it's interesting because because when I was reading your writing
on this, and there's so much of it that's so
good and I encourage everybody listen to go and read it,
but like it just feels like a weird almost an artifact.
And so I guess their challenge here will be can
(44:42):
they make something that feels like yesterday's sort of tech
or yesterday's future feel like tomorrow's You know.
Speaker 2 (44:51):
I think yes, because that future never took off, right,
I mean I think they really believe that it never
took off, And you know, based on the tech that's
going to be in there, I really think it's going
to blow the water off of anything. I mean, it's
it's extremely powerful, extremely advanced device. The bigger question to
me is do people really want that and are people
going to be sold on that? And I think that's
(45:12):
something that's going to take time. I certainly could be
sold on it. But you know I haven't used it, right,
I haven't played with these things for an extended period
of time.
Speaker 1 (45:19):
So you claim right, So I claim you claim. Mark.
Speaker 2 (45:21):
We're actually talking to you from one right now and
it has this in feat right there.
Speaker 1 (45:25):
That's that's fucking amazing.
Speaker 2 (45:27):
I mean, how cool would it be if we were
doing this in virtual reality where it felt like we
were in the same living room together, right?
Speaker 1 (45:32):
Well, would it be cool? That's a question. I think
that I have done that. I have done podcasts in
virtual reality and it was but this was like five, six,
seven years ago. It was like shit, you know, yeah,
what would it be like? I guess we're going to
find out in a few days. Mark, listen, I know
you got to go. Thank you so much for doing this.
Speaker 2 (45:50):
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (45:51):
It's this a brilliant conversation, super interesting. You got to
come back. We're going to talk more about all of
the unearthed secrets that you've that you've gotten into because
it's fascinating stuff.
Speaker 2 (46:00):
Thank you. And if I can just give a shout
out anyone wants to read more, it's Bloomberg dot com
slash power on or Twitter dot com slash Mark Erman
and thanks Josh. It was an honor to bear with
you and looking forward to next time.
Speaker 1 (46:10):
Thanks for joining. Well that is our show. I mean,
there are several hundred more hours of conversation I would
like to have with Mark, but we all have things
we've got to do. Anyhow, we will be back next
week with more what future as you know, and as always,
(46:33):
I wish you and your family the very best
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