This Weekend: Focus On Generative AI -- Apple Goes Spatial -- Part 1 -- June 11, 2023

Locator: 44905AAPL.  

So far this weekend:

• EVs and chips.
• Generative AI.

Tracking:

• Chips, semiconductor: link here.
• Apple: link here.

For newbies:

• this past week, technology developers and consumers came to a fork in the road
  
• Apple is not taking the "metaverse" fork to the right
• Apple is staying on the "computer" path to the left
• Apple is not introducing a "metaverse" gaming device
• Apple introduces a "spatial" computer; with a truly virtual "desktop" or (more accurately, many) "desktops"
• those taking the "metaverse" fork may be seeing a dead end in the road
• the Financial Times suggests the "metaverse" is dead.
• "metaverse": gaming; surged during the global Covid lockdown; Facebook renames itself "Meta"; Nvidia "won" the gaming technology with its GPUs.
• generative AI: gaming is dead; fewer and fewer adults on their sofas, stuck at home due to a global lockdown; ready to move on; Nvidia GPUs perfect for AR (same link as above)
  
• by the way, Nvidia technology mirrors the way nature / the natural world / biology actually evolves; absolutely fascinating;
  
• in big scheme of things, "gaming" is simply VR
• we have moved on to augmented reality (AR), extended reality (AR), mixed reality (MR); generative AI; gaming was a huge fad during the lockdown; it becomes a "smaller" thing going forward.
  
• quick analogy:
• VR: cartoons
• computer-generated avatars playing paintball 
  
• AR: reality enhanced
• real engineers solving problems in the field

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Today

Meta:

• does the metaverse already feel obsolete after Apple's announcement this week?
• the FT says it does (already feel obsolete)
• link here;
• archived;

From the linked FT article:

Apple finally revealed the $3,499 Vision Pro, its long-awaited “mixed reality” headset, this week. It conjured up many descriptions — a “spatial computer that seamlessly blends digital content with the physical world”, a “personal movie theatre with a screen that feels 100 feet wide” — but one word remained glaringly absent: “metaverse”. 

The metaverse, a virtual world in which people would meet as avatars to play, work and socialise, was all the rage not long ago.

Facebook renamed itself Meta in 2021, and companies from Microsoft to Sony have proudly unveiled headsets. But the vision that excited executives has landed with a thud among consumers. “This one is for you, the believers . . . the people who’d rather be early than fashionably late,” Mark Zuckerberg, Meta’s chief executive, declared with a touch of snark last year as he unveiled its professional Meta Quest Pro headset. 

On cue, Apple rolled up late to the party this week with a disdainful glance at the early arrivals. Apple took its time. It has been working on virtual and augmented reality for seven years and the Vision Pro still lacks some of the design sleekness for which it is known: the headset is tethered to a separate battery. Yet those who tried it briefly were impressed by the high-definition clarity of its images and the thinking behind them. 

“You know there’s a screen in front of you, but it feels very real. I’ve never had that feeling before,” Francisco Jeronimo, an analyst for IDC Europe, told me. Leo Gebbie, of CCS Insight, said that he had tried dozens of headsets over years and “I can quite comfortably say this is the best experience I’ve ever had”. Apple has not let mere money get in the way. 

At seven times the price of Meta’s forthcoming Quest 3 headset, which is intended to do some of the same things, the Vision Pro is defiantly expensive. It crams 23mn pixels on two tiny screens, viewed through custom lenses, with photos and videos rendered by two Apple chips. This sounds like overkill, but one of the problems with virtual reality is that the technology has been inadequate. Instead of being transported seamlessly into a digital utopia, headset wearers have felt uncomfortable, disoriented and sometimes queasy. They have also looked ridiculous and been cut off from their surroundings. 

Not being in California for the launch this week, I popped over instead to Otherworld in east London, billed as “the world’s most immersive VR experience”. There, I wore an HTC Vive Pro headset, held two controllers and climbed into a pod to play various games, including Fruit Ninja, on an island metaverse. Others were enjoying themselves but my main sensations after half an hour were of motion sickness and an urge to escape outside. 

Apple has tried to conquer the first problem, common among headsets, by rendering the images fast enough that there is not a noticeable lag, and thus less nausea. But there is a deeper difficulty with virtual reality: the idea of the metaverse itself. No matter how enthusiastic Zuckerberg and others get about turning us into cartoons to spend hours in virtual worlds, it remains unconvincing apart from for gaming.

By the way, how far ahead is Apple with regard to spatial computing? Four data points:

• 5,000 patents on one device;
• introduces it a year before it will be released;
• develops a brand new series of chips for spatial computing: RTSPs
• will be using 3nm technology before most competitors even get to 5nm