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Meta Cancels High-End Mixed-Reality Headset (theinformation.com) 26

Posted by msmash from the tough-luck dept.
Meta Platforms has canceled plans for a premium mixed-reality headset intended to compete with Apple's Vision Pro, The Information reported Friday, citing sources. From the report: Meta told employees at the company's Reality Labs division to stop work on the device this week after a product review meeting attended by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Chief Technology Officer Andrew Bosworth and other Meta executives, the employees said. The axed device, which was internally code-named La Jolla, began development in November and was scheduled for release in 2027, according to current and former Meta employees. It was going to contain ultrahigh-resolution screens known as micro OLEDs -- the same display technology used in Apple's Vision Pro.
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Meta Cancels High-End Mixed-Reality Headset More

Meta Cancels High-End Mixed-Reality Headset

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  • So what (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mustafap ( 452510 ) on Friday August 23, 2024 @11:06AM (#64729286) Homepage

    No one cares

    • Hey, someone on /. agreed with a tech executive! It's a miracle.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Chas ( 5144 )

        To be honest, these devices are still early beta-grade edge case products.

        And the prerequisite amount of disposable income for this sort of thing is disappearing in our economy.

        As such, the effect (positive or negative) of market downturns are obscenely magnified.

        Personally, this sort of thing (FOR ME ALONE) has been little more than a gimmick.

        Looks cool initially, but eventually is a hassle that becomes a barrier to adoption.

  • I think they just need a slightly upgraded meta quest, and just iterate on the software. There isn't a market yet for high end VR headsets, despite Apple's intent. I think Meta really should advertise these as business productivity enhancers. As lame as that sounds. You can have three monitors for the low price of the headset, and be super productive, until the battery runs out or you get tied of wearing it. So increase battery life, increase comfort, keep price low as reasonable. Don't worry about improvin

    • You need the high resolution displays for that. The AVP headset resolution is about the lowest I will tolerate for heavy coding.

      Meta is just not a hardware company, or a productivity company, they have nothing to offer here.

      • How well does that work for you? Virtual Displays and UIs are the Use-Cases that interest me most on the AVP.

        • 1) As a screen enhancement for a macbook, it works extremely well. You will not currently prefer it over your multi-monitor setup, but it is vastly superior to working on a macbook screen, particularly for coding and technical tasks since you can always pull up an on-device browser for documentation while leaving your macbook for terminals/IDE/whatever. Vision OS2 supposedly adds a UHD wrap display that I think offers a second monitor of space, I have not tried it, but that would be excellent. I use this fo

          • 1) As a screen enhancement for a macbook, it works extremely well. You will not currently prefer it over your multi-monitor setup, but it is vastly superior to working on a macbook screen, particularly for coding and technical tasks since you can always pull up an on-device browser for documentation while leaving your macbook for terminals/IDE/whatever. Vision OS2 supposedly adds a UHD wrap display that I think offers a second monitor of space, I have not tried it, but that would be excellent. I use this for many hours, sometimes all day on personal projects, it's definitely the way to go for me.

            2) As a stand-alone coding device: not as great. This is purely a software limitation, the OS currently is basically iPad in 3D. They have full lockdown here, so if you want say, VS Code, you'll be doing so via a browser (and there are a few app store options that work better than safari for this), and using some tunneling software to your code-base. That doesn't meet my needs personally, but it is functional. You can of course pop windows everywhere while decorating your virtual space (Yosemite for me) with random objects, but I'm not really sure that is very practical.

            3) When working with Windows, I have not found a solution I think is stellar, but some apps are better than others. If your PC has the nvidia experience software installed, you can use I think it's called moonlight, and it works reasonably well and you can be productive. The integration isn't great, and it's a little more DIY. I can't vouch for this, but I have tried it out enough I believe there is a good solution if you want to spend the time on it.

            There are also a few things about #2 that might irritate you, we kind of have a problem where they have new technology but haven't figured out how to properly apply it. The vision tracking is excellent, but you are going to quickly realize how often your eyes move other places than the screen you are interacting with. You won't want the screen to change focus and the caret to move around just because you're reading documents while your typing buffer carries on. That happens to me quite often, so I don't use this mode except when I don't have my laptop around.

            Also, I don't have a lot of faith in hand gestures as the sole UI for productivity. There are times when it is very nice, but when working you absolutely will require KBAM. That said, Vision OS2 supposedly increases the sampling frequency of hand gestures and I have not downloaded that, so maybe my opinion can change, but right now I'd rather have hardware devices.

            First, thanks for the most erudite and thorough analysis, and I apologize for my tardy reply!

            Interesting that you have been able to use the AVP for useful portions of a workday, and also that, even running vOS 1.x, it is apparently quite useful as a Display-Adjunct. I, too, am fascinated to see how vOS 2 expands on that capability!

            You make a great point about spurious focus-changes caused by semi-involuntary eye movements. I'll bet that vOS is doing quite a balancing-act between fast-tracking and "jumpy". M

      • You need.. higher resolution displays for that, maybe. I think it’s more that we need better tools for that. We keep trying to fit the status quo into a new medium instead of rethinking the status quo. Your computer or device? A 2d texture on an object!! Computing in Vr should be a Vr experience not just a fancy display. You would think in a world with saas where most services and applications have at least a rest interface that developers would actually make use of them but no it’s more like a
      • Do you already have a AVP? Do you have a Quest 3 or Pico 4? Or is your comment based on just specs?

  • "Apple's losing their ass on their headset. Maybe we back-burner this one until the public is more receptive?"

    Damn me. There I go, anthropomorphizing Zuckerberg again.

    • What I want to know is, What is the Use Case for such a device? How does it improve upon the current way things are done in that Use Case? is it a new Use Case? How many users does one expect to find who will glom onto that use case? Will the number of expected users be sufficient to offset the costs to develop, build, market and sell the device? What software exists (or we are writing) to fit that proposed use case? Did any of the VR headset people ever think of those questions before developing thier cra

  • I like just one reality (Score:4, Insightful)

    by mspohr ( 589790 ) on Friday August 23, 2024 @11:18AM (#64729314)

    It's not good to mix your realities.

  • double yawn

  • Why compete? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by SmaryJerry ( 2759091 ) on Friday August 23, 2024 @12:29PM (#64729480)
    When the Vision Pro is vaporware.It will be eliminated in 5 years or less, unless Apple wants to lose their shirt selling a $4,000 device that barely beats the $400 ones.

    • Exactly. Meta knows the more successful strategy, and it's not selling hyper expensive high end best in class headsets at an insane premium while having no content or apps to use on it.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by evanh ( 627108 )

        The better strategy is just don't make stupid products in the first place. Unless it brings a killer app to the table then people just aren't going to be bothered. No one wants a paper weight slung on their heads.

        Actually, TV 3D glasses, which aren't heavy and still didn't take off ... twice, should have been the big clue.

        • The better strategy is just don't make stupid products in the first place.

          A bunch of “dumb fucks” freely handed over their personal information in order to plant the seed that grew into the stupid product known as Facebook.

          Mark the multi-billionaire, would disagree with your strategy.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by evanh ( 627108 )

            Don't think so. I'd guess maybe he's finally realised that spending money doesn't always make an idea successful.

            Zuck didn't have to spend a cent to figure out people were happy to give it away. Only after it was proven did he think the Facebook idea could make money.

    • r&d spending is better than sending as taxes to the govt

  • Why did Zuckerberg cancel the project? Was it because the likelihood for success was low, either due to lack of Meta engineering ability or a view that current supporting technologies weren't sufficiently mature? Was it because the projected total addressable market was too small, or somewhat correspondingly that the use cases weren't compelling? Was it because they feared competition from Apple?

    • My 2 cents: this project was initiated as a result of the Apple Vision Pro launch. Often Apple gets it right. And then Meta should have been ready quickly to compete. However, Apple Vision Pro is less successful than expected, hence the change in strategy. I presume Apple is working on a cheaper replacement for the Vision Pro to make it sell more, but the biggest issue is (lack of) use cases outside for movie watching on an airplane. The Meta Quest 4 is simply a better product now; cheaper, lighter and with

    • Think of it like the Ford has been evaluating four engines for their 2026 Mustang and it was leaked one was dropped from the running. Then the press run with "2026 Ford Mustang canceled!" instead of car designing just doing their jobs and narrowing in the final design of the 2026 Mustang.

      Just your regularly scheduled public service announcement: we have many prototypes in development at all times. But we don't bring all of them to production. We move forward with some, we pass on others. Decisions like this happen all the time, and stories based on chatter about one individual decision will never give the real picture.

      Source: Meta's CEO on Twitter / X [x.com] regarding this leak.

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