Big Tech's Failed Attempt To Replace Smartphones 

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if i could put on my VR headset, and just go straight to my desktop. no nonsense, no OCULUS UI, no silicon valley avatar nonsense, no 'friends list'. leave me alone. straight to my desktop. just be a TOOL. im so tired of all this other stuff and i think others are too. perhaps.

There was a place in my town, back in 18, that tried to make a VR arcade, charging 30$ for 20 minutes. Anybody that had fun, bought a headset for themselves. Anybody with motion sickness never came back. They closed after 4 months.

The smart phone took off because it had a competent internet browser. It's that simple. "The internet in my pocket" sold the smart phone. Not the apps, not the tech, not the touch screens, not anything else, that's all bonus features. We already have the internet in our pocket. What does VR do?

Once I saw that they wanted to utilize VR to join Microsoft Teams calls, I wanted it to fail like nothing else has failed in the history of humankind.

ok but hear me out, wouldn't the world be hugely improved if smartphones DID cause you physical pain after more than 30 minutes of sustained use?

As someone who lives in the heart of Silicon Valley, I think the reason why tech execs keep wanting to replace the smartphone is because they're salty that they weren't working at Apple and Google 15 years ago with a generous amount of stock options. Most executives of startups these days were either at the bottom of the totem pole then (I.E. interns) or were working at startups that failed miserably, resulting in their stock options being worth $0.

Not only are they bulky and make you look funny, what are they really replacing? How is the average consumer going to stop buying a desktop and buy VR goggles instead? They barely have the technology to transcribe speech into text to replace our keyboards, and not without being connected with the internet.

I'm in the "bought a Occulus, used it a few times and put it on the shelf" club. It's real fun, but I can't use it more than 20 minutes until I get a migraine.

How is "add virtual things to your home" a selling point? A virtual note on my fridge? Why? Add a cool new virtual painting? Yeah the painting is gone as soon as I take the headset off... Ppl like real things

Tech companies seem to forget that to make a long term product successful it has to offer a solution to a problem that is better or at least comparable to the alternative

There's a quote from a tech dude I can't name off the top of my head that goes, "From the moment the smartphone debuted, I knew it would be the next big thing in the industry. It's shaped to be conveniently carried in your pocket and fits perfectly in your hand, you know...like a box of cigarettes." Until VR/AR is as convenient as putting on a pair of glasses, it fundamentally does not have the same draw as a smartphone, and the only thing VR is good for is a dedicated gooner

"Who wants to be stuck in this thing all day anyway?" Clearly you've never met a vrchat guy

I used to be what some people have called a "VR enthusiast". I still have all of my VR stuff, their just sitting in boxes; but I had, what was at the time, the most high end headset on the market, full body tracking, a pc built to fight god, a big open space in my apartment. I haven't played a VR game in months now, possibly not in this year. I think that you nailed it on the head that the hassle of setting everything up and putting everything on is what has kept me from booting it up. That, and none of my friends play VRchat anymore.

As someone who is a frequent Quest 2 user I can see how most people will just put their headsets down and not use them after a few weeks, those people clearly didn't get what they wanted from VR. I think there definitely is still a market for VR at least when it comes to gaming because the capacity for immersion its simply unmatched.

Most tech since the smart phone can be described as "you had an idea, but you didn't solve any problems."

I bought an oculus DK1 during the Kickstarter and figured that the next 10 years would be filled with open source and indie developers making cool VR experiences and slowly improving the niche tech. Instead, it had to be "The Next Big Thing" in Silicon Valleys eyes.

Definitely an interesting technology. Silicon valley has pushed it as a "productivity device", where it can replace an expensive and bulky desktop setup, be used for 3d modeling, conferences, etc. But apart from the 3d modeling (which I'm aware has some practical uses within industry), none of those uses are actually better than the alternatives people already have, come with a huge learning curve, the hassle of limited battery, and the other problems you mentioned here. Meanwhile, people who actually like the technology are almost all gamers, and the main killer app for VR is VRChat, a game that could never appeal to a mainstream audience and would get obliterated for copyright infringement if it ever was positioned as a major selling point. It's an ok, unique gaming device that can provide some one of a kind experiences, but the suits want it to be something it isn't.

Isn’t this like the 4th time AR and VR have been touted as “the next big thing”?

Here's the internet in your pocket! --- Neat, thanks. Here's the internet, but as bulky goggles you have to wear on your head, and you have to navigate via a first person avatar! --- Uhm... no?

it's like how we all thought we would love video phone calls but instead we just text. The tech can be seamless but what does it provide? nothing new of value.

>the ability to easily put a moving 3-dimensional illusion of anything anywhere in real space. >use it to simulate 2-dimensional screens. Golly, I don't know what could have been done differently...

We treat Vr like another story of the internet but we often forget that it has to be easy for the average consumer. Personal computers didn't take off because people thought it was the future it became simple enough for people to understand and people were finding uses for it. once something has enough of a use it can grow if you have something that has possiblities of uses thats cool and all but vr is more like 1990s internet rn.

There's a 50 something year old guy where I work who rarely ever unglues his face from his smartphone, but I have to help him use the computers at work because he literally does not know which button on the mouse to click for what reason

Oddly enough, google glasses seem like the best, least intrusive form of this kind of tech, and it was dumped over a decade ago

My parents first phone were both work phones. The reason the smartphone took off is that it had practical business applications, VR doesn't. Why use an ugly, cringey, glitchy, gimmicky, expensive VR conference room when a Zoom call already exists? I remember watching a video (probably from you) about how the cheapest video game console always wins, and well... VR is far from cheap.

shame that my skull is deformed from the car crash so I can’t even use a VR headset at all

I love my quest 3. When I’m not recovering from surgery, I’m using it every day for over an hour just to exercise. I’ve lost weight and feel better than I have in years. I’m the kind of guy who wants to use it and will use it religiously. Most people aren’t me.

Europe has it really bad with VR Headset prices. While the Apple Vidion Pro costs $3500 in the US it costs $5500/€5000 here. 3500 was already a stupidly high price, but 5500 is ridiculous. Every other headset also costs at least 50-70% more here.

VR got me through the pandemic and i couldnt imagine going through that, being stuck at home, and not being able to just throw on my Rift S and escape into VRchat or Elite Dangerous.

"People don't buy video game boxes with no games" You suuuuure about that

I am starting to feel like there's a lot of parallel between VR now and like, handheld gaming in the 90s. We remember the good parts, but we forget 90% of the Gameboy library was complete garbage, the screen was impossible to see if you didn't have the exact right angle at the exact right time of day, we forget how much of an impractical pain it was actually carrying around all your spare carts and battery packs and your light accessory (that sucked balls) etc etc... I don't think VR is gonna ever take over and be THE era defining world changing tech, but it will have its DS/PSP golden age someday, in a generation or two.

I have a feeling smartphones won't be dethroned for a long time, like decades.

If that's the case then I'm kind of relieved that AR/VR glasses won't be widely used. Imagine in the near future being surrounded by people wearing these at the grocery store. They're all bumping into things and getting distracted from having their attention split, possibly scanning you for info or taking pictures without your knowledge. And who would stop them from wearing them in the car if they look just like sunglasses?

I still love the smartphone because I have not forgotten that it is basically sci-fi that it even exists lol. As a 90s kid my mind was blown by portable tech like camcorders and Gameboys. Later in my teen years I got my hands on a digital camera that could take pictures AND video AND voice memos… that just was not a common thing and the 60 dollars I spent on a 128 (megabyte) card complimented it well. Anyway, my brain has held onto those memories and I can’t help but view the iPhone I’m typing on right now as straight up sorcery. Add the capabilities of internet and entertainment of all sorts and smartphones laying to the wayside just seems absurd.

Thankfully, My phone doesn’t physically hurt me after an hour. It only hurts me psychologically.

VR is amazing, but do you think the average person wants to turn their head and body to perform tasks that could be done on a rectangle that fits in their pocket with little conscious input?

As a glasses wearing person I don't see how anyone would want to hull around this tub of a device on their face all day long

Guess I'm the minority. Love my VR gear, I've had the CV1, Quest 2 and Quest 3. Spend between 1 and 2 hours a day in it, but when something new comes out (which is sadly rare) I can easily spend 6 or more hours in one go, hooked up to a battery. Games like Blade and Sorcery, H3VR, and Into The Radius have gameplay that you absolutely, positively CANNOT get anywhere else outside of VR. I posted a video of a tense encounter where I needed both my hands but also needed to see in a dark corner. Without thinking about it I take my flashlight, turn it on and toss it into the dark corner of the room while I wait for the ambush. It's such a unique experience having the freedom to do nearly anything you can imagine.

I actually got to try a VR headset over the weekend. I wouldn't consider it much more than a gimmick or something for specific games like simulators.

The problem with vr is that it doesn't really offer anything that a phone cant. Why would you want to browse the internet or read emails with a VR headset? Smart phones are basically perfect because they're quick and simple. At the end of the day, what would be more convenient? Strapping on a headset and controller to just look up stuff? Or pulling out your phone? In my humble opinion, VR will likely remain a niche novelty for enthusiasts.

UI is something that always makes me hesitate on getting more niche tech devices. Seems like the layout is an afterthought for these companies. The OG Samsung Folds were notoriously buggy in that regard. Apps never scaled properly to the correct aspect ratio the way you would expect them to, and those were premium flagships.

There are two types of people who make up 99% of the 1000+ hours VR customer base: those autisticly invested in one of the few games (beatsaber), and the alcoholics (vrchat)

I am pretty bummed by how I now interact with VR tech. I splurged on a pretty advanced setup and used to use it daily, but the hassle of resetting my audio devices, untangling the wires, standing in a specific spot in my room, and needing to acclimate is no longer outweighed by cool new software. Cool VR games don't seem to come out anymore, and so now it's a fragile $1k device I use to make Elite Dangerous a bit more interesting.

When wearing a Vision Pro and accidentally clicking delete on your project: "Don't look at confirm! Don't look at it! DON'T LOOK AT IT!"

I got my Quest 3 for Christmas and ive ended up playing that more then flatscreen games

I’m one of those ‘Stop using their meta quest after a month’ people. Incredible it’s the norm but I get it. It’s just so much more hassle than booting up steam

VR is cool af, you wanna use it all the time. But then the novelty wears off. All that stuff about using your headset instead of your phone is cool for the first week, then you realize pulling your phone out is easier and less annoying. As much as I like VR and all the potential it has, I can't see it as anything more than a novelty, no matter how small and light and cheap it gets.

I feel like these companies tried to turn VR into something which it was never meant to be and we can thank Zuck and his Metaverse for that. I love VR but its been a while since i've used it and everytime i use i still feel an awe but i also never used it for many hours. The way i always saw it was like having an Arcade Lounge right in your home, its great for a few hours but you don't stay for too long there and not everyday. Its also very exhausting to use them, especially for me because of motion sickness, never finished Half Life Alyx because of that. So expecting these things to replace smartphones any time soon is just silly.

With the iPhone, people have had phones for years so it was easy to adopt. Apple Watch, people have had watches and are used to the idea. With Vision Pro, it is something very new to consumers, and most people don’t have experience with something like this. Once they are glasses I think the familiarity for people will increase adoption.

My reason for VR sticking on my shelf is simply I don’t have enough room. The area I would use is shared by other people in the house, but I don’t want to move a bunch of stuff just so I can mess around for a couple hours in a VR game.

I have a Quest 2 and love the thing, awesome for gaming, but I despise the idea of using it for anything else, and would be extremely extremely embarrassed to wear it or see someone wearing it in public. Can we keep it for gaming please?

People want VR, the type of VR you see on shows or movies. The holodeck from star trek. Not some goggles.

I would love to get into VR, but there's multiple issues. Price is a big one, especially with the rising prices of groceries and gas and other stuff. And sure, I'll agree it needs more things to do. I think people are viewing "nobody is buying it" as lack of interest when in reality its a priority thing. Would I rather get a VR headset or be homeless this month, not exactly difficult choice. Also, I will say that I do the exact same stuff with my consoles. I buy them, play the game I wanted to play, and then it sits there gathering dust until another game comes out that I want to play. The only thing I haven't done that with is my computer, but my computer does more than a console or a VR headset.

I watched old people in the 90s touch a PC for the first time and have zero issues understanding how moving the mouse moved the cursor. It's a lot more intuitive than you make it seem.

The reason you feel sick in headsets is the same reason people can get sick playing first person shooters. There's liquid in your ears that detects movement and momentum. It's essential for keeping your balance. It's your gyroscope. The dizziness and nausea are caused by the disconnect of your eyes seeing motion but your ears not detecting any. It impacts people to varying degrees. For me, it's really bad. There's a lot of games I can't play. I can't even watch movies with 3d glasses on. XD

I've worked in VR demoing programs for NVIDIA and in a sort as a guide for games in an arcade like setting.. And I can say whole heatedly.... The novelty wears off FAST! Think the Nintendo Wii, fun at parties, buuuuut it's just not as chill as using a simple controller... And being surrounded by AR all day sounds like living hell.

problem with VR is we are trying to make it do everything all at once, what we should do is make glasses that act as a Heads up Display (HUD), have it do a few things that we all can easily access like display local weather, messages, navigation like you were a videogame character. after we get that down then we can start trying to pump it up with new software and other things. I for one really wanted something cool like a VR device. an Anime .Hack does it well with both a mobile and stationary version.

VR is not the future, AR is. You wont feel motion sickness when you are actually moving through the world. AR goggles with the form factor of normal glasses with the functionalities of the vision pro will definitely become big. Because there are just so many use cases. Imagine studying in a classroom where the teacher can just pull up models of historical events in history or demonstrate physical simulations in physics. Imagine looking at a plant and all the relevant information of it pops up. You can attach notes around the world in a digital space for others to find. Make art in VR and put it special places. There are so many advantages to having AR Glasses that it will feel like a disability not having them, just like how it is with phones.

The perks that VR grants aren't saving anyone a whole bunch of hassle like smartphones. The cost-benefit analysis isn't worth it to most people.

I think vr isn't going to be big cause lots of people wanna just escape from technology

Unlike all those other tech, VR is actually a problem to a solution, recreating depth perception and having physical presence. Now the problem is people don't really value that. It costs more than just money. It costs calories.

I want vr for games. Anything else you could use vr for you could also do cheaper/easier with stuff we already had. I think gaming vr as way more a chance then general purposes vr.

As someone who's working on the ''science fiction graphene sort of stuff'' I think the ultra thin smart glasses that last 8h on a single charge are coming within 10-15 years max. Btw it's not gonna be graphene but rather other two-dimensional materials (graphene might be part of the material stacks) that are gonna revolutionize LED devices and sensors

i got distracted rooting for the DVD screensaver to perfectly hit the corner of the screen.

I think the big difference between the Smartphone and all the other smart thingies that came after was the attitude form the companies making these things. To be more specific, Google and Apple. In the early Smartphone days it was like "do whatever you want you can do with these things, even if its kind of ridiculous". Like in the days of 3.5" phones, really it was goofy to watch youtube, play GTA 3 or browse the internet which at the time was almost exclusively made up of desktop sites because that was the norm. But over time both the Software and the hardware adapted to how real people were using these things. Phones got bigger and more powerful and websites made mobile friendly sites or Apps. This is so drastically different from for example Smartwatches, where the manufacturers from the start tightly controlled everything - no fun allowed. With many you don't even have a webbrowser and all Apps have to be super optimized for the formfactor and can't offer more than super basic features because that would go against the ethos of maximum minimalism.

I love how these companies think that everyone's jobs are just reading reports and spinning 3D models around with their mouth hanging open.

It's absurd to think that current vr technology is even reasonably good enough to assume it CAN'T "replace smartphones.' It's dumb to fall for marketing tricks, then go on to assume the entire concept is bust. Literally everyone here is complaining about vr currently or their experiences in the past whilst assuming it won't ever improve.

I remember the days my parents would tell me to get get away from staring at the TV closely. Having VR up on your eyes is probably not good for them.

Even if the technology advances i just dont think headsets will ever be for me personally i dont like the idea of having to wear something on my head for entertainment

Big Tech doesn't believe in diminishing returns.

I love your voice activated animation. Is it powered by Fugi Tech?

Closing off my 2 most important sense just makes that little lizard part of my brain that keeps animals from being eaten to start screaming

Being a person who know enough about the human body, biology and physics, I laughed since the beginning at the prospect of VR headsets becoming mainstream or even useful. It's just not possible not only for the technology but for the biological makeup a human body carries. I think this only can work with a kind of biotech. Something like our own brains and body make the work helped by technology (chips, programming, something of the sort) but that's science fiction and not something we could achieve in the next century AT LEAST

Honestly, I had to learn this too. I bought a Quest 2, broke the bank, I seriously overspent. I wanted to play Beat Saber and get a workout, in a way that's not so hard psychologically. And I ended up not using the headset for a year. Serious regrets. It's just such a commitment to put the thing on. I got back into it finally, now I play Rumble, a competitive fighting game, and I like interacting with people, and I'm excited to get better, to train. I get a real workout, I don't have a problem starting to play anymore. Maybe I'll get bored, but I got Broken Edge lined up, maybe will check out Monkey Tag too. But yeah, at least it wasn't a waste in the end, it did help my health, otherwise I'd never be motivated enough to do it. But it was close. So close to being an absurdly expensive paperweight. I was super excited, had a specific usecase I wanted it for, had motivation, and no motion sickness. And still, just putting the thing on is too much of a commitment. It's just not effortless. And there isn't an infinite amount of things to do. If I want an addictive competitive game, my PC offers them by the dozen. Here, I can run out, and will have to wait for new devs, and I don't know how long it could take. I hope Rumble and others will last me some time.

I got a Vive headset a few months after it was released, and I started spending an hour or 2 most nights playing Elite Dangerous in VR. I found that I didn't have much of an issue with motion sickness (it helps that the game is a flight sim so it's played entirely from the chair), but I did start to feel this weird strain in my eyes. I think it's because even though your eyes will move to perceive things as closer or further by parallax, there's no corresponding change in your eyes' focal distance the same way as happens IRL. Your eyes are always focused for a screen a fixed distance from your face, even when your brain is seeing objects closer and further away. That makes this weird tension that you can maybe get used to but it makes VR feel just a bit "off" to me. And it's one of those issues that current screen technology can't really fix.

I have a 3d tv. I've used it so much that now... when I use my phone... red lettering and objects float above above blue and green when there's a black background.

VR is something you try a couple times and then forget about - unless you're an avid user who has one or two games to play most of the time like VRChat or racing games.

Your videos are funny and informative in equal amounts. Genius

Some of my irl friends swear vr is the best thing ever and will take off soon. Then waste thousands of dollars on new vr crap in their overpriced apartment. Like, bro. They could probably have made a down-payment on a house where we live. Also, vr sucks. Gives me a headache and the games are lame.

The first virtual game we had, you stood in a platform, put a huge headset on and had a handheld button device. People thought "This is awesome!" So what did you get to do in this virtual world? Throw projectiles at a pterodactyl. $20 for 10 minutes. Not to mention it probably cost more than a car to purchase at the time. Ok, awesome for novelty, but 10 minutes was about the limit you would bother to try. No replayability value, clunky graphics and laggy enough where it effected your ability to play. Ok, now it's better developed 30 years later, but nothing has changed. It's still the same gimmicky, one hit wonder. Nothing interesting for more than a quick play with. It's cheaper more streamlined, but it still has no practical use in any way that you can't already do with an "antiquated" laptop. I recently got a portable GPS map device for my birthday for the dashboard of my car. Its suffering from the exact same problem. It's superfluous. It was supposed to make it easier to use google maps while driving, and it suffers the same problem VR does. Why? Why do I need a portable dashboard device I have to remove and hide to stop theives from being tempted to steal? I have to remove it to protect it from being damage by summer heat in the car as well. I have to screw around setting it up every time I get in the car. It takes time to get itself loaded, and I can't play my music while using it. Why? Because the entire device is not only set up to function through my mobile phone, it's a completely redundant system that the phone already does more efficiently. I now have to set up two devices to do the same function my phone already did. VR is exactly the same. It's a gold plated backscratcher when the stick you already had was just as effective, and this is the problem starting to take shape in a lot of tech these days. Superfluous design that has no real advantage in to the technology it's trying to surpass.

Honestly, it should look like eyeglasses and not like a headset.

i think a large part of the problem is the intention. trying to replace the smartphone is going to be extremely difficult and require mature technology.

Things going mainstream is what always, always ruins them. The best is when niche markets are self-sustainable thanks to their dedicated audience. Sadly, too many people believe something is a failure unless it continuously grows forever.

I mean, VR is fun for gaming, and I have a Vive, but I can't imagine it being all that useful for everyday work-related stuff.

funny video, but why do you need to adjust the strap or IPD every time? once it's fit for you, you just wear it like a cap. Maybe a problem in households where many are passing the headset around - yeah, thing's supposed to be individual, just like a phone. Maybe when it can finally replace a phone, we can stop complaining needing to buy both? anyway, big corps can do whatever, flatlanders too. I've been into videogames since late 70s, never missed a console generation. There's nothing more nextgen than VR - I feel sorry for the people missing all the fun in Atari or NES because they want a PS5 in 40 years...

How will the headset add value to ones 4 hour crank/cry-sesh after work is a tale as old as time

Also, something we can't ever fix because physics, batteries get hot.

This has been "a nice to have" in the CAD world for 20 years, not a must have.

Ever since smartphones peaked, these big tech companies have just been hopelessly struggling.

I completely like the idea of the Apple VR headset or Meta VR headsets, especially if they can make the technology smaller, cheaper, and better. I would love to see it in the form of glasses, but I don't think I ever want to replace my smartphone. I would rather see it as a secondary device to my smartphone, but also something that can function independently, unlike a smartwatch which becomes kind of useless without being connected to a phone. The idea of watching some RU-vid or TV shows in the background while I'm doing menial activities, or video calling family or friends without lifting a finger, seamlessly integrated into my daily life, sounds really cool.

my quest makes me nauseous and paranoid

I work at a hospital and this one doctor has told me that the Apple Vision Pro completely changed his workflow and refuses to do work without it now. According to him, he will have patient data from the software Epic pinned on his wall while he has other related apps around him while he's moving room-to-room. His extremely niche use-case really stuck with me because that's probably the only useful story I've heard for using VR in the workspace.

We want HOLOGRAMS

Buying a $400 something headset and needing to buy a better offbrand strap because the default one is trash, and putting on the headset to see that just about every game worth playing is at least $30. Sitting there you realize that this fun little off and on play/novel gimmick device is much more of an investment than you thought, and all those games you bought can only be played for an hour before you get a headache and your guts want to exit your skinsuit because the graphics just aren't there yet. Needless to say I hope I can sell my Quest 2 for a decent amount...

2 VIEWS BRO FELL OFF

i feel like the cameras mixed with social media was a big reason smart phones did will.

You know who else had a failed attempt? MY MOM!

We are for sure at a plateau of technology. It'll be interesting to see what actually pushes into the next phase of whatever is to come.

3 views in one minute bro fell off ☠️☠️