Tim Cook’s “Steve Jobs Moment”?
The magic of Apple is in transforming cumbersome, often niche gadgets into powerful and intuitive extensions of the human mind and body.
This coming Monday, Apple is set to unveil its extended reality (XR) headset. This has been a long time coming, in the sense that the project has been in development for the better part of a decade, but also in the sense that it’s arguably the first major new platform they’ve unleashed on the world since the iPhone fifteen years ago (the iPad is a member of the iOS platform and the watch is more or less supplemental).
When the iPhone was released the mobile internet wasn’t really a thing. But over the last 16 years it went through stages of nascent and then explosive growth until it replaced many functions of the conventional internet. One can argue that it’s just another layer on top of the existing internet, and that’s true. But it’s impossible to ignore the transformation of the internet from a relatively static platform of websites and terminals, to one that we take with us in our pockets wherever we go and can access almost anywhere for myriad purposes.
I believe we’re again at the threshold of a new platform paradigm, which may follow a similar adoption arc as the last one, but this time with wearable headsets and a 3D internet. An obvious question would be, why now? Why hasn’t this happened already?
Virtual reality came onto the scene a few years ago, but seems to have been mostly forgotten by the mainstream. From a consumer standpoint, augmented reality seems to have been even more of a bust, showing up over a decade ago in the form of Google Glass then dying almost immediately. Mixed reality, extended reality? Few people have heard of those or know what they are, or care to. All despite billions being poured into R&D. These technologies are all part of a spectrum, a technological category that is still in its infancy and has vastly more potential than has been realized so far.
Why have they stagnated despite all the resources spent on making them stick? Think back to 2007. Mobile phones were not great. They did two things relatively well: call and text. Music? A total hassle. Photos? Forget it. The exception was Blackberry and only for work-related things like email.
It wasn’t for lack of trying on the parts of the companies making phones. It was lack of vision. But when a rare visionary came along and showed us the potential of mobile, hand-operated devices that everyone could understand instantly, the category exploded.
Steve Jobs made a habit of dramatically unveiling revolutionary devices, all of which changed their respective categories overnight. Think about the iMac, the iPod, the iPhone, and the iPad. None of them created a new category. But they all revitalized existing ones and blew the clunky competition out of the water.
The magic of Apple is in transforming cumbersome, often niche gadgets into powerful and intuitive extensions of the human mind and body. The company bends technology to work with and accommodate the human experience, rather than the other way around. This is the reason for its broad appeal. And the reason it is now the most valuable company on the planet.
True, it was Jobs that created this dynamic from whole cloth. And yes, Jobs is gone. But he didn’t just mastermind a handful of products. He created an institution, and imbued it with a culture that exemplified what he stood for in terms of creating technology to serve humanity.
Now may be Tim Cook’s “Steve Jobs moment,” the unveiling of a new and revolutionary Apple platform. And once again, the company stands poised to shake up and disrupt. The potential is as vast as ever.
The first generation Apple headset will be bold, yet perhaps not earth shattering. It will be powerful, but probably not perfect. I doubt it will hit the experiential sweet spot we’ve come to expect from Apple, and it will likely be criticized by some as a flop. But that criticism will be missing the point.
The 1st generation is primarily meant for developers and early adopters, folks who can discover new use cases and then build and test the first wave of apps. This may even be true of the first few generations. Apple will build and iterate and build again, working closely with the community of developers and core users.
But eventually we should hit a point when the power of Apple XR will be fit neatly into a regular pair of glasses. Then it will be ready for primetime. When we put them on, our facial expressions and hand gestures will be live in a shared 3D virtual world, and we will see that world visually layered over and enmeshed inside our real one. Our immersive connection will be as portable as a smartphone, yet even more captivating and personal. It will be eerily fluid with our physical existence.
All the prior generations will have been building to this point. The many applications and experiences available by then will have been the products of earlier user engagement and iteration.
Some have argued that VR will never gain mainstream adoption because it pulls the user out of the real world, rather than enriching it. That may be true. But VR is only a subset of the spectrum of extended reality. The majority of applications will serve to enhance rather than escape. In fact, the Apple headset has a dial that allows the user to fluidly adjust the augmentation. As a user, if you feel cut off from your surroundings, just turn down the virtual.
Of course, there will always be full VR applications like games, and other immersive experiences that transport the user elsewhere (Super Bowl tickets, anyone?). But there will also be applications that augment the real world, bringing virtual guests into the wearers’ home, or adding informative visuals like signs or directions, and a great many more. We’ve only seen the tip of the iceberg in terms of potential applications so far. But if Apple’s history is any indication, we may be on the cusp of an explosion in development.