- You may think Apple's new headset is ridiculous, but you should cheer the company anyway.
- Innovation is expensive, difficult, and risky — and the only way to create a better future.
Well, the catcalls are coming fast and furious now.
Apple's new augmented-reality goggles have the haters in a tizzy. They look ridiculous! They cost a fortune! Steve Jobs must be rolling over in his grave!
Whatever.
You literally cannot make, do, or say anything these days without some jackass (or many) howling about what an idiot you are. It has always been much easier to sound smart by criticizing other people's ideas and innovations than it is to create your own. And nothing brings out the critics like a bold new product launch.
But even if we're skeptical about the mass appeal of Apple's new "Vision Pro" — and I am — we should cheer the company for its creativity, bravery, and willingness to innovate.
There are some who believe that the way to solve the world's problems is to roll back the clock — to return us to a prehistoric era, before we began to invent things that we hoped would make life better and, in the process, created a lot of new problems.
This approach sometimes sounds appealing, but it's impractical. Human innovation has created far more value for us than problems. And there's no way we will all agree to just go back.
So the only way out is forward.
The reason I'm skeptical about the mass appeal of Vision Pro, at least in its current form, is that I don't think normal people want to wear ski goggles unless they have to. Even when I'm skiing, I don't like to wear ski goggles. I put them up on my hat the first chance I get. And I don't think creating "eyes" on the outside of my goggles to make me look friendlier is going to change that.
I do think there are certain communities and applications that might see fast adoption of Apple's goggles — gaming, for example. Or professional training. But I've thought that about full-on virtual-reality goggles, too, and people don't seem to be in a hurry to start using those.
But a lot of smart people were impressed and inspired by Apple's demo Monday, and I respect their optimism. The points they made that I find persuasive include:
This is version 1.0. The goggles will be, look, and feel a lot cooler in five to 10 years.
Basic desktop computers used to be fantastically expensive, too — like $10,000 in today's dollars. So for a first-generation device, the price of these goggles isn't unprecedented. And, by the way, even if you hate the price, applaud Apple's business savvy. At $3,500 apiece, they won't incinerate billions on hardware costs, the way other "spatial computing" innovators have. They'll learn. And then the components and product will get cheaper.
New platforms create whole new use cases that are "native" to the platform — and we don't know what the killer apps for mixed-reality goggles will be yet. The most successful mobile apps were not those that were "ported" from desktops. They were apps that weren't possible (or sucked to use) with desktops. For the sake of its demo, Apple pretended that we might use its goggles to do the same things we do with our iPhones today, but that seems unlikely. We don't yet know what the "killer app" for spatial computers will be.
So I'm not ready to write off Apple's goggles yet.
But, more importantly, I applaud Apple for, once again, captivating us with a truly innovative product launch. Contrary to what the haters are suggesting, Steve Jobs would have loved that.
Innovation is exciting and inspiring. It is the only way to address our problems and move us forward. It's not always (or even ever) a straight line up and to the right. But it's the only way to create a better future.
So, well done, Apple!