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After the Apple demo on stage I had similar thoughts.

All in all the demos are less ambitious than demos we saw 5 years ago with Magic. It even seems less ambitious than HoloLens promotional videos.

But what it does, seems to be done at a quality level substantially above anything seen before (not just anything in the consumer market)

But I also felt that is what made the promises believable and the device desirable.

I left apples online presentation wanting to try experience it, maybe even own it, which is unlike any other headset so far.

“I’ve tried all of the experiences and stabs at making fetch happen when it comes to XR.”

This is the most apt analogy I’ve come across for the attempted XR products over the years.

Is kind of strange how attached Silicon Valley is to XR. They keep trying and trying, even when time and again the response is “stop trying to make it happen, it’s not going to happen”

Heck, just plug a chip in my visual cortex and one in my spinal cord already -- I don't want to just see a butterfly, I want to feel it!
The main issue with VR is that there is still a headset that you have to wear, which even at a pound weight will make most peoples neck sore after a while (considering people who will get this probably don't have the best habits for posture anyways). There is a reason why most VR headsets get used only once.

Will be interesting to see if the experience in this can offset it. My bet is on no. I wish the focus would shift to AR. Having a pair of sunglasses that can display programmable text based on picture from embedded glasses is 10 times more useful than this thing.

I said this in a previous thread and I'll repeat it here again.

Magic Leap[1] did it years ahead of them, and in my opinion better.

I mean - they're doing pass-through AR which is silly. There's all this work being done to emulate people and faces when they could just build lenses.

I feel like I'm taking crazy pills watch everyone get so hyped over this, because there's literally better devices already out on the mark. This is effectively a $3500 Oculus device. Like what the heck? I know it's just because Apple made it, but still. This is pretty weird to watch the reaction.

[1]https://www.magicleap.com

Did they do it better though?

Their ambition was way higher than what Apple presented, but I've never heard of anyone talk about or write a review about a good Magic Leap device. My impression was that it was complete vapor ware.

The demos looked amazing and completely faked.

Magic Leap didn't do it though. They said they were going to do it. But at no point did they actually do it.
The fact that they've shipped two devices says otherwise? What are you trying to prove by being contrarian? They've shipped products that people are using.
My mistake - I managed to completely miss the Magic Leap 2 actually coming out. It's not what they originally promised, but they have delivered something.
Magic Leap 2 is roughly same price point ($3300 base, $4100 dev pro), but so far aimed at enterprise only. Android dev environment. Also Unity integration. Looks lighter to wear. Much lower resolution screens. Interesting comparison point going forward.