I'm puzzled by this announcement. The device seems fantastic, but the app lineup on the site is incredibly lame. Adobe Acrobat? Dropbox? Smartsheet?
I get it, they're focusing on corporate / professional users, but gosh, I'm not spending $1,650 bucks on such an innovative device to run Adobe Acrobat and freaking spreadsheet-based project management tool!
Where's the "wow" first-party apps for the Pro? Where's the new version of Supernatural? Beat Saber? Minecraft in AR/VR? Or whatever fancy B2B apps they spent this last year working on (they do exist, right? Right?). In my mind you need to appeal to both end users and the professional audience at the same time, in order to move the industry forward. Otherwise you'll end up with a HoloLens-like marketshare.
I'm saying this as an early adopter since Oculus Kickstarter days, and really want to see the whole vr/ar/metaverse succeed. But Meta could take a page from Apple playbook on how to put together keynotes and product launches.
ps: on the positive side, the Carmack Unscripted livestream was great. John continues to be in his best shape, and too bad the conversation was 'cut short' (by his standards).
(responding to a now deleted comment, that argued that this wasn't an announcement for people who play Beat saber, and the whole segmentation of pro users vs. end-users made sense)
I agree the segmentation of devices makes sense, but it requires an app ecosystem that sits on top and needs to work for everyone together, and you need developers creating those experiences. Like when Apple launched iOS 2 and supported apps for the first time; you need a strong line up of developers and creators in order to move the industry forward.
Adobe Acrobat is not the thing to get corporate users excited. Nor Smartsheet. Where's Zoom and meetings with 3D spatial audio? Autodesk? Maya? Matlab? Training experiences? And yes, bring in games, fitness apps, movies together. We talk so much about "making remote work fun", that this can be a fantastic team experience to blend experiences.
But ok, it seems I'm overreacting to a lousy product landing page put together at the last minute. I'm now watching the keynote[1][2] (which, weirdly, it's not linked anywhere), and it's waay better.
As I expected, lots of mentions of new games, fitness apps, Marvel movies, and all intermixed with Zoom and Microsoft Teams (ha!), virtual monitors, collaboration tools, etc. And if you pay close attention, you'll notice that Beat Saber came right after Accenture and Satya Nadella (!), and discussions on the future of work. So it seems they are indeed blurring the lines between these segments, no matter what device you're using.
I'm still a believer, both as a professional and end user [3], so looking forward to testing the new hardware.
I get it, they're focusing on corporate / professional users, but gosh, I'm not spending $1,650 bucks on such an innovative device to run Adobe Acrobat and freaking spreadsheet-based project management tool!
Where's the "wow" first-party apps for the Pro? Where's the new version of Supernatural? Beat Saber? Minecraft in AR/VR? Or whatever fancy B2B apps they spent this last year working on (they do exist, right? Right?). In my mind you need to appeal to both end users and the professional audience at the same time, in order to move the industry forward. Otherwise you'll end up with a HoloLens-like marketshare.
I'm saying this as an early adopter since Oculus Kickstarter days, and really want to see the whole vr/ar/metaverse succeed. But Meta could take a page from Apple playbook on how to put together keynotes and product launches.
ps: on the positive side, the Carmack Unscripted livestream was great. John continues to be in his best shape, and too bad the conversation was 'cut short' (by his standards).
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33169482