Apple’s Vision Pro launch resembles its Apple Watch debut in more ways than one, but to me the most telling similarity is in the marketing approach. Apple has striven to distance the Vision Pro from the existing crop of virtual reality (and even mixed reality) devices — many of which are objective failures — by exclusively focusing on the term “spatial computing”; however, the marketing seems focused on identifying a few key use cases it thinks will best drive consumer interest.
The company took the same approach with the Apple Watch, which like its face computer cousin, was more or less a solution in search of a problem when it originally debuted. Apple initially focused on a lot of features the Apple Watch has now actually done away with entirely, including its Digital Touch stuff that was meant to be a new paradigm for quickly communicating with friends and loved ones across distances. In general, it was presented as a relatively robust and full-featured platform nearly on par with the iPhone in terms of future potential.
The intervening years and generations of Apple Watch have seen it grow considerably in terms of pure technical capability and specifications, yet the marketing and focus around the product from Apple’s side has been more economical, spending outsized effort at the areas that seemed to resonate best with users — including health and wellness, and more recently, safety.
To some degree, all new product launches are predicated on a hypothesis that ends up being more or less true, but seldom exactly accurate. But the iPhone debuted with a much more focused, and much more accurate idea of what it would become for users than the Apple Watch did. The Vision Pro, I’d argue, is even more adrift from how and why people will come to appreciate it. Given the right positioning and product mix to support it, I think the Vision Pro could become a lasting part of Apple’s overall mix, but not if it continues to aim for being a full-fledged platform able to stand on more or less equal footing with the iPhone, the Mac, or even the iPad.
Meta has done a much better job arriving at some kind of focus for how it’s selling VR to the masses. The company took a much softer, “mixed reality is cool” position to the recent launch of the Meta Quest 3, versus the “metaverse is the next big thing in computing” hardline take it attempted to force down our throats in the Quest 2 generation. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg seems to be moving his chips from the metaverse to AI as the next big thing he’s got extreme FOMO about, which has to have helped ease that positioning switch.
Meta is leaning in to what Apple already learned with the Apple Watch: Some devices just aren’t good at certain things, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be amazing at another. Oddly, Apple has already also kind of learned this lesson — and one that might apply even in terms of the specifics of what it is and isn’t good at — with the iPad.
The iPad has become an excellent and well-favored couch content-consumption device. Apple still touts its creative prowess, but that’s mostly on the Pro models, and even then it’s likely a secondary or bonus use case for most buyers. The Vision Pro is already being lauded by early reviewers as an amazing virtual theater for watching movies and consuming other kinds of video content, while even tasks like basic text input are instead facing sometimes harsh critique.
The Meta Quest 3 is also excellent for just watching videos, but it also feels tailor-made for interactive workout use cases like that provided by Supernatural, which Meta wisely purchased. It’s terrible at text entry and productivity, on the other hand, and any gains in that direction tend to just reduce annoyance, rather than making it actually pleasant to use for those things.
The entirety of the push of VR to become a mainstream general-purpose computing platform has been more about an imagined future reliant on how the technology has worked in sci-fi, which ignores key details like how your nose feels when you wear something heavy across its bridge, or how horrible it is to type on a keyboard that floats some indeterminate distance in front of you and that offers zero tactile feedback.
VR is very good at the things it’s very good at, and it’s wonderful in small doses for stationary, interactive or passive experiences that benefit from a sense of immersion. It’s terrible at a lot of other things — chief among them being the next big thing in the vein of personal computing or mobile.
Vroom is shutting down its online used car marketplace and shifting all of its resources and capital into two business units focused on auto financing and AI-powered analytics. About 800 employees, or 90% of its workforce, will lose their jobs as a result, according to a regulatory filing .
The company said it is suspending all used car transactions through vroom.com and plans to sell off its used vehicle inventory to wholesalers. The company said it has not determined how much this wind down will cost, partly because of uncertainty on what its used vehicle inventory will sell for, according to the regulatory filing.
Vroom, which went public in 2020 , said it now plans to concentrate on two other businesses its owns and operates: United Auto Credit Corporation and CarStory. UACC, an automotive finance company, and CarStory, which developed an AI-powered analytics and digital services platform for automotive retailers, will continue to operate.
Vroom was part of a wave of U.S. startups that launched about a decade ago all aiming to disrupt used car sales and the traditional dealership model. Most of these startups — a batch that included Shift Technologies , Beepi and Fair.com — have shut down or were acquired. Vroom survived and emerged as competitor to Carvana, which went public in 2017.
The company had one of the more successful IPOs of 2020, its share price more than doubling on its first day of trading and raising $468 million, above earlier plans for $356 million. Its share price hit a high of $65.01 in August 2020, only to come tumbling down more than 60% over the following year. The drop in valuation continued into 2022, pushing Vroom shares to under $2. Vroom shares closed at $0.53 on Monday and then dropped to $0.25 after the company announced its plans to shutter the e-commerce business. Shares are now hovering at about $0.32.
It was during those high-flying stock days that Vroom acquired Vast Holdings, which included CarStory, for $120 million in cash and stock.
At the time, the acquisition was couched as complimentary to Vroom’s e-commerce business . The Austin,Texas-based company used machine learning, form of AI in which computer systems can analyze, process and learn from data, to analyze millions of vehicle listings a day. The software it developed could then be used to provide predictive data to Vroom’s e-commerce platform. Vroom has since sold those services to third-parties as well.
Vroom acquired in October 2021 United Auto Credit Corporation for $300 million in cash.
However this all plays out, 2023 will almost certainly be regarded as a pivotal year for AR and VR. After years of waiting for the category to have its iPhone moment, Apple finally unveiled the Vision Pro during WWDC back in June. It was everything we’ve come to expect from the company: big, boisterous and polished, with lofty promises and a price tag to match.
Having spoken to most of the major vendors over the past year, it seemed like everyone relished the arrival of the 500-pound gorilla. They would, they reckoned, be ships among a rising tide. Even more to the point, perhaps, Apple’s entry would be a sort of validation of years — or even decades — of work.
Certainly the forthcoming Vision Pro has amped up both the attention and the pressure the competition is facing. I would venture a guess that Magic Leap received more press coverage in Apple’s wake than it had since the days it was a mysterious white-hot early-stage startup. I also assume that more people than ever were following Meta’s recent Connect event to see how the company would respond.
Of course, road maps don’t work that way. The Meta Quest was unquestionably in the works well before the Vision Pro was made official. With that in mind, you can’t point to anything specific about the new hardware that is a direct response to Apple. The flip side of that, however, is that Meta has been in this business for some time now. March marks a decade since the company acquired Oculus. Since then, it’s had to blaze its own path.
Image Credits: Darrell Etherington
Image Credits: Darrell Etherington
At this juncture in time, Meta and Apple have arrived on two different sides of the spectrum. While both are effectively mixed reality hardware, there’s a ton of daylight between price points. Surprising many analysts, Apple priced the Vision Pro above even the Magic Leap 2 at $3,500. The Meta Quest 3, on the other hand, is $3,000 less. In other words, Apple’s offering is 6x the price of Meta’s.
While I don’t think anyone is going to credibly argue that the Quest 3 comes anywhere near the Vision Pro in terms of hardware, that’s an extremely stark difference. It’s also one that highlights the wide distinction in terms of audience. Mark Zuckerberg didn’t have to mention the competition by name when he referred to the Quest 3 as, “the first mainstream headset with high-res color mixed reality.”
(Zuck took an even stronger and more direct stance shortly after the Vision Pro’s unveil, stating, “By contrast, every demo that [Apple] showed was a person sitting on a couch by themself. I mean, that could be the vision of the future of computing, but like, it’s not the one that I want.”
Image Credits: Brian Heater
Image Credits: Brian Heater
There’s no hard and fast definition for what constitutes “mainstream,” of course, but point taken. I would argue that $500 is still too high a price point to call the system truly mainstream (the mind boggles at how many of these things the company would sell at $200 a pop), but that’s a far more reasonable request for a vast majority of potential buyers.
Perceived markets also play an outsized role in all of these. Along with acknowledging how difficult content is, Magic Leap’s pivot toward enterprise is a direct result of the hardware’s asking price. There likely isn’t a deep pool of customers willing to pay $3,500 to play casual games on an AR headset. But if you’re able to convince businesses that they’ll be saving a lot of money on training, they will take a good, long look at your offering.
That’s not to say that Meta isn’t also embracing the enterprise. Last year it announced the Quest Pro, at double the price of the Quest 3. While I would argue that the new headset makes the pro version largely superfluous for the vast majority of users, Meta Quest for Business reaffirms its commitment to the category. But the Quest 3 is still very much an entertainment-first device.
Image Credits: Darrell Etherington
Image Credits: Darrell Etherington
While Magic Leap sees no immediate potential in gaming, Apple took pains to highlight entertainment at WWDC. For Meta, gaming is very much the device’s lifeblood. The Meta Quest keynote was very much a reinforcement of this fact, as new titles took up the lion’s share of stage time, with only a passing mention given to Quest for Business.
Much like your definition of “mainstream,” Meta’s success is relative. The company maintains the top spot in terms of market share. Looking at some numbers released by IDC , the company owned 84.6% of the AR/VR market in Q2 2022. The company’s 50.2% market share in Q2 2023 belies the situation somewhat. The radical drop is due to the PSVR 2’s entry onto the scene. IDC went from not acknowledging Sony to putting it in the No. 2 spot at 27.2%
By the time the new PlayStation headset arrived, the Meta Quest 2 was quite long in the tooth. I would anticipate the Quest 3’s arrival seeing Meta taking an even larger slice of the pie to close out 2023. Keep in mind, we’re not talking smartphone numbers here. The analyst firm puts combined shipments at 8.5 million for the year. That’s a modest increase over 2017. It does, however, see a strong growth for 2024, and by 2027, it anticipates north of 30 million headsets.
Even that modest forecast pales in comparison to other consumer electronics. In 2022, Nintendo sold 5.8 million Switches. It was an impressive showing for a five-year-old console and a drop-off from the past two years, when it was selling like hotcakes during the pandemic. In May, the Switch passed 125 million units sold during its lifetime.
Image Credits: Darrell Etherington
Image Credits: Darrell Etherington
Meta’s successes with the Quest 3 have been modest — but they’re the least modest among their peers. Big fish, small pond, especially when you consider that HTC, the maker of its closest hardware analogue, commanded 2% of the total market in Q3. Meta has been successful relative to the market — and even more to the point, the company has way too much invested in the Quest’s success to consider pulling the rip cord.
That doesn’t preclude evolving, of course. Zuck avoided using the word “metaverse” for the first 34 minutes of his keynote presentation. That doesn’t mean the project has been abandoned, but let’s just say it may not have legs — figuratively speaking , of course.
I’ve been using the Meta Quest 3 for several days now, but I feel it important to mention two big caveats: First, I haven’t tried the Vision Pro yet, so I can’t compare them directly (though I have spent time with the Quest Pro and the latest offerings from Magic Leap, HTC and Sony). Second, I’m injured at the moment, so I haven’t spent time with the system’s myriad fitness apps.
That said, I’ve been enjoying my time with the product so far. Having lived with the system for a bit, I will say that I’m the closest I’ve come to pulling the trigger on a headset. I might have said the same for the Quest Pro, were it not $1,000. I don’t think Meta has nailed the price point exactly, but I suspect a $3,500 Vision Pro will make the idea of a $500 headset far easier to swallow.
The Quest Pro and Quest 3 are both being positioned as XR — or mixed reality — devices, owing to the addition of passthrough technology. For the unfamiliar, passthrough is a method that allows headsets to offer a version of AR, in spite of sporting opaque visors in order to maintain VR functionality (Magic Leap, by contrast, is true AR). The system uses on-board cameras to create an image of the environment onto which it overlays graphics.
Passthrough has been getting better year by year, but no one wearing the headset is going to be fooled into believing it’s transparent. Passthrough is darker and lower res than reality. There’s a bit of latency and the image can appear warped at times. Your eyes and brain adjust fairly quickly however, and the effect is a big improvement over standalone VR. It’s significantly better for situational awareness, while the on-board depth sensors do a good job identifying landmarks and obstacles for the graphics to mingle among.
Image Credits: Darrell Etherington
Image Credits: Darrell Etherington
First Encounter provides a compelling picture of how developers can integrate games into AR surroundings. In the game you’re outfitted with a pair of guns to blast fuzzy Koosh ball aliens. The weapons can also blast away at the real walls around you, opening up more of the brightly colored environs. It’s a fun game for a few minutes at a time. Think of it as an immersive casual mobile game. That speaks to a potential issue with the Meta Quest as a platform. It’s often at its best in fits and starts. If you’re looking for serious gaming in a headset form factor, take a good, long look at what Sony is offering with the latest PSVR.
That’s not to say that there aren’t longer titles, of course. After all, the headset is shipping with a free copy of Asgard’s Wrath 2. But the content, the hardware and the off-device processing are in a different league with the PlayStation headset.
It’s not a comfort thing, either. In fact, the PSVR 2 keeps you tethered. The Quest 3, on the other hand, is quite portable. At 515 grams, it’s a bit lighter than the PSVR 2 (560 grams) and significantly less than the Quest Pro (722 grams). It’s just a hair heavier than the Quest 2’s 503 grams — though the new strap system makes it quite a bit more comfortable. The battery is in the front for better weight distribution and the overall size has been slimmed down.
Man wearing the Meta Quest 3 mixed reality headset, holding a controller, viewed from the side. Image Credits: Darrell Etherington
Man wearing the Meta Quest 3 mixed reality headset, holding a controller, viewed from the side. Image Credits: Darrell Etherington
Rated at 2.5 hours, the battery life is roughly on-par with the Quest 2 (app dependent, of course). I don’t think most users will have comfort issues wearing it for as long as the battery lasts — though your mileage will vary with strenuous exercise.
Meta greatly increased its resolution game between the Quest 2 and 3, from 1832 x 1920 per eye to 2065 x 2208. It’s a considerable improvement, especially when taking advantage of the 50 or so titles that have been/will be remastered for the new device. The controllers, meanwhile, have been streamlined, dropping the ring design found on the Quest 2. They’re quite comfortable in hand and don’t have much of a learning curve to get up and running.
The system is decent on the hand-tracking front, as well. You can do a lot with just your hands, but when you’re gaming, it’s a good idea to pick up the controllers if you have them handy. I’ve always been interested in the potential of VR for mindfulness and a borderline psychedelic effect, though if you attempt to use most games in a dim room (to fully eliminate light bleed around the nose), you’ll get an error telling you it’s too dark for tracking. Maybe I’m the only person in the world who cares about this. Who knows?
The Quest 3 is backward compatible with the Quest 2’s content catalog, meaning you’ve got more than 500+ apps at your disposal. Soon that list will include 50 remastered titles and 50 more designed specifically for the Quest 3, including big-name franchises like Ghostbusters, Stranger Things and Assassin’s Creed. There’s a wide range of quality to be found in amongst the Meta Quest store, but that’s to be expected.
Image Credits: Darrell Etherington
Image Credits: Darrell Etherington
What’s more important is how the form factor is lending to innovation of new gameplay and apps. The ultimate success of VR and AR is still very much up in the air, but there’s no question that it’s an exciting platform with endless potential for new experiences to explore, from fast-paced shooting titles to meditation.
If you’ve been waiting for a good excuse to pull the trigger on a VR headset, the Quest 3 presents a compelling case. It’s tough to say when a more accessible headset will come along. There’s a pretty good chance we won’t see one until the Quest 4 arrives a few years from now.
Tablo has always been a niche product, Grant Hall, founder and CEO of parent company Nuvyyo, admitted to TechCrunch. However, as more cord-cutters become frustrated with streaming services raising their prices, OTA (over-the-air) DVRs and TV antennas are making a comeback. The Consumer Technology Association reported that 36 million U.S. households own an antenna. Plus, after being acquired by The E.W. Scripps Company last year, Nuvyyo is betting on the major broadcaster to put Tablo back on the map.
The company recently released the 4th generation Tablo OTA DVR , which stands out from other generations in a number of ways. For $100, the new Tablo DVR features over 50 hours of onboard recording storage, two ATSC 1.0 tuners that deliver MPEG2 video, and a new app that makes it easy for you to stream over 70 FAST and live channels, including ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, PBS, the CW, ION Plus, Tastemade and Bloomberg Television, among others.
Tablo has previously only been an OTA product, so including FAST channels and over-the-top content will likely be appealing to many existing users as well as new consumers. According to Samba TV , 1 in 3 U.S. users are subscribed to FAST services.
In addition, Tablo lets you record FAST programming, so you can finally fast forward and skip commercials, which, to our knowledge, hasn’t really been done before in the FAST space.
Image Credits: Nuvyyo
Image Credits: Nuvyyo
“I don’t think there’s anything that really compares to us in the market right now,” Hall told us. “Being able to record and playback FAST channels is really a revolutionary change to the product because, before, you were stuck with a linear experience. Now you can time shift, pause live TV and do all the things you could with a cable DVR.”
Unlike older versions, the 4th generation Tablo doesn’t require a subscription fee—another major selling point for consumers. The most previous generation, the Tablo QUAD, costs $199 and requires a $5 monthly subscription, making Tablo’s new DVR the most affordable device that Nuvyyo has ever released.
Also, note that Tablo is designed to stream and record broadcast TV from antennas, so it doesn’t support viewing from cable or satellite channels like ESPN or HGTV, nor does it support streaming services like Netflix, Hulu, YouTube TV or Sling.
Image Credits: Nuvyyo
Image Credits: Nuvyyo
There’s also a new $130 bundle called the “Tablo Total System,” which includes a 35-mile indoor TV antenna and coaxial cable. If you own an antenna already, you should know that Tablo supports an array of antennas from manufacturers like Antennas Direct , Antop , Winegard and Mohu .
We’ve been testing the bundle for a few days now, along with the new Tablo app on iOS , Roku and Fire TV. It’s also available on Android TV/Google TV and Android devices. Support for Apple TV, Samsung, LG and Vizio TVs is coming soon.
Overall, the setup is quick and easy. Simply plug an antenna into the device and connect via Wi-Fi and Ethernet. Then, download the new Tablo TV app on mobile, which tells you where to mount the antenna in your house to get the best reception and most channels possible. Tablo suggests the antenna be mounted high up on either a window or drywall to improve signal quality. The company doesn’t recommend putting an antenna on concrete or metal walls.
When using the new app, users will notice a more polished design complete with a new home screen, access to recent recordings, a 14-day live TV guide and recommendation tiles based on your favorite channels.
Image Credits: Screenshot from App Store
Image Credits: Screenshot from App Store
The Tablo TV app is separate from the Legacy Tablo app that’s for existing users with older models. The company plans to offer its new app to these users soon. However, it isn’t mandatory to switch, and honestly, we don’t recommend it. Downloading the new app means giving up out-of-home viewing since the 4th generation is unable to stream content when you’re away from home.
Users who don’t switch will continue paying for the subscription, which provides access to guide data and advanced DVR features. Subscribers who pay extra for automatic commercial skipping should also keep the old app since the new one doesn’t offer this feature.
The product itself had a complete makeover, sporting a round and sleeker design. It’s also less bulky and small enough to mount on your wall or sit nicely on a table.
Image Credits: Nuvyyo
Image Credits: Nuvyyo
The 4th generation Tablo also incorporates new technology—a quad-core ARM processor that is designed to be more energy efficient, Hall explained. Additionally, it’s been re-engineered to include a built-in amplifier for the antenna so you don’t have to buy a separate external one if you want to help lock in OTA channels. This can be disabled if you own an external amplifier or live close to your local towers.
Tablo has 128GB onboard storage, however, you can get more storage space if you plug in a USB hard drive (up to 8TB).
While ATSC 3.0 is becoming the new standard, Tablo only supports ATSC 1.0 for now– mainly because it’s the more affordable option. The company plans to release an ATSC 3.0 tuner next year. Nuvyyo is also working on a four-tuner version and other updates like expanding its FAST channel library and other content.
“You’ll see the whole product line refreshed with the latest technology and a lot more continuous development,” Hall added.
An Immersive, Powerful Way to Present and Review 3D SketchUp Models
WESTMINSTER, Colo., Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ — Trimble (NASDAQ: TRMB) announced today the launch of SketchUp Viewer for Meta Quest 2, Meta Quest Pro and Meta Quest 3, a powerful, immersive way to view and present 3D SketchUp models in virtual reality (VR). SketchUp Viewer for Quest enables interior designers, architects, engineers, and construction (AEC) professionals using a Quest VR headset to engage colleagues and clients in experiential design reviews for more informed decision-making and collaboration on the go, in the office, or on site.
Trimble and Meta Bring SketchUp to Meta Quest VR Headsets
With SketchUp Viewer for Quest, both technical and non-technical users can experience designs in an immersive environment without the need for complex controls or powerful desktop machines. In contrast to traditional architectural representations that may be difficult for clients to understand, VR enables architects and designers to showcase their designs and convey design intent by enabling the client walkthrough and experience the design in a true-to-scale environment. Using SketchUp Viewer for Quest helps improve communication and collaboration with colleagues and clients. It makes it possible to iterate faster on designs, spot and avoid costly errors and explore ideas in real time.
“Meta has been at the forefront of growing VR adoption by making the technology easy to use, accessible and affordable,” said Chris Cronin, vice president and general manager of Trimble SketchUp. “Collaborating with Meta to create SketchUp Viewer for Meta Quest is an important milestone toward making it easier for design and AEC professionals to tap into the power of VR as a rich, immersive way to experience, share and collaborate on SketchUp models.”
In addition to native SketchUp tools, SketchUp Viewer for Quest includes features, such as tabletop and presentation modes, that offer architects and designers multiple ways to present their designs. With tabletop mode, users can walk around the SketchUp model and view the design as a virtual scale model. Presentation mode can be used to curate a client’s virtual walkthrough, complete with a simple user interface and easy-to-use controls.
“We’re already seeing the value of virtual reality in architecture and design, whether it’s exploring ideas, solving problems or showcasing designs in the best possible light,” said Jamie Keane, director of Product Management at Meta. “We believe the combination of SketchUp and Meta Quest will create new opportunities for connection and collaboration. We look forward to working with Trimble to bring transformative technology to architecture and design professionals and their clients.”
Trimble is developing technology, software, and services that drive the digital transformation of construction with solutions that span the entire architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) industry. Empowering teams across the construction lifecycle, Trimble’s innovative approach improves coordination and collaboration between stakeholders, teams, phases, and processes. Trimble’s Connected Construction strategy gives users control of their operations with best-in-class solutions and a common data environment. By automating work and transforming workflows, Trimble is enabling construction professionals to improve productivity, quality, transparency, safety, sustainability, and deliver each project with confidence. For more information, visit: construction.trimble.com.
About Trimble
Dedicated to the world’s tomorrow, Trimble is a technology company delivering solutions that enable our customers to work in new ways to measure, build, grow and move goods for a better quality of life. Core technologies in positioning, modeling, connectivity and data analytics connect the digital and physical worlds to improve productivity, quality, safety, transparency and sustainability. From purpose-built products and enterprise lifecycle solutions to industry cloud services, Trimble is transforming critical industries such as construction, geospatial, agriculture and transportation to power an interconnected world of work. For more information about Trimble (NASDAQ: TRMB), visit: www.trimble.com.
