Spatial Computing, XR & I Love Lucy

Yesterday, I wrote about #wwdc23 and the launch of the #VisionPro from 苹果 . You can see that here. I've been seeing reviews of people who had a chance to experience it and they've all been positive. They seem to have done everything well, and that's a testament to the Apple approach to #UX. It looks like it will be an awesome enterprise tool and while some early adopters will buy it too (I would, but apparently my shoe buying has tightened my discretionary spending!), but I don't think it's going to drive the consumer demand we all hoped for.

What the industry hasn't done is create the "I Love Lucy" moment for the XR/spatial computing industry. For those of you who don't know, I Love Lucy gets a great deal of credit for developing the TV industry in many ways (she did greenlight Star Trek) not only in how it was made, but how it was watched. Here's something from a Decider piece from 2021:

Television looked a lot different in 1951—mainly because it was brand new. In 1947, there was basically?one?television set for every 3000 people in America, and two of the big three—ABC and CBS—didn’t make the leap to television until 1948 (NBC started broadcasting in 1944). But by 1951, the number of sets in America had skyrocketed to roughly 12 million—or around one TV set for every 13 people in America. Americans coast to coast were tuned in just in time for?I Love Lucy?to invent television.

At the time, the majority of Americans still listened to the radio and they weren't sure why they needed a TV set. In the 1950's, they were expensive, apparently a 15" color console could be $1,000, a great deal of money for the 50's. They got their news and entertainment from radio and their own imaginations. They couldn't understand why they would need this new device. I Love Lucy helped change that.

The problem with the XR space, or spatial computing or metaverse or cyberspace is that it hasn't yet had it's I Love Lucy moment. That something that makes people want to come back week after week. Floating my desk top in space isn't it. A better Zoom isn't it. Even the very cool, 3D photo tech isn't enough. Their partnership with 华特迪士尼公司 starts us on the right road and I can't wait to see what happens there.

Us tech people love to focus on the tech side of the equation, talking FOV, pixel count, eye tracking, things like that. All important no doubt. I did tens of thousands of demos of Virtuality and rarely, heard people talk about that. BTW, you can see more of my early days of #VR here. What they did talk about is how cool it was that for the first time, they were actually stepping into the video game. They were physically immersed. It was a new, compelling experience. The HMD was freaking huge by today's standards and weighed a ton. The graphics would be politely called "shit" today. The game play was pretty rudimentary. And yet, people initially lined up for up to several hours and plunked down $10/player for a 3 minute game.

It was, at the time, an I Love Lucy moment. It, along with other experiences from the 90's, helped create the excitement and enthusiasm that people had for VR back in the 90's. There were things that people did back then that in some ways, we haven't come close to in terms of creativity & experimentation today. The tech is awesome, but it alone will not spark the inspiration needed for millions of people to go out and make the purchase. They need not just to see the utility, but to see the possibilities. They want to laugh every week at the crazy antics, relate to the human stories and be inspired by where this new technology will take them in the future.

See more of my writing on virtual reality and augmented reality.