Former Apple Engineering Leader Joins Microsoft to Work on HoloLens and Other Hardware

microsoft won't crack the user interfacing of AR. too bad.

You really don't know what HoloLens is do you?
Dell,
Nike
Hospitals in the USA use this hardware and AR by Microsoft heavily. They’re [EDIT: wrongfully used ‘Their’] years ahead fo Apple in the AR game .

Interestingly last week I made a post of iPhones should no longer have cables within the hardware to connect components (I'll be damned to find it); seems I wasn't crazy as Cabellero (cowboy) joined a startup between Apple before joining Microsoft to do just that:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-keyssa-wireless/ex-apple-executive-joins-startup-aimed-at-banishing-smartphone-cables-idUSKBN1XB2VF

Would someone explain what she is working on in the photo? Surely she doesn't need a $4000 headset to build a potato cannon.

Would someone explain what she is working on in the photo? Surely she doesn't need a $4000 headset to build a potato cannon.

Pretty fairly obvious she's working on a repulsor ray prototype for Space Force. Space Force... to infinity and beyond. Beautiful repulsor ray. Best in the greatest history of all time. The most beautiful ray.

Pretty fairly obvious she's working on a repulsor ray prototype for Space Force.

You are clearly wrong! Replulsor rays have black cases. This is obviously a tractor beam. If you spent an extra 5 minutes searching the net, you would not have made that mistake.

I don’t get these Mark Gurman stories that don’t seem to be much more than getting an alert that someone’s Linkedin profile changed. People leave companies and go to other big companies all the time.

Having users does show, especially BIG financially backed users shows that the interface is good.

Not really. It simply shows that there is a niche that for whom the product is valuable and functional enough that they will accept whatever UI it has. Windows 95 had users and very few people argued it had a good UI. Until there is a great deal of completion in the category, all we know is that some people are willing to pay for this product.

Remember, verbal or written feedback is free, very much so - as Microsoft received in the first 2 iterations.

Just because Microsoft (or any other company) received feedback, does not mean that they know what do do with it, especially, because most negative feedback from users is not actionable (e.g. “this sucks”, rather than: “the most import menu items should be in the top level menu”).

Paying for a product/service costs money and both Microosft and their clients are in business to make money - yes even major hospitals are as well - at least in N.America.

Again, just because they have some number of paying customers does not mean that they have nailed the interface. It just means that these customers think the product solves a problem for them at a price they are willing to pay.

Most of my use of Hololens has been in demos. It seems like reasonable technology, but it does not feel like they have nailed the UI nor come up with a compelling solution for anything other than niche adoption.

There is a British expression “Sell to the classes, live with the masses. Sell to the masses, live with the classes.” that best explains the issue. A product sold to various niche markets (especially one that is a core component on top of which someone else builds a valuable platform) rarely generates enough money to be highly profitable. One can make a living off of it, but not get rich. How successful one can be with that strategy is really dependent on how many niches there are that can drive sales of the core tech.

I have no idea if Apple or anyone else will be able to crack the UI and compelling use case problems either. I have seen some interesting ideas for AR applications (the shopping list that guides you around the grocery store and highlights the right products), but none yet that convince me that I should wear glasses all the time for the benefit of using them.