The future of Virtual Reality with Hugo Barra

[Music]

yeah what is up people of the internet

welcome back to another episode of the

waveform podcast we're your hosts I'm

Marquez and I'm Andrew and this episode

is a bit of a guest interview in fact

it's the whole it's the whole interview

it's pretty exciting we were able to get

Hugo Bara to join us in the in the

studio in the flesh if you haven't heard

the name or if you don't know if you've

heard the name you might remember if you

go from work at Google or xiaomi or most

recently this is why we had him on he

had this huge super in-depth blog post

about Vision Pro and like the state of

VR and AR and obviously he has

experience from Oculus and a bunch of of

history in those companies but there

were a lot of things in those posts that

I'd never read before like unique

thoughts about VR and AR which in a

world where feels like everyone said

everything about this stuff it was it

was really interesting to see so we

wanted to dig in on some of his hot

takes yeah if you don't know that name

you know probably 10 productss that he's

worked on no like he's been in this

space for so long and has a great ton of

great insights and is really really

knowledgeable just everything Tech yeah

so it was really fun to have an like a

true expert in the industry come on and

and elaborate on some of his takes so I

think we should just jump right into it

let's roll

it welcome Hugo Barra to waveform thank

you guys thank you for having me to you

we uh we've talked a little bit in the

past about this but uh we've seen you on

stage presenting with with Google with

Android stuff we've seen the xiaomi

stuff and you've had a long history with

VR and we've talked a lot about Apple

Vision Pro on this uh on this podcast

but I feel like a lot of your thoughts

are things that we hadn't even

considered and a lot of takes from your

blog post are angles about the history

and the future of VR in general that we

somehow haven't gotten to yet and I

would love to talk about them with you

I'm excited to be here ready to do it

okay amazing well I feel like the first

thing I want to jump into is like V

Vision Pro as it exists today like it's

a pretty good product you've owned one

you've used one we've had our review

unit our review came out what is your

like 30 second summary you give to

people who ask like oh oh if you Vision

Pro right what do you what do you think

of it to me the coolest thing about it

is that it feels like a product that

comes straight out of Science Fiction uh

and I think David you talked about this

previously you know it is I think easily

the the most sophisticated uh piece of

consumer technology sort of certainly

that I've touched uh and likely of

almost anything in the world today so

putting on a Vision Pro feels like

you're visiting the future right it it

it has that taste of sci-fi that is just

a beautiful way to create curiosity to

create optimism around Tech and all that

stuff so sci-fi it is a it is close to

Magic for a lot of people I think who

have never especially people who have

never tried other headsets so that's

something with a lot of reviews that I

like like to look at is context if

you're reviewing this headset have you

tried other headsets and if so how many

and how far back have you tried the

headsets and we are also briefly talking

about like the first Oculus when it came

out yeah how long ago that thing came

out and how basic it was but if you've

used headsets since then this might not

have the same magic appeal but it is fun

to give people who have never tried a

headset a look in the Vision Pro and

just the look on their face can I throw

just a completely random story Into The

Mix when talking about the history VR MH

so I've been a VR Enthusiast for my

entire adult life and um for me it

started off when I was a freshman in

college my first internship was uh I was

a a QA engineer at Walt Disney imaginary

this was in the '90s uh in a project

that was part of uh Disney Quest like

the the indoor theme park thing that

they had going on until a few years ago

and this project was called The Aladdin

Magic Carpet it was a virtual reality

attraction and this was the craziest

thing ever because of the equipment the

technology that was available at the

time so you'd like sort of sit on on a

chair it was kind of like just holding

your bum you put on a seat Bel mhm and

then You' put on this headset which was

this massive CRT display it protruded

out like a foot and a half off your face

we can we can pull a photo and show it

yeah um and it was so heavy like we talk

about 600 gram Etc it was in the

kilograms that it needed steel cables

hanging off the ceiling to hold it in

place so your head you know wouldn't

fall and each eye it was VGA resolution

so it was actually not bad each eye was

powered by a separate silicon graph Onyx

workstation and it was incredible and

they actually had what you might call

the first motion controller that anyone

ever came up with now this launched 25

years ago so to me the history of V

certainly in entertainment kind of

starts back then so wow boy have we come

a long way we have I could probably pull

video from that from my family archive

cuz I've gone to that ride so many times

really I've done you remember what it

was like I remember it was it

mind-blowing at I feel like it would be

mind-blowing to have no yeah as like a

six-year-old it was in insane yeah I was

going to say Adam how old wait did you

exist that I'm older than I look that is

really funny yeah I mean so we even if

you only go back to what On's your did

you use the first Quest I mean the first

Oculus did stuff so that's a decade yeah

it yeah I mean I was using it as a

freshman in college in

2013 so yeah so now now we're looking at

like okay we've seen this Arc of

improvement clearly we've figured out

what parts of a VR headset that we want

to improve the most to deliver the best

experience to people lots of resolution

lots of high quality sensors and

tracking uh and we've arrived in 2024

where we have things like Quest 3 Quest

Pro those are the most common ones I'm

going to reference and now Apple Vision

Pro I think one of the most interesting

things is that while you may or may not

consider Vision Pro the best VR headset

you can definitely argue that it's the

most important VR headset especially

just because of the way people treat

what Apple does yeah can you expand a

little bit on why it's so important not

just for Apple but for the entire

industry as a whole yeah totally so

first of all I I think that the Vision

Pro is one of two seminal events for the

for the VR industry the other one is

probably the founding of oculus and

obviously the subsequent acquisition

that gave them so much investment

Firepower um but I I I really I put

Vision Pro right up there for a very

simple reason which is like if Apple

cares then everybody cares right like if

a brand that has earned the respect and

reputation of consumers all around the

world actually cares about this thing

enough to put a product in the world

with their perspective then everybody

cares yeah um you know Palmer lucky

started Oculus um used to say that like

VR has to be something that everybody

wants before it can become something

that everybody can buy or can afford

which is why by the way in that long

assay that I wrote I don't even talk

about price because I think it's not

really the point yeah of a product at at

this stage so so to me it it is the fact

that apple is you know has a perspective

and they're applying the Apple attention

to detail in a way that no one else

frankly has a patience to do because it

takes years to arrive at all of those

little things that they've done done um

and and I think that's that's really

important there's one thing about the

Vision Pro which I think is probably the

most important thing from a product

perspective which is how they introduced

gaze and pinch to me that is the you

know VR equivalent of the introduction

of

multi-touch uh which is without any

doubt right capacitive multi touch is

the defining characteristic of the

current generation of smartphones and it

was introduced in the first iPhone and

defined that more than anything El if

you go back and look at those videos of

the first iPhone when he pinches to zoom

in the picture and the whole crowd goes

oh whoa like that moment that intuitive

moment that magical understanding

everyone had that that click that is

interesting so gays you think is one of

them I think yeah g it's the combination

yeah you know it's looking at a thing

feedback in a way yeah exactly the fact

that you're giving yourself haptic

feedback by touching your other finger

yeah people laugh when I said that but

that's true like when you're actually

touching your finger super high quality

that's the moment yeah

okay interesting yeah I think and also

this is the headset that has a screen on

the outside of it it's got the eyes

going through it's got the the

transparency where you can see through

and people can see your eyes do you

think that's also a a critical part of

maybe what makes VR more appealing to

people or is that lower on the totem

pole I think that's much lower in the

totem pole first of all I don't know why

but no one's talking about the fact that

that came straight out of Ready Player

one like where the headsets are all I

think they're all Optical pass through

in Ready Player One oh yeah okay uh and

you know and and it's it's almost like

eyesight when the person is like super

immersed in content you can't see their

eyes but then oh yeah yeah totally I've

gone back and I've rewatched and that's

totally where it comes from so funny

okay um you know I think that's like

it's like apple design perspective at

play here it's just like doing something

really different and unique that tries

to bring sort of human you know nature

out into this crazy potentially

isolating new type of Technology mhm I

hope it survives because I think it's

fascinating let's forget about the

implementation as it's there today I

think it's going to get a lot better if

they decide to keep investing on it I

hope it stays but I worry that it may

not because the quest to reducing weight

yeah pun was not intended uh is so much

more important do you know that's

something that would only happen in the

non-pro version like in your opinion

would they keep it in the pro model and

still try to get rid of weight in other

ways there's one circumstance where I

think they might which is if they if the

pro model uses such premium you know

lightweight materials carbon Etc you

know very expensive but lightweight

materials that it it allows the bill of

weight to sort of still have that

lenticular display which I don't know

how much that thing weighs but it's

probably like in the 30 G 20 to 30 gam

territory maybe including the display

controller but thing you still to have

glass on the outside and or fog glass

pseudo glass whatever that thing is um

which so so I think it comes down to

like this trade-off space of weight

versus features which I think is so

ridiculously important right yeah I'm

kind of curious about your thoughts on

like apple doesn't like to call this a

VR headset you know they they like to

call it a spatial Computing headset

which the first time I ever used this at

our first briefing at wwc I sort of it

sort of clicked for me what that meant

because they had been talking about that

over and over over again like it's

spatial Computing the era of spatial

Computing it's here yeah and for the

most part unless you immerse yourself in

a full environment you are mostly in

just an AR environment that's right and

so I know that now with the quest 3 and

with the quest Pro but mostly with the

quest 3 meta has been pushing into like

okay we actually also have to enable

these like AR mixed reality environments

but in your in your opinion do you think

that the mixed reality spatial Computing

like Paradigm is the thing that's going

to like push forward because I feel like

meta sort of gave up on that a little

bit for quite a while and realized

people mostly use this for gaming yeah

and that actually I think is a reason

why the this still feels like a dev kit

because there's not there's nothing to

do in it yet you know and like they want

you to use it for work but like do you

think that that's that's a a paradigm

that's going to move forward or do you

think that apple is going to realize

that maybe the hyper productivity stuff

is not it but there's still merit to

spatial Computing and they'll pivot yeah

so I think um short answer is I think

spatial Computing is the right bat to

place with mixed reality augmented

reality whatever we want to call it as

sort of this super important defining

element of it I think it is it had just

has so much more utility

um you know The Oasis isn't the thing in

my opinion right uh the way the the way

Oculus ended up focusing on gaming

Beyond sort of its founding philosophy

you know it was a company that was built

by Gamers uh was the fact

that we tried other things and they

didn't

work you know so gaming was like okay

like product Market fit exists here

let's keep investing on Tech that would

enable something like Mak reality but

let's go go all in on gaming first yeah

I think that that's what I keep thinking

about those especially the quest

headsets is they didn't really

necessarily have an obvious thing and

gaming kind of surfaced as the thing

that people like to do the most and

that's that's the thing that people

started gravitating towards and it works

really well with controllers and now I

see I mean this has happened with Apple

products before where our first gen

comes out and we just kind of wait and

see what developers come up with and oh

it seems like oh Fitness is catching on

so the watch is now a fitness watch

is it possible that a new thing will

come up as the thing that people want to

do in Vision Pro or does it have to be

gaming again because there's no

controllers with the Vision Pro yeah so

it feels like gaming is going to be a

weakness of the Vision Pro there's no

really immersive VR or ar gaming

experiences that I have found to be

convincing yet yeah so spatial Computing

feels like it's the other possible big

thing but yeah I know gaming gaming is

pretty good on the quest I think gaming

is first of all it is a it is a piece of

anything you want to do cuz like if it's

a productivity device you're still going

to want to have fun with it um I do

think that um that uh sort of casual

gaming mixed reality gaming is a is a

sort of a fertile enough territory that

Apple can kind of go all in on that

stuff for a while without without um

sort of giving into the immersive gaming

stuff which as you said I think would

require some sort of controller support

and so on I think that's going to be

more of a hobbyist thing and and I hope

that Apple opens up enough sort of hooks

such that the steam VR hobbyists can

still find a way to play you know games

with immersive VR games with Vision Pro

but I think they're going to go on all

in on casual games things that you can

certainly do just with your hands going

into you know social and share play

gaming as well with multiple personas in

one place that to me feels like a big

enough place that it's worth Apple bet

yeah that's fair

it's funny because like for years

they're always showing AR kit demos at

these launches with the new iPad and to

what end nothing has happened from that

but it's like every single year they're

like oh a d and d game is on a table and

oh look everyone with their iPads can

see it and at the time obviously it was

like you're not going to go meet up with

your friends in real life with your

iPads and do this the whole time you're

hanging out but this makes more sense

with like the share play you're in

different environments you're in

different rooms and that was part of the

videos too yeah there's no yeah that

shared experience feels like the obvious

next Dimension if you will of what would

make something like this really

appealing to people and would want them

to use more often uh but yeah that's

there's a lot of things are like one

update away that I think could be really

cool about this this type of headset um

okay I want to I want to go through some

of your uh your takes in your blog posts

that I would consider hot takes and I

don't know if you would agree obviously

you have a lot of thoughts and you've

much more experience than I do but some

of these to me read as like really

fascinating that may or may not turn out

to be true so I want to go through some

of them with you people may or may not

disagree with yeah well we'll see got a

lot of emails we'll see okay all right

here's the first one I saw that I read

um Apple intentionally made the display

blurry to hide the screen door effect

now just to clarify what the screen door

effect is cuz the these displays in The

Vision Pro are incredible and the this

screen door effect is most often noticed

in displays that are lacking resolution

so break it down why why do you think

Apple would do something like this and

and why would it happen on a display

with such high resolution so first of

all hugely controversial Point um

there's a very famous uh blogger in the

VR space called Carl gut who's a display

expert and I've I've based a lot of my

sort of commentary here on some of his

sort of objective findings uh I've since

learned that there's a lot of people

that sort of disagree with the approach

that he's taken in some of these things

um but I still think that his

perspective is really useful so the the

challenge with VR is that the pixels are

too close to your face so even when

they're so close at you know 3,000 PPI

3,000 plus

PPI uh they're still not close enough

that you can't see pixels um there's a

whole thing around how you measure

resolution in in VR you use angular

resolution instead of pixels per inch or

pixel display per degree right it's so

get pixels per degree yeah and the you

know even as high resolution as The

Vision Pro is it's not approaching what

you would consider Retina display for a

VR device they're like maybe 60 to 70%

of the way there so what that means is

pixels are still actually discernible

you can see two pixels apart um which

means that things like screened or

effect and alazine which are some of

these sort of distortions or kind of

visual artifacts that make it make

things L less smooth to look at are

still mildly present so my hot take here

is that Apple maybe tuned their display

to add a tiny bit of blur and lose a bit

of perceived resolution just so that

these little visual artifacts

disappeared and they would get a softer

look on the display which to me is kind

of like a matter of taste right which is

obviously something that we respect

Apple for so I support that decision if

that's how they went because it does

make for something that just feels a bit

more pleasant and less harsh than these

visible things I think that's a good

word I here's this the parallel I was

going to draw when I'm shooting a video

about a smartphone I'm pointing an 8K

camera and a lens at a screen yep and

these screens are incredibly high

resolution and you can actually see when

I pull focus on the lens when I hit the

exact Focus plane of the lens because

there's this harsh banded crisp like

display and it's not like you're seeing

individual pixels yeah but it is Harsh

and I found that if I turn it just

another fraction of a degree and it's

slightly out of focus it's a little

smoother and easier to look at

especially with macros and so I was

thinking about that when reading that I

was like okay I don't know if apple is

you know necessarily making their

display blurrier or maybe just tuning

the lenses to be slightly beyond the

plane of focus of the display or

whatever they're doing but as a taste

decision I feel like I also support it

because overall you don't want eye

fatigue and as much as I want to see all

the pixels I'm a pixel snob I kind of

like I like it to be a little more

pleasing to look at so I get it I feel

like I get it yeah so that is I I agree

with the take I like that one all right

we're going to take a quick break for

ads we'll be right back to talk about

how maybe Apple Vision Pro is the best

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form well we we kind of already went

over this but I'll sort of phrase it in

the way that you did which is Apple

Vision Pro is the best thing that ever

happened to VR including for meta who

has made their own

headsets so this is probably like the

highest confidence sort of take that I

have having been in sort of the middle

of the thing when I used to work at

Oculus at meta uh you know side note is

I used to joke or semi joke I would say

in like company all hands and stuff that

like the best thing that could happen to

us was if Apple decided to enter you

know VR and you know we've been there've

been rumors about this for a long time

um because I I really do think that um

as I said when Apple cares everybody

cares was going to be a thing that would

help us tremendously like massively

floats all boats massively grows the pie

and it was interesting to even see Mark

Mark Zuckerberg's video recently where

he kind of talks about the elephant in

the room right like obviously he he

cares about what's happening so why not

talk about it which I give him huge

props for and it's just so interesting

you know putting aside whether you age

agree or disagree with things he said I

most agree um but putting that aside for

a second it's so interesting to see how

meta you know in the voice of Mark in

this case has now shifted from

evangelizing to

competing right so before it was like