When I used to work with Motorola in the early-to-mid-90s (it was an actual company, you know), we had some HUD A/R things, and my kids (3 y.o.? 4 y.o?) got pretty accustomed to flicking at books and objects in real space.
Motorola tanked. Kids grew up. Learned how to type. Everything is fine. It was just a weird thing for my wife to try to process at the time.
People will get over it. Especially if Apple does it.
I remember clearly in 1999 going to dinner with co-workers, all of us pulling out our cell phones for something and one of the co-workers wives call us all geeks for even having a cell phone. I'm sure that same person is now more addicted to her smartphone than her husband.
The same will happen with AR. It will seem "ewww gross" until it doesn't
We had the same complaints about cell phones, especially with handsfree headsets. It was simply too creepy to have people walking around with a small box mushed against their ear ... or worse, just walking along chattering into the air with nobody around.
Well, we still have the same complaints, we just find it so useful we've accepted the "cell phone zombification" of society.
HUDs will be the same, and like Bluetooth-enabled earpieces will gradually disappear into barely-visible devices.
Personally, I'm wondering if the 'mobile first' stuff will reverse in 10-20 years when Millennials and GenZ start having eye trouble. I despise trying to do anything on a cellphone screen. They're just too small. A 12" tablet is about the smallest I can comfortably use.
My bet is on the issue being the interactivity associated with phones and computers, not just the display medium.
You'll have just as hard of a time concentrating on your 5000 dpi perfectly lambertian eink display in 2030 as you do now on your phone, simply because it's a multimedia device built around capturing and redirecting your attention.
That tends to happen with most new disruptive technologies. So we probably won't see the same thing happen again with microcomputers, but maybe with AR goggles or whatever comes next.
God, I hope this technology never catches on. It's scary to even think how the world (or, at least, the industrialized world) will be changed to become (even more) socially inept, and as a side effect, people becoming more and more depressed and anxious when they leave their little toy to go and interact with the real world (assuming people will ever leave their little headset.)
Eyesight will also get much worse. I won't be surprised, if this catches on, that all babies born at a certain point in the future will have to wear glasses. We will become so fragile, not just at the societal level, but even at the individual level. Terrifying.
I doubt that'll happen. It'll probably take the same trajectory as (smart) TVs: these crappy designs become the industry norm and it becomes very difficult to find alternatives.
"Expect the way you interact with your laptop, tablet, and smartphone to change a lot in the next five to 10 years."
I am going to bet the opposite; we will interact with laptop, phones and tablets roughly in the same way as we do now in ten years. Voice control, thought control and VR headsets will be mostly a dud for anything beyond games and novelty.
I sincerely hope and pray it doesn't. I have already ruined my life with a smartphone to the point that without a phone I feel powerless and rudderless and am constantly fidgeting. A smartphone is also toxic in surfacing constant negativity. I find myself endlessly reading Reddit. Can't imagine what a world where all of us are wearing around funky headsets and interacting with virtual Avatars will look like. Terrifying.
As others have said, current tech isn't quite there yet to replace screens in meatspace, but I think it's obvious to infer what general computing may be like 10-20 years down the road, if progress continues at a steady pace:
Laptops and tablets would no longer be distinct factors for mobile, because they'll be replaced by always-worn high quality AR glasses, which run off a phone in your pocket (as Apple's glasses are rumored to be) and project virtual screens into your view of the real world. The AR space may be shared by multiple users for public signage, advertisements or virtual pets and fashion, à la the anime Dennou Coil. [0]
Physical keyboards/mice/trackpads will probably still be around because I haven't seen anything to fully replace the need for tactile feedback, unless someone comes out with sensory gloves.
At home we would put our phones into a docking station for more processing power and to connect to a giant physical screen and sound system.
yeah, call me in 5 years when those devices are no the crap they are today with their own subpixel problems where everything is blurry unless you use giant size font's .
Agreed. A functional heads-up display in normal-looking glasses would render almost every smartphone obsolete. Add a good way to do text input (air typing on an AR-projected keyboard?) and most laptops and desktops can go away too.
If we're still poking at tiny screens in 2025, something has gone very wrong.
I'll bet there'll be people that can't. They'll get so used to seeing stuff pop up on their screen as they walk down a street, as they're going about their everyday lives.
There will be people that won't want to leave that augmented reality.
All true. It will take years to materialise into commodities and I am patient. However, I think my kids will experience those as adults though, which will take a bit of the magic out. I guess what I'm saying is that my children will take this for granted. I still remember my total shock when I saw my first Amiga. Compared to the 8bits it was mind blowing. Then I had a chance to fly on a military F16 simulator powered by an SGI. That was mind blowing. I did not take it for granted. It was pure magic. Then we saw the internet rise through flaming skulls centred on crazy backgrounds and from that to something like Google maps and all that. And now, the same giants, year after year, announce a different screen size or more megapixels in a camera. I want my flying car damn it. I want to see a SpaceX launch become just a routine launch to Mars, or call my driverless Uber to pick me up while i'm mind-jacked into some multiverse... I'm ready... They are not.
Sure that's a valid fear - and I do agree that in some sense it will be information overload. Anything will be accessible anywhere with a flick of your eyes - so the data stream will be even more accessible than with your mobile phone (which requires a series of actual user positive interactions by unlocking the phone, entering a query and so on)
Of course, the entire health effects of eye movements and constant electromagnetic radiation exposure are probably a different vertical than that however.
When I used to work with Motorola in the early-to-mid-90s (it was an actual company, you know), we had some HUD A/R things, and my kids (3 y.o.? 4 y.o?) got pretty accustomed to flicking at books and objects in real space.
Motorola tanked. Kids grew up. Learned how to type. Everything is fine. It was just a weird thing for my wife to try to process at the time.
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