The Distortion of Novelty
The striving after wearable technology can be safely traced back to the advent of pocket watches. At least in the modern sense of mechanical devices with autonomous functionality. Portable timepieces are a benchmark in human ingenuity that have—dare I say it—withstood the test of time. In recent memory, Google and SnapChat (not to mention numerous other, lesser attempts) have tried delivering sunglass-shaped products in hopes of leveraging a likewise fundamentally visceral element of existence: light.
Indeed, light and time are perhaps the most foundational components of material existence thus explaining why, after centuries, we still want (need) our clocks to tick and our glasses to refract without distortion. But such are passive activities.
What we really want to do is take control of those elements. We want to bend time as much as we now bend light. But until the automotive industry can fulfill the dreams of unsullied youth, we will settle for strapping computers to our faces. Or at least try:
Although Apple’s work on a substantially enhanced Vision Pro model has apparently stalled, there are strong indications that the company will release “an incremental update to the product with limited changes to its physical design”.
In other words, even the marketing and design geniuses at Apple couldn’t overcome the physical barriers to making cranial computing less of a pain in the neck.
A Solution in Search of a Problem
For the record, I want devices like the Vision Pro to succeed. Having access to multiple, massive monitors without losing a single square inch of desk space is the El Dorado of productivity. The amplification to the verticality of coding and the horizontality of video editing alone are worth such devices’ weight in gold. Their actual weight, however, is another matter.
I’m reminded of the groundbreaking innovation of the Harrison H1. Navigating longitudinal changes was nearly impossible due to the swaying of sea-tossed ships throwing the off the rhythm of pendular clocks—not to mention the effects of the salty climate on metallic machinery. John Harrison was the first to develop a mechanism to counteract this loss of consistency. The reason I’m reminded of this is because of the contrast of purposes (and also my reference to time above) between timepieces and wearable computing: the H1 was meant to solve a life-threatening problem, face computers are meant to fill a manufactured niche.
We don’t need augmented reality; we want it. The problem is that our want is not derived from a substantive problem. In other words, we think we want it. Until the problem is more painful than the solution, such devices will invariably fail. Necessity is the mother of invention; novelty is not.
