If they don’t, they could find themselves obsolete before they even hit the mainstream, thanks to the new technologies peeking over the horizon. If VR doesn’t charm, could AR succeed where it failed?
Or maybe neither will actually take off in the foreseeable future. For the first time in well over a decade, technology companies worldwide are looking at the end of one hyperbolic growth curve – that of smartphones – with nothing obvious to pick up where it died off. They may have a lot of interest in convincing their shareholders that something is the next big thing, but that mean we have to believe them. After all, we live in reality.
If VR is going to become the next major computing platform, pushing mobile phones aside the way they left desktop PCs lagging in their wake, 2017 will be the crunch point: platforms like Google’s Daydream, and whatever Oculus offers as the follow-up to Gear VR, need to arrive with the same pop that tethered VR entered in the past year. More, they need a compelling reason for those who don’t care about gaming to buy in, be that experiences like 360-degree video, or social platforms like those Facebook wants to build.
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Or maybe neither will actually take off in the foreseeable future. For the first time in well over a decade, technology companies worldwide are looking at the end of one hyperbolic growth curve – that of smartphones – with nothing obvious to pick up where it died off. They may have a lot of interest in convincing their shareholders that something is the next big thing, but that doesn’t mean we have to believe them. After all, we live in reality.
By Alex Hern