Google’s head of AR software quits, citing “unstable commitment and vision”

Google’s head of AR software quits, citing “unstable commitment and vision”(arstechnica.com)

78 points by eysquared 2 years ago | 21 comments

pradn 2 years ago |

No one wants AR outside of niché applications. Regular people have no interest in walking around with AR headsets.

I saw a 3D overlay AR experience that some people were doing at the Minoan palace of Knossos in Greece. It’s a large multi-level outdoor space. They were walking around with tablets with huge sunshades because of the incredibly bright Cretan sun. I don’t know what they thought of it but they did use it quite a bit. I think you’re better off seeing the ruins, and then seeing a recreated physical 3D model (which they did have at the accompanying museum), or a short film exploring the space. I could imagine that if we squeezed all the AR stuff into the size of regular glasses, this sort of experience might have more take. But maybe it’s just better to see ruins as ruins first and let your imagination do the rest?

I could imagine things like turn by turn directions being useful in a nice AR product but that’s just one thing…

As I keep saying in my HN comments, I just don’t think people want the AR/VR form factor.

voakbasda 2 years ago | |

I want AR that can overlay a screen inside the lens of my prescription glasses. Putting aside the impracticality of my desire, I can imagine it being more useful than my iPhone.

Then I imagine all of the corporations vying to build AR/VR headsets and remind myself that they will never be able to build a product that I want to buy. It will be ad-riddle junk, running on a closed software ecosystem, using proprietary hardware, that treats its users as a product to be controlled and monetized.

Someone please prove me wrong.

rchaud 2 years ago | |

> I just don’t think people want the AR/VR form factor.

Google is only pursuing what advertisers want. Most product changes to Youtube, Google search etc are for the benefit of advertisers and copyright holders, not end-users.

AR at Google will be just another canvas they'll try to optimize for ad delivery.

more_corn 2 years ago |

What? Google unstable commitment? Unpossible. My friends work there. They were both reorged four times this year. It’s not uncommon for individuals or teams to be moved five times a year.

preommr 2 years ago |

> Google had shifted its focus to "creating software platforms for AR that it hopes to license to other manufacturers building headsets."

Assuming that AR/VR is a viable market, then this strategy seems short-sighted. The ios platform is smaller than android and typically more profitable because of it's target market. Sure Google has search, but this is just another area in which it's ceding ground because it can't compete even though it has massive resources and was ahead of the competition.

asadotzler 2 years ago | |

I don't think it necessarily is. If they sell software to Samsung or others and those people do the heavy lifting to get the hardware viable, which I think it s a long way away, probably about a decade plus or minus 5, then Google can always swoop in later and do a Pixel like they did with Chromebooks and smartphones. Google seems to not want to be in the hardware R&D for this stuff and that's fine. Let Sony make sensors and LG make screens and Qualcomm make APUs and all that. Once things settle, Google can pick and chose where to later dive in.

Turskarama 2 years ago | |

Maybe, but the fact of the matter is that Apple does not licence iOS, and Apple also only seems to aim its devices at consumers and specifically "creator" professionals.

Google is also primarily a software company. Even when they made the Pixel, I'm fairly sure it exists more so that there's a baseline other Android manufacturers need to keep up with (to keep Android competitive) rather than to make a profit in its own right.

I work in warehousing software and write software for scanners, 100% of which run Android. There is no Apple scanner and I doubt there ever will be.

fi8rkfhslef 2 years ago | |

This seems pretty standard for Google though no? Sure they've gradually started to do more and more in meatspace across certain domains but their focus on the whole has almost always been to leverage their ability to make software first and foremost unless hardware seemed like a necessary wedge to open a door.

FreshStart 2 years ago | | |

Im still waiting for Google to sunset search. Just to filter out some of that detached metric management.

jazzyjackson 2 years ago | |

all the resources in the world can't buy vision, they'll just have to wait and acquire as usual

olliej 2 years ago |

It's always amazing to me to see people bad mouthing their former employers in this way. Either you're burning bridges or you're not, and this kind of comment seems like a "you won't be employed there again" comment, but if you're going to do that why hold back?

aaomidi 2 years ago | |

Honestly, if your first reaction to someone doing this is to never hire them again, you’re going to surround yourself with people that will never tell you when you’re fucking up.

SilverBirch 2 years ago | | |

There's a difference between constructive and necessary feedback delivered discretely, and destructive unnecessary feedback deliverd in public. Do you think this public statement is going to be more effective than a serious considered conversation with senior management before he left? I don't think so. What purpose does making this public serve other than to try and raise his own profile?

olliej 2 years ago | | |

Corporations aren't people and if you bad mouth the company, especially in a way that gets press attention, someone in HR will put a mark on your record. Either a no hire, or a "requires executive approval", neither is helpful in future job applications. That said I didn't realize this was apparently a VP position, and execs live in their own consequence free world.

gowld 2 years ago | |

He's a VP. They have nothing for him. He's telling them the price if they want him back.

scrum-treats 2 years ago |

Is Lucovsky headed to Microsoft? Seems appropriate, for an OpenAI collaboration.

JonChesterfield 2 years ago |

Google killed a project? Surely not

edit: ah no, this is killing something before announcing, instead of immediately after shipping. More Novel.