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[SalmonGod]

VR may always be a niche market, even if costs come down enough that it doesn't have to be considered luxury.

But MR could very well take off dramatically in a similar fashion to the success of smartphones, because of the incredible productivity potential.

Imagine how transformative it could be for office work.  Once the old guard thins out enough that businesses start going earnestly paperless en masse, which should hopefully be in the next 10 years or so.  Right now office workers need computer towers and monitors and enough office floor space for everyone to have their own cubicle, as a consequence of computer work necessarily trapping you in one place.  There's a ton of overhead in running an office. 

Instead, issue everyone a pair of MR glasses and a smartphone.  The glasses offer infinite expansion to the workspace real estate of a monitor, and a greater range of more intuitive options for engaging with one's work.  The smartphone drives computing power to the glasses, and can provide enough on its own to power your basic spreadsheet farm stuff.  More intensive processing is handled remotely through a server and streamed to the phone, so replace thousands of moderate workstations with one nice datacenter.  Bonus is this probably improves data security, as well.  Cubicles become obsolete, because the computing power and display travels with the worker, so floor space needs are reduced and rigidity of stuff like seating charts is eliminated for ease of management.

Potential dystopian effects are definitely there, but so are all the ingredients for disruptive integration into daily life stuff.  Also not VR, but closely related... and I expect the lines will blur over time.

[Folly]

Imagine how transformative it could be for office work. Right now office workers need...enough office floor space for everyone to have their own cubicle...There's a ton of overhead in running an office. 
Instead, issue everyone a pair of MR glasses and a smartphone.

So current day office workers can look forward to a future where, in the name of efficiency, they are all crammed shoulder-to-shoulder and ass-to-ass in one crowded room full of people all shouting at their glasses as loud as they can in an effort to be heard over everyone else doing the same. Because cubicle work wasn't bad enough.

I don't think AR really offers any practical improvements over workstations for office workers. The main market for workspace AR is factories, where people need to access data without taking their hands or eyes away from their work.

[Retropunch]

VR may always be a niche market, even if costs come down enough that it doesn't have to be considered luxury.

But MR could very well take off dramatically in a similar fashion to the success of smartphones, because of the incredible productivity potential.

Yeah I'm sort of combining VR and MR together when I say VR - whilst they're separate techs now, I don't see any real reason why they can't combine together quite quickly (drop down some sort of blackout hood over the front of it and it's basically the same thing).

I definitely agree that a major market is home working/different office spaces. So many companies I know now are moving completely to remote working except for meetings - it's literally the only thing most people need to get together for. Even with blazing fast (and stable) internet, video apps just don't work well enough and I honestly believe VR would do a lot to feel more 'there'. 

Plus, if you could add interactive elements then that'd be so much more useful. Architect? bring in a scale model of what you've designed for everyone to walk round. Marketing? Show everyone billboards and placements in full size. etc. etc.
 

[E. Albright]

So many companies I know now are moving completely to remote working except for meetings - it's literally the only thing most people need to get together for.

I've a sibling who's a systems architect for a Fortune 500 co and telecommutes all but ~2-4 days per 2-3 weeks. None the less, on any given day ~50-100% of their workday is meetings. Even those very frequently don't need a physical presence at this point.

[Cruxador]

I mean, it's not bad as a Sci fi setting. I don't see it as a tremendously probable prophecy, because not only for reasons already discussed or the obvious reasons of convenience, but also because office work is being subsumed by the gig economy anyway. I don't think anything like the traditional office culture is going to survive the retirement of Generation X, and it'll go away more rapidly than not. That means that the huge focus on meetings (which studies have shown to be tremendously detrimental to productivity, once again using science to tell everyone what they already knew) will subside, and therefore coming in to the main office for those few meetings that are necessary isn't unduly onerous.

As for that bit about screen real estate, the vast majority of workstations are single monitor, so that's clearly not a major issue for most people.

Architect? bring in a scale model of what you've designed for everyone to walk round.

Sounds more like a gimmick for presenting things to clients than something that would have much use internally. Although contractors might make fewer mistakes if they had the plans geotagged so they could see an AR overlay, but honestly they'll screw up no matter what you give them.

I've a sibling who's a systems architect for a Fortune 500 co and telecommutes all but ~2-4 days per 2-3 weeks. None the less, on any given day ~50-100% of their workday is meetings. Even those very frequently don't need a physical presence at this point.

Yeah, I've done loads of meetings where I or someone else was only there through teleconference or similar. I don't know what tech your blood uses, but I've never encountered any system that doesn't suck compared to being there in person.

[SalmonGod]

As for that bit about screen real estate, the vast majority of workstations are single monitor, so that's clearly not a major issue for most people.

Nothing is an issue, until it's experienced first hand that things can be better.  Most progress in technology is addressing problems that people didn't know they had. 

In the case of monitors, most businesses just don't want to pay for everyone to have 2 of them.  And most office work that doesn't involve advanced computing tasks is done mostly by people who have never used 2 monitors or bothered to imagine what that would be like.

But I've witnessed quite a few co-workers make the move from single to double monitors, or even just standard to widescreen.  And a couple times, I've helped with upgrading their set-ups from 2 to 3 monitors.  In every case, they have marveled at what an immense quality of life improvement it is in their workflows, and how they could never possibly go back.  Even the most luddite old people I've worked with had the same reaction (I'm talking people who hunt and peck type with 2 fingers and print out e-mails to read them).

It's just so convenient to be able to monitor and compare and switch between multiple simultaneously visible windows, instead of alt-tabbing constantly or trying to manually size windows into sections of screen.  And if constructing a virtual space around you with 10 screens were no big deal, I bet most people would do it.

As it is, I am usually making active use of about a dozen windows when working, but can only conveniently keep 2-3 up on my screens.  If I could have them all thrown up around me, it would be a dream.

(If you're curious what insanity that could possible be, the windows that I have open at all times when working include 3 e-mail accounts, our entry system, at least 3 core shipping documents, a google spreadsheet that I use for maintaining tasks lists and long-term notes, a notepad for quick notes, a google spreadsheet for shared workload management, our main customer's product database, and two windows folders... and I'll often keep up real-time tracking on an important flight, and cycle through many other windows throughout the day)

And it would go a long way to eliminating our addiction to paper.  As someone who has been actively involved in developing my office's work processes and pushing for years for a paperless environment, I see 4 major reasons people still like to print things.  Because they value the ability to lay out as many pages as they want in front of them at a time, instead of being restricted to screen space or scroll-through on a document viewer.  Because it's easier to mark on the pages.  Because they like the clear delineation of physical possession of the packet equating to ownership and responsibility for the file, and being able to say "oh I couldn't find the file" when asked why they didn't do something (a mentality that drives me insane).  Or just plain aversion to technology.  An MR operating system with intuitive document interactions would eliminate 3 of these problems.

[Rose]

My office gave me a dual screen workstation, and I love it.

[Ai Shizuka]

There's not a ton of folks using digital cameras or iPods or GPS devices or eReaders these days because smart phones can be all of those and more.

Can be mediocre at all of those things. A smartphone can do everything well enough for amateurs, wich isn't a bad thing. It's the whole point of a smartphone, actually.

Maybe not a ton of folks are using digital cameras, if we are talking about instagram addicts taking pictures of their dinner. Real photography with some actual quality? Nope. Your 1k dollars phone isn't gonna cut it.
Google maps to find starbucks in a new city? Sure, the phone is perfectly fine.
Tracking a winter ascent in the Alps over multiple days? Your phone is a piece of frozen plastic.
Reading a book during a 12h travel? I'll take my 40$ kindle, wich isn't going to make me blind.

Smartphone are convenient because they (sort of) do a lot of things with a single device. That's the  beauty of a smartphone.
But if I want quality, I'll take my camera, my drone, my garmin GPS and my kindle.

[Cruxador]

There's not a ton of folks using digital cameras or iPods or GPS devices or eReaders these days because smart phones can be all of those and more.

Can be mediocre at all of those things. A smartphone can do everything well enough for amateurs, wich isn't a bad thing. It's the whole point of a smartphone, actually.

Maybe not a ton of folks are using digital cameras, if we are talking about instagram addicts taking pictures of their dinner. Real photography with some actual quality? Nope. Your 1k dollars phone isn't gonna cut it.
Google maps to find starbucks in a new city? Sure, the phone is perfectly fine.
Tracking a winter ascent in the Alps over multiple days? Your phone is a piece of frozen plastic.
Reading a book during a 12h travel? I'll take my 40$ kindle, wich isn't going to make me blind.

Smartphone are convenient because they (sort of) do a lot of things with a single device. That's the  beauty of a smartphone.
But if I want quality, I'll take my camera, my drone, my garmin GPS and my kindle.

What I got from this is that your smartphone is older, or not top of the line. New phone cameras, especially on Apple products (this is the one area in which they're still noticeably better than Android) are usually outright better than similarly priced dedicated cameras, their primary downside is that you can't really use big lenses, the range is fixed. So if you're doing wildlife photography they're not going to cut it. Any other photography should be fine though, even professional photography for weddings and portraits and things like that only really needs the big equipment because that's what people expect to see, nobody wants to pay three digits for some hipster to whip out en iPhone.
Phone navigation isn't suitable for going very back country,  although much of the alps should be okay, depending on where you go, and they do make hardier smartphones even if they're not the main line of product.
I read a lot on my phone and don't have any problem. I do keep the blue light filter feature on, which maybe helps. I don't know what else has changed, but with older devices I had to set the display to a particularly dull colors (black background, cream text) to make it a nice experience.

[Folly]

New phone cameras, especially on Apple products (this is the one area in which they're still noticeably better than Android)

https://www.theverge.com/2018/9/19/17878018/iphone-xs-x-pixel-2-galaxy-s9-camera-comparison
The gap between similarly priced phones might not be as great as you think.

Also, I've heard newscasters note that they were streaming from their phones on several occasions when cameras were not readily available, and I could not see any difference in quality.

[Ai Shizuka]

even professional photography for weddings and portraits

I'm talking about wildlife, panoramic views, falling stars, milky way pictures.
Wedding pictures aren't exactly testing the limits of a camera.

Tracking devices? Nope.
No way I'm gonna trust a phone, no matter how expensive, in my winter trips around the alps, in the rare occasions I need a GPS device.
Can't handle the cold, unusable with gloves, unreliable in low signal areas, crap batteries. Just no. I rarely need it, but if I do, it has to work under every possible circumstance.

Reading devices are a matter of personal taste, I guess. I'm used to the natural look of my Kindle, so I find a phone display irritating.


Even if I wouldn't want a professional camera, for the price of a top-tier smartphone I'd rather buy a gopro, a mid-level phone and a very good garmin GPS.
Heck, for the price of an iphone X I could buy a Mavic and a mid-level phone.

Daily life/instagram? Smartphone is perfect.
Anything a little bit more adventurous? Nope. I'm talking from factual experience. Just no.

[Cruxador]

even professional photography for weddings and portraits

I'm talking about wildlife, panoramic views, falling stars, milky way pictures.
Wedding pictures aren't exactly testing the limits of a camera.

No, but that kind of thing represents the vast majority of professional photography. The kinds of things that a phone camera can't do are pretty peripheral.

Anything a little bit more adventurous? Nope.

In my day, you could get pretty adventurous without any of this stuff. And I'm not that old. I guess that means we use tech differently, but battery life and needing to take gloves off aren't big problems in a device that mostly just sits in your backpack turned off. Also, I don't know them that well since I've never really lived by them, but aren't the alps pretty developed? Like, even if you get lost I reckon you should be able to find some form of human habitation in a day or two and not even have trouble with food supplies, assuming you prepared properly.

[E. Albright]

No, but that kind of thing represents the vast majority of professional photography. The kinds of things that a phone camera can't do are pretty peripheral.

...I get the idea that you're not a photographer. The kinds of things that a phone camera can't do okay are pretty peripheral, but the kinds of things a phone camera (yes, even bleeding edge) can't do well are absolutely not peripheral. There's a reason professional photographers still use dedicated cameras, and it's not for appearances. The dedicated device gives them a far better UI than the multi-purpose device... and they need the better UI because the DSLR/mirrorless allows for more fine-grained control and better quality, even for point-blank, slow-moving fixed-lighting subjects. Smartphone cameras killed compact digital cameras. They did not kill higher-end cameras, for the simple reason that they're not as good as them by a large margin. And while they may be as good as current ones in 10 years if their rate of improvement continues at its current pace, in 10 years the dedicated ones will be significantly better unless they hit hard limits before phone cameras.

[Retropunch]

Anything a little bit more adventurous? Nope.

In my day, you could get pretty adventurous without any of this stuff. And I'm not that old. I guess that means we use tech differently, but battery life and needing to take gloves off aren't big problems in a device that mostly just sits in your backpack turned off. Also, I don't know them that well since I've never really lived by them, but aren't the alps pretty developed? Like, even if you get lost I reckon you should be able to find some form of human habitation in a day or two and not even have trouble with food supplies, assuming you prepared properly.

...I'm also getting the idea that you've never done serious mountaineering - it's very possible to get lost in the alps, and people do and subsequently die each year. The issue isn't 'if it's possible without dedicated GPS' as it obviously is with maps (people have been doing it for years, and many know it without needing any aid) it's if you'd trust your smartphone to do the task compared to dedicated GPS or being a capable mapping. Having been in situations where I have needed to absolutely trust that I've got something to get me home, the answer is absolutely 100% not a chance in hell.

Sure, you can get specialist, rugged smartphones with inbuilt failover GPS etc. but at that point you're basically buying a specialist device. If you trust bringing your Apple as your main mode of navigation in anything other than your local town you deserve to die on a mountaintop.

[Cruxador]

...I get the idea that you're not a photographer.

I mean, my photos sell, but not nearly enough to make that my occupation. Call that what you will. I don't normally print them any bigger than 18*30 either, and I don't use a cell phone camera for it. But under most situations, I pretty well could without changing much, and I barely dip my foot into the rabbit hole of gear.

...I'm also getting the idea that you've never done serious mountaineering

I mean, the Sierra Nevada and the Cascades. They're fairly welcoming mountains I guess, it's no tlike I went to Everest or anything, but it's not like the folks who wander around the Appalachian hills a bit either. Definitely far more serious than the average person, although the most I've done in time and distance is a bit under 50 miles in the course of a week, so a relatively leisurely pace even with the elevation change.

it's very possible to get lost in the alps, and people do and subsequently die each year.

I've never died, in the alps or elsewhere, but my perception is that people who die in the wilderness are either tremendously unlucky and encounter an avalanche or something, or else they're unprepared and lack either adequate shelter or adequate food to account for possible minor mishaps. You should expect that things can go wrong, not just in the mountains but in any aspect of life, and be prepared for the consequences as much as possible. From googling it, it looks like the biggest killer in the Alps is sudden storms, so... Well, I don't know the solution to that off-hand since it's not my region, but it seems like it should be possible to insulate yourself if there's enough snow on the ground and you've packed properly. I can see why it would be helpful to have more precise location information in that situation though, considering that it is built up well enough to give you a decent chance of finding more comfortable accommodation.

or being a capable mapping

I'd trust Google maps over Garmin maps in general. Not saying either is perfect, but I've definitely had more problems with Garmin, back in the days when I used them for anything other than farm stuff. Even with a dedicated GPS, I'd recommend just using the lat/long to find yourself on a proper paper relief map - the best maps here are USGS, but I imagine pretty much every decent government has got their own equivalent.

Having been in situations where I have needed to absolutely trust that I've got something to get me home,

First of all, home isn't where you need to get to unless you're so close enough that you should know the place like the back of your hand anyway. Otherwise, you just need to get somewhere that you can encounter a building or vehicle to sort out the situation. Which in the case of a storm would be to weather it there, or in the case of being lost would usually be to arrange some manner of vehicular transport from where you are to where you should be. It does entail relying on the kindness of strangers, but if it's an emergency then you'll just have to swallow your pride and do that.

Sure, you can get specialist, rugged smartphones with inbuilt failover GPS etc. but at that point you're basically buying a specialist device.

I mean, I'd probably want that anyway, if I lived in the Alps.

If you trust bringing your Apple as your main mode of navigation in anything other than your local town you deserve to die on a mountaintop.

I mean obviously if you just rush out into the wilderness with no prep and shout "Steve Jobs will save me!" then you're in for a rude awakening. But regardless of what tech you've got, you should already know exactly what route you're planning to take, every other thing, including maps and GPS is going to be a secondary thing, there as a backup to make sure you don't get off track. If you're adequately prepared, even the map should be unnecessary (though you should most definitely still have it just to confirm).