What Impact Could Apple Vision Pro Have on the Workplace?

Ryan Purvis 03:25:52
Hello and welcome to the digital workspace works Podcast. I'm Ryan Purvis, your host supported by producer Heather Bicknell. In this series, you'll hear stories and opinions from experts in the field story from the frontlines. The problems they face, how they solve them. The areas they're focused on from technology, people and processes to the approaches they took, that will help you to get to grips with a digital workspace inner workings.

To my screen back to grayscale feels like you know, that's fading too much time looking at my phones, let's go back to grayscale.

Heather Bicknell 03:26:28
I've heard of people doing that for their phones. Do you do that for your computer to know? Okay, that would be a first I haven't heard of that.

Ryan Purvis 03:26:37
No, I don't think there's much benefit to doing that all the time. Because a lot of stuff you do on your computer screen is meant to be in colour, like do you know, there's notifications that are certification, but you could do like a an Excel spreadsheet with data analysis, you need to know what's right, and what's green. In financials, you don't, you don't want to mess around with that. But the point more is that like, as much as I use my phone a lot, I use it mostly to read, if I'm, if I'm getting time, and that doesn't have to be in colour, that just has to be readable. Whereas you know, when it's colour that all of a sudden you start seeing notification notification, badges go red or, or something like that special look at LinkedIn or something. So that's now cut. It's amazing. Like in three days, it's cut down my usage, that it percent, just by changing the colours, and I can still, there's a way on the offer, at least we can tap the back. If you double tap it, it changes back to colour. But someone sent me an image to look at, I need to look at in colour, I can just double tap changes the colour, the green colour, that will turn it back to grayscale. And that's really the regenerator

Heather Bicknell 03:27:48
since you mentioned the iPhone, have you seen the new video campaign that Google put out for the pixel, they have this. It's pretty clever. They have this. They've anthropomorphized the iPhone and the Google Pixel. And they have the mic having conversations and you know, Google's, like kind of digging out a lot of the features that Apple doesn't have and sort of positioning them as like the, you know, the just the phone that's out to pasture a little bit or like this little older, not as up to date on some things. You know, photography features and battery life. They poke fun at a lot. And even if you're a devout it, iPhone, Apple person, I think it's worth watching the videos because they're pretty funny.

Ryan Purvis 03:28:37
No, I haven't I haven't watched I don't tend to look at that kind of stuff. I mean, what I what I very rarely ever comes up with when someone's on Android. And they told me that I should be on Android. And for whatever reason, and usually the conversation is but I have no problems with Apple, like nothing breaks, really Touchwood everything works together. Don't worry about anything. No reason to change. And I'm in no rush to upgrade my phone either. Like my wife wants to get upgraded, like but why your your iPhone 13 is no different to the iPhone 14 Except for the battery really? What's the what's the upside? Kind of feel like? Yes. And that sense that the stable, very incremental improvement, not major improvements? I don't know if you looked at the AR VR, it's it. But all since they've put that out.

Heather Bicknell 03:29:29
Yeah, the Apple Visual PRO. Yep, I did

Ryan Purvis 03:29:35
that what are your thoughts?

Heather Bicknell 03:29:36
I think they did a few interesting things with it. The one that is maybe most notable to me in terms of difference in their approach is is honestly the whole seeing the eyes thing or the see through kind of thing, it's sort of like, I don't even know if you would categorise it as AR or VR or if it's mixed, or if it can like sort of go between those concepts a little bit. But I think that sort of visually makes it distinctive, and puts it in that sort of more, maybe less of a like, I'm enclosed in my, you know, own VR world, which is very, I think of mainly like the video game use case for that or like, you know, something exploratory where you can check out a new part of the world or you know, imaginary space like that, but is more geared towards, you know, a lot of the use cases they showed were work related. So things like basically replacing your computer as a headset, which I thought was an interesting approach that was different from the others we've seen so far.

Ryan Purvis 03:30:53
Yeah, I'll be honest that that was impressed me. I mean, I think I think it's gonna be it'd be the technology, for sure. Without spent three and a half grand on it? Probably not. Well, like yet I could I could eat those words at some point. But I think the way they're going was interesting. And I think that took the thing that always bugged me about that sort of AR VR is people trying to split it the whole time. And no matter of trying to do it with mixed reality, is there sort of moniker for it don't get into such semantics, I think it doesn't matter, you lose the plot. And I think that the offering looks really cool. I wouldn't buy first version for sure, I'd probably wait for a second or third version of it to see what it looks like. But I think is the way we're going in some respects, but I don't think it's as, as important to people as, as people want it to be, you know, I think you know, still be very comfortable with a laptop with a screen, or a desktop with a keyboard mouse on the screen. And that's fine. But I think for some people that will be really, really interesting. I mean, gaming, obviously, is one real time work that you're doing where everything something intelligent, helping you just solve that problem. You know, you're a mechanic trying to fix something or electrician or something like that. And there's an interpretation layer that's looking at the same thing as you and noticing things that can help you or give you the spec or the design that you need to know, I think that'll be valuable, but not a three and a half grand. Get out there, it's got to be down at the 150 300. Mark, I would think even 1000 would probably be the max, where someone can just go and like, likely buy it like you know, as I said, Even so it needs it, regardless of taking pictures of things, to show you that they've done something, we'll show you what they wanted to show you. It's got to be that easy to use, and that that barrier is that low that anyone could just have it and use it.

Heather Bicknell 03:32:51
Yeah, I wonder if they can even actually, you know, if it would, I know I think it's that the Microsoft HoloLens, I think they, at least in the past have shown examples of how that could be used in something more, you know, manufacturing industrial, but the thing that is also notable for the Apple vision Pro is it's not, is the battery life. So it has, you know, it has an external battery pack, that's like a wire that comes down. So is portable, but that only last I think two hours is the max time. So to me, it seemed really like a knowledge worker, device, if anything for work given that, you know, you kind of still need to be wired with it maybe is one of the limitations of the the earlier model to get that desired battery life. But I also, you know, years ago, now we had a conversation. And in one in which you brought up, like, you know, an AR world where, you know, you're brushing your teeth in the morning, you're still in your pyjamas, or, or whatnot, but you're on a work call as an avatar of yourself. And that would be a feature that we would, you know, see in our lifetimes. I feel like to me, when I saw that release as like, it's reminding me of that conversation I had with Ryan all those years ago.

Ryan Purvis 03:34:21
Yeah. And to be fair, that was my idea that was sort of middle school shift. It's forward, my lady here in the UK, I'll find a name again. And I think she's spot on, I think that will happen. But again, it's got to be good at a price point that is attainable. But you can do that too. So because they were teams, you can have avatar that is you. I think it's more the immersive experience. It'll be interesting, still much more like player one sort of movie star or you're in a suit and you got to have a helmet and you're totally immersed in something. But I still think that use case is just such a narrow thing for what it is. But it can happen. I mean, to be fair, it's it'll be done by demand in the end. I mean, if you look at how fast the generative stuff is coming, so, you know, to be able to use one, but there's so many and the one that I was listening to yesterday, which is the image generation one, what's it called mid ship, something like that. Or Mid Valley or something where they generate images. They've got the ability now that you can zoom out when the image is generated. Now you think about how difficult that is to do. And that's available already. And this has only been kept on its fifth version, but That's quick. You know, it feels quick. So those things like the AI will merging with the these other things I think will become the driver for it because that'll just make To get a better better experience.

Heather Bicknell 03:35:54
Yeah, definitely. I'm curious, how would you have thought of this in? In some of your your IT roles? Like, do you think this is technology that certain sectors will start experimenting with and sort of eating the cost and seeing what it could do for them? Yeah.

Ryan Purvis 03:36:16
I mean, we've, we've experimented for years. I mean, when I was back in South Africa, we did a thing for one of the big breweries where we had, we actually recorded a little bit, there's a few pubs, bars, restaurants, whatever, call them near to the office, and we created 3d environments of those places. And we basically showed them how you can train their reps to around them, and very much like a first person shooter, you know, when you when you run around the environment, can you see this the important things you need to see? Can you pick up the power ups, all that kind of stuff, and, and the training, there was around bread placement. So for example, costs a Lago, which is one of the brands or one of the competitors, which would be even took, I can't remember who owns the number, but I think there might even be owned by them now. But, you know, the sales rep would be going in saying, Well, we're, we're your biggest sponsor. For a brand new point of view, we should be the number one brand that you see, when you walk in the door. Why is my competitor there as well, you know, that's the kind of, that's the game. So that's what they call them. Managers to call them serious games, that they call them serious game. So So you're using a game engine, with all the mechanisms. And we were talking even then, and I'm talking probably 25 years ago, now, it's not really old. But the idea was, you could, you could put on a console. And if you had an AR VR headset, you could be giving them that immersive experience, where not only are they looking at visually what's in front of them, but they can also hear things. So imagine walking into a restaurant or Pub is really busy. So Friday afternoon, three o'clock, I think about the Baron and centre, the one that we did the thing around, that leads back to three o'clock. So now you are your sales rep will come through, and you're listening to what the consumers are talking about, which goes back into your marketing engine or so you could use the whole thing as a way to capture information to train people to listen for what to look for. And then if you now take it forward from the simulation world, we're returning and teaching to now they're walking out with the headset from its manufacturer, and they walk into that place. And that's got aI that's now looking around, Hey, would you send me a link on the facial recognition thing that we'll talk about the separately, but just imagine you're walking in and out. So you could have just even even the sorts of James Bond days had a camera on the on the on the glasses recording as you go in and someone would go through it manually. But you could in theory have aI using 5g connectivity going in, it's scanning this recording these things, it's noticing the deficiencies and without the rep having to necessary go and trade an issue with the manager or whatever it is, the report has been generated in the background by the AI has gone through a workflow, it's been approved an official document that sent to that venue saying, you know, we were there. Whatever time whatever day, this was the this was the agent that was there. This is what we saw, you know, here's the evidence, please make reparations or, or it's all good. Yeah, fantastic. Great thing. I mean, that would be the benefits of the data being consolidated. The benefits of the AI benefits of the of the headset, all tied together in a value chain. Where it could be a problem is the facial recognition thing, for example, because now you're going down a route of and the article you sent me was around something in the UK here where they were doing facial recognition for petty theft. You could also be profiling your customers by getting to know them using facial recognition. And get I'm pretty sure if you go to certain casinos, that's already happened, not only to keep people out your gambling, but also to keep people in that it's beneficial. And there's also the privacy considerations and laws. And, you know, my suspicion is that I think there's 11 states and 11 States of America that are doing it now. Illinois was one of the first where they're banning facial recognition. So I think that's what's going to be the predominant state for most countries and they'll ban it and or come out as more than an emergency emergency thing where they're trying to find someone or some terrorist or whatever. Or kid embassy good. Yeah, so there's this you know, everything every piece of technology comes that's gonna protocol. So it's really who wield the power.

Heather Bicknell 03:40:34
Yeah. I thought that article was was interesting. I was surprised to see it being so popular across Britain and I didn't know part of it was maybe Britain having like more of a camera network. So being more of a like infrastructure thing. as well. But yeah, it does raise a lot of you have to talk about the ethical concerns of it. And what if it's not recognising the right people. So the way that this one works once, there's a fact at the store, they have this example of a security officer going reviewing the footage on like an old computer, and then marking who those people were in the recording. So that next time they come into the store, he'll get an alert that, you know, those same people have come back. And then anyone actually in the network of stores that are using the same technology would then have them added to their database that if they came to another store, they would, you know, get some sort of alert. And there's actually I thought this was interesting. There's still a human sort of checkpoint, it seems. So once a person's face is recognised, they you know, the company that does this, say they have like, expert face analyzers, basically, it sounds like they had to take some tests to prove they could, like match pictures of people. So there's some some check tests to have a human in there, but it's obviously not going to be 100% in failable. system. And we know there's like racial bias and other things that have come up in the past with facial recognition technology not being you know, as good across the board there. So they are fascinating stuff. I'm curious, have you seen? Have you? Have you seen this anywhere? Because it sounds like they have to post signage that they use it. And it was in like 300 stores? I think so far?

Ryan Purvis 03:42:28
Um, you know, to be honest with you, if it's there, haven't you noticed it? So you, I mean, London is known to have lots of cameras everywhere. And it's been like that for years. So probably a decade or so, I know, this doesn't really bug me or bother me. In fact, my expectation is you should have cameras up. And let's not get it hands back to the power. I'm not, you know, as long as being used for the right purposes, you know, my safety, my family safety, etc. I'm okay with that. And we're not sure what that I mean, he knows that I just didn't like our stuff. We all have objections as if I was using it, as I say to for nefarious purposes. And we had we had a case many years ago was actually on a school tour where a guy flew with us some way and then we'd live in the country because he looked like a terrorist and you had the picture of a terrorist a picture of him next to each other there she looked very similar. And you know, some of the name as well. And that was kind of a problem and I guess how those situations are handled is the key because that's that's really going to lead you down the right or wrong part. I wouldn't mind in fact you know, we had we had those all foods I think it was all Amazon stores, we could just walk around and pick up your stuff and then walk out and it automatically charged you in principle that sounds like a decent idea ticking do we need it necessarily I mean maybe the cool idea but actually not really beneficial there's just cool that yours I don't know

Heather Bicknell 03:44:07
I saw someone in the comments there to call reference this Amazon to go stores or kind of pop up so whatever they had Brenda the mass but the interesting thing about that is you you pay up front base you know you have to provide a payment method to get inside so that's sort of a anti theft by design if you will like ask because your be anything you pick up and that story is in theory automatically charged charged to you walk out with it. Yeah.

Ryan Purvis 03:44:40
And yeah, I mean that's that's fine. It's the same as my green fuel now you know, if I have my app which I shot in August Philip, I can use my app and I'll preload under 50 bucks whatever it is. And then when I've done my my Phillip in this it'll just kind of be back whatever was left over and it's convenient that's that that to me is great because you know it's South Africa someone else put the fuel in for me to pay then like they come to the coach obviously and I just pay them and I leave in the UK and I'm just setting the stage you got to pump your own gas. So all yeah and then you have to go pay inside and I find that really really irritating unless you have to go inside because one you now have to walk inside past all the stuff they want to sell you to go pay or pay for fuel to because your that's happening you are now holding a spot that somebody else can't put fuel in as most most petrol stations here don't have a spot for you to go and park the car off and put fuel in. You're gonna leave your car that cheap now slowing down that process. And if you do have a spot to go park, you've now got to drive your car, get out, go pay come back in, you know, it's just a whole pallava so having the app whatever and you know, that's interface recognition. biometrics will make a lot of sense. Same as entering your own house, you know, if you're walking in, I mean, this is kind of where, like the Amazon products or the ring products, you know, you could walk in, they could recognise me kind of lock the doors I can get inside, I don't have to worry about who's got keys to my house. Because then facial recognition, I can say like, welcome to come in estimate. And you can have approval process. So I see, I can see benefits to have a nice things, we change our locks on a regular basis. And I say regular probably more often than most people will probably be two years, 18 months, something like that. Just because sometimes we've had people in the house, we don't know, if they've taken us big, you know, if the keys are missing, if it was them or not. And, you know, most people are people we know, but you just never know. And then also, like over time, sometimes you trust people, and you give them a key for their house. And then you don't know who's you don't know who's been in their house, and what they've done with the keys. So you don't know if your key has been taken, copied, or whatever it is. So we just change, it's a it's a cost, but it's a cost that I'm the same like have my credit cards every year, because you just don't know who's got copies of the number going, where a new so you just have to do things. So they have a biometric or something like that. Friends appears it does make sense. To some extent.

Heather Bicknell 03:47:08
Yeah, we've seen you know, biometric security is something we've gotten, I would say extremely used to when it comes to our phones, mainly. And you know, some people use it for their, you have a laptop with it as well. So, but that's sort of where you draw the lines.

Ryan Purvis 03:47:27
So it's fairly, you know, just to finish off, so I really love that when it comes down on my Apple products, my my phone, my watch opens my devices for me. So I don't have to type my password every time just open send in sometimes when asked me to authenticate something, I can use my fingerprint on the keyboard or I can just double tap my watch. Now, in most cases, that's perfectly fine. But in the system, the exact thing that people should be wary of, and we probably won't do it anyway, is your banking apps will use facial recognition to unlock it for you. You should not allow that. Or you should have like a triple tap option which I have on my phone. If I triple tap on my phone, it turns off biometric authentication. So the only way to get into my phone is to type a password. Because if you're in situation where they want to get in your phone, and you have a biometric enabled, or there to just point the phone at you. So those are the things that you've got to think about especially travel because you're going to some countries that you know they can do different things, especially for you don't know the rules, whatever it is. Now the thing I was gonna say to you, I've lost my train of thought a bit, but that was like the crux of that is biometrics grades. That you have to put some some additional thought into. Yeah, absolutely. Cool. Writing. Thanks, guys. I gotta go to catch up next week.

Heather Bicknell 03:48:51
Sounds good. See you then.

Ryan Purvis 03:48:54
Thank you for listening to today's episode. Hey, the big news app producer, editor. Thank you, Heather. For your hard work on this episode. Please subscribe to the series and rate us on iTunes or the Google Play Store. Follow us on Twitter at the DW W podcast. The show notes and transcripts will be available on the website https://www.digitalworkspace.works/. Please also visit our website https://www.digitalworkspace.works/ and subscribe to our newsletter. And lastly, if you found this episode useful, please share with your friends or colleagues.