At first glance, I agree with Reddit's take on Apollo. Their bill is staggering but the math doesn't add up. I don't want to be too antagonistic or holier-than-thou. However I feel Apollo and other products dependent on Reddit's API could use some engineering rigor. Specifically, metrics to track Reddit API calls broken down by parts of their code could provide easy wins.
I'm fully aware that lots of developers hate the concept of thinking about cost control or resources usage. But thinking about those things, like thinking about product management, is how most developers mature. Just like every other engineering practice.
At second glance, I'm now on Apollo's side. u/Meepster23 has a good example in https://www.reddit.com/r/redditdev/comments/141mjij/lets_talk_about_those_api_calls/. Roughly, I think Reddit is making a mistake charging $0.25 per 1000 calls irrespective of whether they're reads or writes. Reads (especially reads of lists of comments) can be that price. For comparison, fetching an AWS S3 object 1000 times is $0.40.
But $0.25 per 1000 upvotes? That's a crazy price. If Reddit is charging the same rate for an upvote as they are for a fetch of the sidebar, they are way out of line.
Nothing they presented with the headset seems new. A pile of 2d traditional applications across the field of view? Long time standby for vr/ar device demonstrations. Watch a video on a simulated big screen? Sony and others sold expensive head mounted displays for that 25 years ago. The piles of sensors sound impressive at first glance, but then most of that is packed in to run of the mill phones these days.
And the angles about being the next thing after mobile is exactly the same stuff Zuckerberg promised when the big, failed, pivot to Meta happened. It's a fundamentally incoherent concept honestly, how is this supposed to lead to never leaving the house? There are serious physical comfort issues involved with the hypothetical future version of this technology that solves the current limited battery life.
I'll also point out there's a big reason most other iterations of vr/ar technology focuses on games, that's basically what the devices are fundamentally best for. Because it's not as much of a big deal to set down a headset like after a while after playing games as it would be for productivity. If you're working 8 hours, can something Iike this really be comfortable enough? If it isn't, how does something like this not become something you stop bothering with after the novelty wears off?
Even for the idea of having a "personal HUD", it's quite a lot to wear to have such functionality. Not to mention the tethered battery pack is major liability for getting caught on something you're passing by - particularly with the cutting off of your peripheral vision! Not to mention that it physically can't fit glasses, and the offering of Zeiss optical inserts had warnings they wouldn't work for all prescription types - which is frankly a massive downside for much of the population these days.
I think Apple is trying to see if all technologies combined will push usability across the infection point. As for games, the cost itself prevent all serious gaming business model to work so they have to focus on productivity
It looks like incredible technology for sure, but something about the promo video just rubs me the wrong way. I think it may be the part where the guy watches a video of his kids and the narrator talks about relieving a moment. That is creepy to me. I’m of that mindset that when you’re taking a photo or shooting a video on your phone, you’re not really living that moment because you are viewing it through the phone screen while it is happening. Again, incredible tech they’ve packed in there, and I’ll definitely want to give it spin, but I can’t see myself wanting to use it long term.
I don't care how cool the technology is, I will never strap something on to my head. Why aren't they working on something that looks more like glasses?
At first glance, I agree with Reddit's take on Apollo. Their bill is staggering but the math doesn't add up. I don't want to be too antagonistic or holier-than-thou. However I feel Apollo and other products dependent on Reddit's API could use some engineering rigor. Specifically, metrics to track Reddit API calls broken down by parts of their code could provide easy wins.
I'm fully aware that lots of developers hate the concept of thinking about cost control or resources usage. But thinking about those things, like thinking about product management, is how most developers mature. Just like every other engineering practice.
At second glance, I'm now on Apollo's side. u/Meepster23 has a good example in https://www.reddit.com/r/redditdev/comments/141mjij/lets_talk_about_those_api_calls/. Roughly, I think Reddit is making a mistake charging $0.25 per 1000 calls irrespective of whether they're reads or writes. Reads (especially reads of lists of comments) can be that price. For comparison, fetching an AWS S3 object 1000 times is $0.40.
But $0.25 per 1000 upvotes? That's a crazy price. If Reddit is charging the same rate for an upvote as they are for a fetch of the sidebar, they are way out of line.
Apollo's backend is https://github.com/christianselig/apollo-backend/tree/main and the service looks as rudimentary as any demo service. I can ask for caching of some things, but the next rearchitecture to save costs would probably be to move stuff over to websockets as described in https://www.reddit.com/dev/api/#section_live. That's a lengthy and time-intensive rearchitecture of any backend..
As a fellow queen man, I stand by your decision to not correct the typo.
Nothing they presented with the headset seems new. A pile of 2d traditional applications across the field of view? Long time standby for vr/ar device demonstrations. Watch a video on a simulated big screen? Sony and others sold expensive head mounted displays for that 25 years ago. The piles of sensors sound impressive at first glance, but then most of that is packed in to run of the mill phones these days.
And the angles about being the next thing after mobile is exactly the same stuff Zuckerberg promised when the big, failed, pivot to Meta happened. It's a fundamentally incoherent concept honestly, how is this supposed to lead to never leaving the house? There are serious physical comfort issues involved with the hypothetical future version of this technology that solves the current limited battery life.
I'll also point out there's a big reason most other iterations of vr/ar technology focuses on games, that's basically what the devices are fundamentally best for. Because it's not as much of a big deal to set down a headset like after a while after playing games as it would be for productivity. If you're working 8 hours, can something Iike this really be comfortable enough? If it isn't, how does something like this not become something you stop bothering with after the novelty wears off?
Even for the idea of having a "personal HUD", it's quite a lot to wear to have such functionality. Not to mention the tethered battery pack is major liability for getting caught on something you're passing by - particularly with the cutting off of your peripheral vision! Not to mention that it physically can't fit glasses, and the offering of Zeiss optical inserts had warnings they wouldn't work for all prescription types - which is frankly a massive downside for much of the population these days.
I think Apple is trying to see if all technologies combined will push usability across the infection point. As for games, the cost itself prevent all serious gaming business model to work so they have to focus on productivity
It looks like incredible technology for sure, but something about the promo video just rubs me the wrong way. I think it may be the part where the guy watches a video of his kids and the narrator talks about relieving a moment. That is creepy to me. I’m of that mindset that when you’re taking a photo or shooting a video on your phone, you’re not really living that moment because you are viewing it through the phone screen while it is happening. Again, incredible tech they’ve packed in there, and I’ll definitely want to give it spin, but I can’t see myself wanting to use it long term.
That was actually a hidden preview for the new season of Black Mirror.
I don't care how cool the technology is, I will never strap something on to my head. Why aren't they working on something that looks more like glasses?
I think that's the long term vision - the technology just isn't there (yet)
That is great to hear, thank you Gus!