Only one of these videos is real

[somerandomusername]

All three of these clips were used in marketing videos, but only one of them is real. Can you guess which?

 

[jbailey]

These are all very blurry gifs. Maybe post a link to their actual locations?

 

[leman]

What am I looking at exactly? What does "real" mean?

 

[tomO2013]

What am I looking at exactly? What does "real" mean?

Have you ever had a dream, Neo, that you were so sure was real? What if you were unable to wake from that dream? How would you know the difference between the dream world and the real world?

 

[somerandomusername]

These are all very blurry gifs. Maybe post a link to their actual locations?

What am I looking at exactly? What does "real" mean?

Well, in an attempt to address @leman ‘s previous critique of one of my posts on this forum, I tried to directly upload a clip of video that was deliberately cut and edited to demonstrate my point instead of making you watch minutes long videos to get my point across. I did it in a format that would take little space/bandwidth and thus would load quickly. But since you don’t care about that anymore, I’ll gladly link to the full videos!







my point that I was making was what differentiates Apple from other technology companies. Apple focuses on real, shipping products; whereas other companies, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon, Magic Leap, and others focus on creating glitzy, glamorous concept videos. A lot of people claimed Apple’s marketing video was mere concept, a render; in fact, it was the opposite: it was pulled straight from the product. All companies produce marketing videos, but Apple’s marketing is truthful whereas so many tech companies are not truthful, because they focus on glitz rather than shipping a revolutionary product. This is not the first, but rather another instance in a long line of times this has happened.

Remember the intro of the iPad? Microsoft came out with their “tablet” video in 2009, right as Apple was widely rumored to be making a tablet. Let’s go over those two videos:





Microsoft focuses on glamour, while Apple literally will reinvent categories with things you don’t think possibly could be possible. Apple is shipping a product extremely soon, whilst HoloLens and Magic Leap’s video demonstrate products you will never be able to buy. The actual products they ended up shipping are NOTHING like what their marketing suggest, while Apple’s marketing is directly showing off and telling you what you can do with their product. I was simply showing appreciation for that, and posting it in the run up to Apple’s launch, that’s all. I thought it would be cool to show off what makes Apple, Apple.

 

[Nycturne]

A lot of people claimed Apple’s marketing video was mere concept, a render; in fact, it was the opposite: it was pulled straight from the product. All companies produce marketing videos, but Apple’s marketing is truthful whereas so many tech companies are not truthful, because they focus on glitz rather than shipping a revolutionary product. This is not the first, but rather another instance in a long line of times this has happened.

Apple's video is a render, but it's also really hard to demonstrate AR without doing some VFX trickery. That said, I get your point, which is that Microsoft with Hololens is selling the "idea" of AR in their video, while Apple is selling a product and demonstrating what it does.

In defense of the Courier video though, that to me looks an awful lot like it came from the design team for consumption by the engineering team to put a direction on the work to be done. It's common stuff on any team that has a designer presence. I've dealt with enough similar mock-ups in my day, including some infamous ones. I don't think that was ever meant for external consumption, but it got out at some point after the product was canceled.

 

[somerandomusername]

Apple's video is a render, but it's also really hard to demonstrate AR without doing some VFX trickery. That said, I get your point, which is that Microsoft with Hololens is selling the "idea" of AR in their video, while Apple is selling a product and demonstrating what it does.

It’s not a rendered concept. You’re being literal for reasons I don’t understand. Watch the end of the HoloLens video, for example. It demonstrates something that is NOT able to be done on HoloLens. That IS a 3D graphics render, not video and content pulled straight off of the device and overlayed with real world video. You cannot do what Microsoft advertised at the end of the video, for example. And the whole video is like that. I just wanted to use the most extreme example to make it clear what I am referring to.

The interaction, apps, UI, everything you see in Apple’s video is pulled off of the device, and it’s superimposed onto/ overlayed with real world video when it cuts to her sitting on a couch, for example. Greg Joswiak has directly stated this. If you have proof otherwise, show me. I stated this because people thought there’s no way the windows and apps and everything look that good and function that well, it has to be a render to make it look better than it is. Windows 11‘s “design“ video also did this. It showed fanciful animations and glass that are not present.
They made animations instead of showing what it actually looks like on the device.

In defense of the Courier video though, that to me looks an awful lot like it came from the design team for consumption by the engineering team to put a direction on the work to be done. It's common stuff on any team that has a designer presence. I've dealt with enough similar mock-ups in my day, including some infamous ones. I don't think that was ever meant for external consumption, but it got out at some point after the product was canceled.

It was a publicly released video around the time of Apple creating a tablet rumors.

Microsoft does this time and again. I’m not defending it. They constantly outmarket Apple in marketing, ironically. They make a load of shit up and sell it. Let me know one day when I can buy something from Microsoft that does anything, from the gestures without boxes to how images look and work, like the 3D animated renders they showed in their “reveal” video of HoloLens 2.

 

[ArgoDuck]

Microsoft either invented or brought to infamy the idea of ‘vaporware’, announcing a product either far from ready or not even on the drawing board to forestall a competitor’s product

Back in the early ‘80s a little company called Borland released TurboPascal, with a highly useable IDE and a stunningly fast single-pass compiler. It was deservedly a huge success, and was followed by Turbo-C and C++ and in the ‘90s a good desktop relational database product called paradox

Some years later they announced the imminent release of turbo basic. Big mistake! Microsoft announced a forthcoming new basic and interest in Borland’s product evaporated. Of course, it was years before their ‘Visual Basic’ came to market

 

[somerandomusername]

Microsoft either invented or brought to infamy the idea of ‘vaporware’, announcing a product either far from ready or not even on the drawing board to forestall a competitor’s product

Back in the early ‘80s a little company called Borland released TurboPascal, with a highly useable IDE and a stunningly fast single-pass compiler. It was deservedly a huge success, and was followed by Turbo-C and C++ and in the ‘90s a good desktop relational database product called paradox

Some years later they announced the imminent release of turbo basic. Big mistake! Microsoft announced a forthcoming new basic and interest in Borland’s product evaporated. Of course, it was years before their ‘Visual Basic’ came to market

Thanks for telling this. I didnt know any of that! if you have more stories or stuff related to this topic please share. I’m interested in hearing about more computing history stories.

 

[Nycturne]

It’s not a rendered concept. You’re being literal for reasons I don’t understand. Watch the end of the HoloLens video, for example. It demonstrates something that is NOT able to be done on HoloLens. That IS a 3D graphics render, not video and content pulled straight off of the device and overlayed with real world video. You cannot do what Microsoft advertised at the end of the video, for example. And the whole video is like that. I just wanted to use the most extreme example to make it clear what I am referring to.

The interaction, apps, UI, everything you see in Apple’s video is pulled off of the device, and it’s superimposed onto/ overlayed with real world video when it cuts to her sitting on a couch, for example. Greg Joswiak has directly stated this. If you have proof otherwise, show me. I stated this because people thought there’s no way the windows and apps and everything look that good and function that well, it has to be a render to make it look better than it is. Windows 11‘s “design“ video also did this. It showed fanciful animations and glass that are not present.
They made animations instead of showing what it actually looks like on the device.

I don't even know what you are getting at here. You are arguing against points I never made, and trying to hammer points I already agreed with.

It was a publicly released video around the time of Apple creating a tablet rumors.

Let's go back to the original Gizmodo article on the topic: https://gizmodo.com/leaked-courier-video-shows-how-well-actually-use-it-5369493

The video was leaked, not released according to the original source. The video you shared from NeoWin even still has the Gizmodo watermark on it. Unless you are saying Microsoft intentionally leaked an internal design video? Not impossible, but not generally something MSFT does.

But these sort of concept videos are the bread and butter of design teams early in the development process. I haven't seen Apple's design process, but I'd be surprised if their design folks aren't generating early mock ups to guide development. Apple's approach to security tends to ensure we don't see the leaked mock ups.

 

[ArgoDuck]

Thanks for telling this. I didnt know any of that! if you have more stories or stuff related to this topic please share. I’m interested in hearing about more computing history stories.

Nycturne, Andropov and others here can share more stories like this and moreover are up to date. Although i still develop - privately - i left IT in the late 90s and went academic in a completely different field

 

[somerandomusername]

I don't even know what you are getting at here. You are arguing against points I never made, and trying to hammer points I already agreed with.

Then what was the whole “it is a render” about? I thought my point was clear in the original post where I talked about the difference between Apple’s and other’s videos, where Apple not only directly showed what the device can actually do, but that they were not animations generated by VFX artists, that the apps, objects, and UI were pulled off the device and they were (in my opinion, very innovatively for trying to communicate a 3D interface with 2D video) mixed with third person video in areas where it showed her on the couch, for example. Whereas nothing in Microsoft’s video, or again Magic Leap’s video, were ever from the device itself overlayed with third person video: it was fully VFX, and beyond that none of what was shown was even possible for a user. It sounded like to me you were doubting that (that Apple didnt pull the stuff in the video off the device) with “It is a render,” and I wanted to push back and state that none of what Apple has released has been some fake overglorified VFX, or even VFX renders made in post of the actual UI, but rather being that they both design/engineer the OS and do the marketing, they are able to do stuff like take content directly off of the device, and that it actually looks and functions like that, and they had to do a lot of work to properly and authentically show that (Greg Joswiak stated this as well as multiple people who have demoed it).

Let's go back to the original Gizmodo article on the topic: https://gizmodo.com/leaked-courier-video-shows-how-well-actually-use-it-5369493

The video was leaked, not released according to the original source. The video you shared from NeoWin even still has the Gizmodo watermark on it. Unless you are saying Microsoft intentionally leaked an internal design video? Not impossible, but not generally something MSFT does.

That’s fair and I appreciate the link to more information regarding that specific video and the possibility that it could’ve been intentional but “not generally something they do.”

That being said, Windows 11‘s reveal video as well as both HoloLens reveal videos make the point I was trying to make at the beginning, which is Microsoft and others do a lot of glamor and glitzy videos while Apple’s marketing is faithful to the product, and I must wanted to show my appreciation for that.

Nycturne, Andropov and others here can share more stories like this and moreover are up to date. Although i still develop - privately - i left IT in the late 90s and went academic in a completely different field

Also I didn’t know you might have stories too so if you have anything that you think might be interesting to me I’d love to listen and hear it! I find it really cool to hear actual first person stuff about technology

 

[Nycturne]

Then what was the whole “it is a render” about? I thought my point was clear in the original post where I talked about the difference between Apple’s and other’s videos, where Apple not only directly showed what the device can actually do, but that they were not animations generated by VFX artists, that the apps, objects, and UI were pulled off the device and they were (in my opinion, very innovatively for trying to communicate a 3D interface with 2D video) mixed with third person video in areas where it showed her on the couch, for example. Whereas nothing in Microsoft’s video, or again Magic Leap’s video, were ever from the device itself overlayed with third person video: it was fully VFX, and beyond that none of what was shown was even possible for a user. It sounded like to me you were doubting that (that Apple didnt pull the stuff in the video off the device) with “It is a render,” and I wanted to push back and state that none of what Apple has released has been some fake overglorified VFX, or even VFX renders made in post of the actual UI, but rather being that they both design/engineer the OS and do the marketing, they are able to do stuff like take content directly off of the device, and that it actually looks and functions like that, and they had to do a lot of work to properly and authentically show that (Greg Joswiak stated this as well as multiple people who have demoed it).

I’m not even trying to say “you are wrong”, so you can breathe easy here. Please don‘t get worked up over this.

But Apple’s shot is doctored in much the same way fast food commercials doctor their food shots. Is it a fair representation of what you’ll get? Yes. But going through the video again, it’s a mix of VFX glamour shots, VFX-laden composites that have to reproduce the depth the stereo screens are trying to create, and a handful of very careful “through the device” shots that may have been stabilized to avoid motion issues with viewer. It‘s less faithful than it could be, but it kinda has to be due to the nature of the product, and yet can still be pointed to as an example of good advertising.

There’s a few different aspects when advertising a product. Microsoft spends too much time on the “aspirational” aspect, for sure. And Magic Leap lept on selling the idea long before they had a product ready. The video is originally from 2015, from before they had a working prototype. They should have kept that one internal, or at least focused on using it for raising capital rather than sharing it in public.

That’s fair and I appreciate the link to more information regarding that specific video and the possibility that it could’ve been intentional but “not generally something they do.”

And to be clear, the odds of it being intentional are near-zero. Microsoft in particular has a pretty bad track record with leaks, and there are a couple journalists that got pretty good about pulling information from engineers. Mary Jo Foley being somewhat infamous in my circles. I’ve heard some wild stories there, and a few facepalm moments watching co-workers mess up.

That being said, Windows 11‘s reveal video as well as both HoloLens reveal videos make the point I was trying to make at the beginning, which is Microsoft and others do a lot of glamor and glitzy videos while Apple’s marketing is faithful to the product, and I must wanted to show my appreciation for that.

I wasn’t disagreeing with that point, and I even acknowledged it in my post.