Facebook hires former Apple designer Michael Hillman to take charge of VR hardware at Oculus

Facebook is taking on Michael Hillman — a person with 15 years at Apple, including key work on the company's Mac desktops — as the head of hardware at its Oculus VR division.

While at Apple, Hillman started as a lead designer on the iMac then rose through several other jobs before taking charge of desktops in general, Bloomberg noted. Prior to joining Oculus, Hillman worked as a VP at a self-driving vehicle startup, Zoox.

Oculus is best known for the Rift, one of the first VR headsets aimed a consumer audience. It also makes the more limited Gear VR headset for Samsung smartphones.

While generally well-reviewed, the Rift and its main competition — the HTC Vive — have so far been limited to a niche audience, owing to high pricetags and steep requirements, such as a powerful PC and enough standing space to move around. Oculus has in fact side-stepped Mac development, since no current Mac is powerful enough to support the Rift.

The company has developed a prototype of an untethered device, nicknamed "Santa Cruz," but it's not clear when a finished version might ship. In the meantime Oculus and HTC alike might benefit from developments such as improved wireless HDMI, since their headsets still depend on wired connections.

Apple has been largely dismissive of VR, instead concentrating on its sibling, AR — augmented reality. Earlier today a report backed the idea of a set of consumer-level AR glasses which might ship in 2018 or later.

14 Comments

SpamSandwich 19 Years · 32917 comments

About 7 years ago

Probably a talented designer, but Facebook/Oculus can hire the best designers in the world and they still won't be able to make a bad idea a good one.

maestro64 19 Years · 5029 comments

SpamSandwich said:

Probably a talented designer, but Facebook/Oculus can hire the best designers in the world and they still won't be able to make a bad idea a good one.

Agree, the big question is does he have the talent to take the geek out of head gear device. Better yet, make so people do not like they are having epileptic seizure while using it.

boltsfan17 12 Years · 2294 comments

maestro64 said:

SpamSandwich said:

Probably a talented designer, but Facebook/Oculus can hire the best designers in the world and they still won't be able to make a bad idea a good one.

Agree, the big question is does he have the talent to take the geek out of head gear device. Better yet, make so people do not like they are having epileptic seizure while using it.

People use VR in their home. Who cares what it looks like.

boltsfan17 said:

maestro64 said:

SpamSandwich said:

Probably a talented designer, but Facebook/Oculus can hire the best designers in the world and they still won't be able to make a bad idea a good one.

Agree, the big question is does he have the talent to take the geek out of head gear device. Better yet, make so people do not like they are having epileptic seizure while using it.

People use VR in their home. Who cares what it looks like.

How many people use it? I keep hearing stories of early adopters abandoning their rigs soon after they got them. I think these things are still too heavy, too confining and too dumb looking. Could be another 20 years before the technology is capable of providing users with something light enough and unobtrusive enough to see widespread general adoption... and even then, I think it'll be more like AR than VR.

SpamSandwich said:

boltsfan17 said:

maestro64 said:

SpamSandwich said:

Probably a talented designer, but Facebook/Oculus can hire the best designers in the world and they still won't be able to make a bad idea a good one.

Agree, the big question is does he have the talent to take the geek out of head gear device. Better yet, make so people do not like they are having epileptic seizure while using it.

People use VR in their home. Who cares what it looks like.

How many people use it? I keep hearing stories of early adopters abandoning their rigs soon after they got them. I think these things are still too heavy, too confining and too dumb looking. Could be another 20 years before the technology is capable of providing users with something light enough and unobtrusive enough to see widespread general adoption... and even then, I think it'll be more like AR than VR.

Millions are using it. Playstation VR units are selling like hot cakes. Sure they make look a little silly, but VR isn't a fashion statement. I use Playstation VR. It definitely could be lighter. I think the biggest issue facing VR is being able to make games that don't make people nauseated. I don't have any issues with that, but several friends can't use VR for longer than 10 minutes before they start feeling sick. Picture quality needs to improve as well. AR and VR are completely different things. For gaming, AR really doesn't make sense.