Oculus, Vive, Index - these are like the pre-iPhone smart phones. They're bulky, slow, they kind of do their job, but they're not something everybody wants.
VR has to get better. The resolution and FOV are terrible. The gameplay paradigms kind of suck because movement is such a pain.
AR honestly seems even further away. Pokemon Go and all the other AR trinkets are clunky toys. I can't ever see holding up a device for anything other than picturing furniture in a space, and none of these apps even work well.
An AR headset outside of industrial/military uses is a pipe dream that will rely on miniaturization and being fashionable. Google Glass wasn't cool, and nobody is going to wear a bulky HoloLens anywhere. There's a lot of work that needs to be done.
I think you are wrong about AR, once a decent set of AR capable glasses hit the market I think we will see a very large market adoption. Very much like the smart phone and smart watch and tablet it will be a toy for techies until a company with real design chops and solid software/hardware gets behind it. I also believe that Apple is the most likely to be that company, solid design and a well liked ecosystem, plus a proven history at creating/shaping new consumer tech device markets. Apple AR Glasses have will likely be a huge success. It helps a ton that ARKit 4 and the new Lidar sensors on the pro level devices are next level good over the current AR software.
This might not be a tech or business problem. Remember Google tried AR with Glass -- decent hardware and UI -- and ran into an uncomfortable social valley, eg "glassholes". Turns out people don't want pervasive video recording in every social situation.
That said I think there are still unexplored workplace markets like medical, mechanical etc.
There seem to be a very, very small number of consumer applications: heads up nav display for bicycle/motorcycle operators comes to mind.
To me, AR seems further away simply because "decent set of AR capable glasses" is further away than decent VR hardware, so the AR market adoption you expect would happen a couple years after VR has sufficiently good hardware to go mainstream.
Oculus, Vive, Index - these are like the pre-iPhone smart phones. They're bulky, slow, they kind of do their job, but they're not something everybody wants.
VR has to get better. The resolution and FOV are terrible. The gameplay paradigms kind of suck because movement is such a pain.
AR honestly seems even further away. Pokemon Go and all the other AR trinkets are clunky toys. I can't ever see holding up a device for anything other than picturing furniture in a space, and none of these apps even work well.
An AR headset outside of industrial/military uses is a pipe dream that will rely on miniaturization and being fashionable. Google Glass wasn't cool, and nobody is going to wear a bulky HoloLens anywhere. There's a lot of work that needs to be done.