https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/07/new-app-releases-for-apple-vision-pro-have-fallen-dramatically-since-launch/
Apple struggles to attract content from developers for its $3,500 headset.
Makes sense, its user base is extremely small and the tech still has a ways to go before it's more accessible and practical. In other words, the headset needs to much lighter, smaller, and more comfortable in addition to being much cheaper. I think their target for their next iterations should at $1500 or less. In order to do all of those things, tech needs to progress further and batteries need to improve, which who knows how long that'll be before we get something better than lithium ion in terms of power density.
Yeah because I'm not going to buy a $3,000 headset just to be able to develop for a $3,000 headset, that no one buys because, and I hate to keep repeating this, it cost $3,000.
It's about $2,500 more expensive than the competition and the competition has more applications and can play games
To be fair, anyone actually developing for this is assuming that a non-pro will follow. They’re spending $3k to develop for a platform that they’re assuming will become more accessible.
And so far, all signs seem to point to something more affordable in the works. This was that v1 iPod, iPhone, HomePod-like product. Glitzy, expensive, low sales, but an opportunity to learn.
Okay well as a developer I'll just wait until they make the cheaper version which everyone will buy (assuming they even do because Apple is nothing if they are not fickle). There is no advantage in being first in a market in which no one occupies.
Yeah, same here. I’m holding off on this thing, even if it’s a platform that might be interesting to develope for in the next couple years.
Although, the large and midsize businesses of the world will have no problem throwing down for this toy. I already know a bunch of folks in the valley that have had their teams throw a little budget to this. People spend that monthly for flying a single remote person into town. This is chump change if you have 500 or more people.
We tested it and after about two weeks returned every purchase. It didn't do a whole lot more than what our current solutions do; not even accounting for the asking price.
Oh absolutely. Said that I know for a fact my company owns one at least, and I also know for a fact that they don't have a clue what to do with it.
Businesses will develop their own internal applications anyway so they're not really a market demographic for app developers.
So, how's it going, minority of folks who said this product was the second coming of christ? Still happy you purchased $3500 of r&d for apple?
These were being lauded as the most revolutionary pieces of tech ever by several users that I saw. None of them mentioned Dev work. Only productivity. Those users are who I'm referring to
Hmm, overprice a niche product that depends on apps ... who could have seen this coming?
VR needs killer apps and for the most part it would be: games, porn, media consumption, office apps.
Apple Vision Pro isn't distinguishing it enough to either attract the dev cost (which some VR companies have had to buy their own sets at launch for dev as opposed to getting dev kits early) nor enough to attract potential buyers.
I am fairly certain that the proportion of people that bought their headset is about 50% developers 45% YouTubers doing reviews and only 5% of people with way too much money.
Basically no one has bought it to actually use it.
I tried for a solid MONTH to get an app released but they kept rejecting it for bullshit reasons. It would have been the first of its kind but now there are so many copies of the idea on the App Store it’s not even worth it anymore. Oh and they still reject it for the same bs even though there are apps on the store that do LITERALLY the same thing.
Until a headset is as unobtrusive as a pair of eyeglasses it will not see mass appeal, especially since we’re in a general cultural climate of being exhausted with tech bullshit.
I would surmise that in 15-25 years, Apple (or whatever company it becomes) puts out a device that does what they were trying to do with the Vision Pro, and it is adopted by society as the new standard. It would not be the first time they put out a massively expensive and wholly useless product decades ahead of its need.
Until a headset is as unobtrusive as a pair of eyeglasses it will not see mass appeal,
You mean like Google Glass? I don't think that went anywhere either.
It would not be the first time they put out a massively expensive and wholly useless product decades ahead of its need.
Do you have any examples? Massively expensive is always the case, but I can't think of a product that Apple launched that was decades ahead of its need.
The newton comes to mind, a hand held touch screen device that was launched a decade before the palm pilot fulfilling no use and being extremely expensive. Flash forward 30 years and everyone has a touch screen mobile computer in their pocket, but the newton was a complete failure.
I suspect that what will happen is that a startup will develop the product and society will use it and then Apple will come along 5 years later, with a sleeker version of the product.
Apple seems to need other people to do the initial development because they just don't seem capable of it, what Apple are fantastic at is making it sexy.
Apple didn't invent the music player, they didn't invent smartphones, they didn't invent the smartwatch.
There aren't a ton of good quality apps available for Meta headsets either.
I like mine a lot and there are a few games that come out every month, but it's not like a regular console.
Vr is so niche, and a huge pain in the ass. I usually just use it for MS Flight Sim or other PC gaming (not gonna happen on a walled garden Apple device)—I can’t imaging doing any work in a vr headset.
It’s unfortunate because I’d really like to see a Vision Pro Display in person (I’ve had a lot of hmds over the years and the quest 3 is really fantastic for a cheap ass device so I’m certain the Vision Pro is other worldly but at that price point it ain’t gonna happen).
I own like 10 games and have another 10 apps downloaded. (Mostly VR documentaries) The games I do have are b-b-bonkers awesome, like Vader Immortal, and I really like the VR haunted houses I own. The documentaries are my favorite, because it feels time-travel adjacent to wander through Pompeii or fly a WWII bombing raid over Berlin.
Most of the time, however, I log on and play the minigames in Meta Horizons or watch a VR concert or sporting event, and those are a lot of fun.
But yeah, definitely niche and needs a few more years of growth in the library dept, and I'm very glad I got my headset on Black Friday for $250 instead of shelling out the big bucks for a Quest 3.
These VR/AR stuff needs to be cheaper but more importantly comfortable like a pair of glasses. When it comes to form factor stuff like the Viture or Xreal come much closer to what I thought Apple was going to put out when they ventured into the VR/AR space.
Because it's a pile of fucking shit.
Who wants to spend over 3k on a headset you can't even game with? Let alone has hardly any app support on launch.
It's far from a pile of shit. It's incredibly engineered. It's also useless because of the lack of content and apps. It's an awesome device that lives in a drawer in my closet because there's no use for it as is. It's disappointing.
This was predicted before launch.
As soon as Apple announced that it was going to be used for "productivity" it was blindingly obvious they didn't know what to do with it. Still don't get that the games market is the biggest market there is.
It's like they don't even want to make money.
Meh, it seems like the same old playbook Apple has used before. V1 of a new product line is expensive AF, it’s not really intended to sell like gangbusters, it’s intended to be splashy and to learn from the product being in the wild.
The real money to be made is on the lower cost iterations that are built after they learn what did and didn’t work from the pricy version.
Sure but the lower cost iterations already existed. It seems like they're experimenting in a market that's pretty well already established.
Yeah, but learning from your competitors products is never quite like learning from having your own in the wild. I say this as someone in product development.
You have a direct feedback channel from lots of customers as opposed to small users tests and focus groups of people looking at your competitors offerings. You also get feedback on your specific silicon, operating system, interaction models, industrial design, manufacturing, and any unique features that are exclusive to your product.
Edit: oh god, what have I done! Yea, mobile + autocorrect got me good here.
Hopefully corrected version here with original below …
So my hot take since before launch has been that this will be the end of Tim Cook‘s tenure. The more they lean into the product, as it seems they will with the next model, the more likely that seems to me.
Roughly speaking, I get the feeling it’s the first wholly new product pushed by Cook. And a big flop is never good for Apple‘a brand power.
How off do you think I am?
So my hot take since before launch has been that this will be the end of Tim Cook‘s tenure. The note they mean into the product, s as it seems they are with the next model, the more likely that seems to me.
Roughly speaking, I get the feeling it’s the first wholly new product pushed by Cook. And a big flop I’d never good for Apple‘a brand power.
How off do you think I am?
I thank you for can barely understand this edit of your comment, but I think you're saying this is Tim Cook's Lisa Computer?
Tim was probably on the way out sooner rather than later anyway, but I don’t think the larger problem with the Vision Pro is that the Venn diagram of people who think it’s cool and people who can afford it is way, way too small.
Worse, the Venn diagram of people who find it useful and who can afford it is even smaller
I don't see why one failed product would do that when everything else is still amazingly profitable. They can afford to take risks with a product, and they actually should try to expand outside of phones and computers.
Tim Apple spent tens of billions on a car and then shelved it. The Vision Pro is better than that. Their product line is crazy small for the size of the company. They could try new categories all day for decades.
I mean, who would buy one now that hasn't already bought one? Of course the sales have fallen off. It's not like a phone or a computer where there's a steady supply of folks who suddenly need a new one. I'm surprised that every single sale wasn't the first day.
The headline/article aren't about headset sales slowing. App development is slowing. I didn't see anything about sales increasing or decreasing in article, but I did only skim it.