The technology to make a broadly appealing product is a lot further away than 2 years. With the Vision Pro, they made the VR equivalent of the Apple Newton. The "iPhone moment" is a long way away (assuming VR will ever even have mainstream appeal, which is definitely not guaranteed).
The current tech available is just too clunky, slow, power-hungry, and expensive. And it just plain needs to look cooler than a weird pair of ski goggles.
I think it's not a hardware problem but a content problem. People are shooting for perfect with the hardware and meanwhile nobody is really bothering with the content much. It's all limited to games, 3D movies, and some gimmicky things that are a combination of awkward and not that exciting.
Apple has some interesting conceptual stuff but in the end you end up using a lot of 2D stuff that gets projected in front of you. It's nice but not really that valuable.
The problem with the vision pro isn't that it's not good enough but that good enough content to justify the expense is lacking. It would be more popular if it were cheaper. But even the Meta Quest, which is a lot cheaper, has the same problem so far.
And it's a shame because Apple is perfectly positioned to solve this.
Apple makes mainstream and popular TV shows. Apple owns rights to broadcast sporting events. Apple makes custom cameras to film their promotional VR content. But apple didn't invest in "real" feature films or movies shot in VR natively. Apple isn't making "on the field" VR sports broadcasts. Apple even has more money than some nations to throw at this. They're perfectly positioned, but they're simply not producing enough.
Beyond direct content production, Apple has a huge developer community that could've been mobilized to make software. They should've thrown a dev unit to every indie app developer with halfway substantial sales. It'd only cost a few million, and they'd have gotten a ton more apps at launch, as well as probably doubled the initial userbase.
I don't think they want large sales now. They are building the necessary supply chains and production capabilities, getting rid of bugs in manufacturing and software, trying out software approaches, making proper QA procedures etc. The ML-optimized CPUs are not yet ready too. I think what you're saying will be relevant for the 2026 version.
When I watch higher quality 3D movies like Bladerunner 2049 and Dune Part 1, it feels like I never saw them before.
A top tier prestige TV series in 3D 180-degree (270? 360!) immersion would at least make Vision Pro an indispensable toy to the tech loving moneyed class.
Also, more immersive environments. They really are wonderful for focus and meditation/escape.
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The other way to go, without breaking any banks, is keep making it more developer friendly. They could modestly increase demand for the current Vision this way, since developers can rationalize an expensive headset more than casual gamers.
Developers who use Vision to work, are more likely to experiment with its capabilities.
I.e. multiple Mac screens. Dragging Mac windows in and out of Mac screens. Better spaces management (location lockable, swappable). Improve smoothness of keyboard and trackpad behavior, Etc. More gestures.
They need to vastly improve the light shield & strap comfort. I made custom versions that are fantastic, with higher field of view and extra safety padding to match. Apple should do that.
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Those are all things that could incrementally increase demand now, while increasing the value and demand for future lower cost sets.
And with growing rumblings of people wanting to be “offline” more and more, promotions of “digital well-being/health”, and GenZ and GenAlphas’ increasing appetite with tactile, physical objects (with 90s/early 00s flair), I don’t see how “stick a screen to your face even closer and live completely digitally” is going to do well.
Not until there is an absolute killer app/use case for VR Software. Games that allow for player movement based on thought-input? Social hangouts that are seamless but also private (the groupchat cannot be spoken aloud!)?
We need better hardware too. Seamless AR/VR transition with featherweight hardware that does not induce motion sickness if put on or calibrated incorrectly all for $999.
Yeah we got a LONG way to go.
A bit of a tangent but as much as “the children” are terminally online, I get the feeling the GenX/Millennial product people have a slight misread on what that looks like.
Nah. I really want wearable AR glasses with a HUD and shit, but the tech just isn't there. VR gets tiring (for the neck) after awhile as-is. I'm not saying it won't have broad appeal, but I think the "iPhone" moment for AR/VR requires something that can be passively used and carried on the person 100% of the time, and we're nowhere near that.
The content will come once the hardware is cheap and sold in volume.
Generative AI will help by making it much cheaper to generate 3D content. Current models are still very rough, in the future we will have text-to-HD 3D asset.
Why would you buy the hardware though? The Meta Quest is cheap already (cheaper than a high end smartphone). And some people buy it of course but it's not really creating a new market of content generation so far. It's too much of a niche market for that.
I did buy a Quest 3, which, at $450 or so, is a steal compared to the Vision Pro. I have yet to find any use for it. The first few minutes are entertaining but then... what's the point? There is no point. (Not to mention the cartoonish aesthetics which are really off-putting.)
Currently, the two things that work great in VR are gaming (yes, not everyone likes it) and porn. Now, no mainstream VR headset maker has mentioned the work porn ever, but, given the popularity of pornhub etc., I suspect they would see a surprisingly large boost in sales if they did.
It’s a chicken and egg problem. The Mac 128 was considered useless by experts and useful for people who only knew typewriters.
I think the vision pro exists simple to introduce the user interface. I don’t expect to cret anything with mass appeal with the vision pro. I want to experience the environment to experience it and see how the experience can be leveraged.
The physical form factor is a big hurdle. They may as well improve it by 10x before version 2.
If that's true the markets outside of US would have to account for more than 30x of US sales, which I wouldn't expect to happen until every 2nd Chinese household has one...
"Sales of VR headsets and augmented reality glasses in the U.S. plummeted nearly 40% to $664 million in 2023, as of Nov. 25, according to data shared with CNBC by research firm Circana." [1]
If you look at Meta's sales numbers it looks like they've sold 20 million headsets alone as of a couple months ago, so maybe its close but not quite? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39374031
If the $23 billion number is correct it's about 8-12% of the gaming market. Less market share (and less revenue) than 3D TVs had in its heyday (about 12 years ago). Yet you can't even get a new 3D TV today. So just having a big number doesn't mean anything for the future.
Statista has about 11 million sold VR headsets sold last year. That's not mainstream, that's a niche.
I dont want to argue semantics, but a broad statement like this implies that all units sold are still in service.
These things follow a curve, for laptops theres steep drop offs at 3, 5 and 8 years.
98% of 3 year old devices
60% of 5 year old devices
5% of 8y old devices.
So you’d need to apply a sliding scale.
Macbooks feel pretty ubiquitous, you cant use the entire 33y run of Macbooks to imply that the demographic is an order of magnitude more than what the parent implied.
Not semantics, but if you think of examples of at least pop culture that we think of as being in the mainstream, it's about staying power of the genre. For example let's take Rock 'n Roll.
When it really became popular -- say Elvis gyrating those hips -- he alone sold 10 million records in a year. And critics then talked of it as a fad that would die out. Elvis would continue to record, continue to sell millions, but eventually - well he died, but rock 'n roll the idea, the genre lived on. In fact rock 'n roll songs were written about how it will always rock 'n roll in defience of the "fad" label.
And ~fifty/sixty years later, there are still rock 'n roll bands selling millions/records/year. Not Elvis but the genre remains. We can't quite compare records sales now anymore because physical media just isn't sold really anymore.
That "staying power" isn't something VR headsets have (yet). Laptops have that. Critics say that VR is a fad and I think that's more what they mean. They say more critical things as well, but that's sort of the gist.
Another example is the automobile:
“[Motor cars] have the appearance of a fad, and an extremely dirty, dusty, inconvenient fad… These crude impracticable machines are unlikely for many years to displace in the Englishman’s affection a fine trotting horse and a smart trap.” -- Anonymous Horserider
It's too soon to tell with VR headsets, but their limited capability, high price, and well: relative usefulessness seems not in their favor.
The (alleged) quote about cars being a fad dates to 1901. A similar quote from a banker rejecting investment in Ford Motor Company is from 1903, before the first Model A was produced. I guess we're much farther along in the development of VR headsets than that. In any case, there might have been grumblers, but history shows that as soon cheap and reliable cars where available, they sold like crazy.
There will be always grumblers but they also often point out fads correctly. 3D TVs are a good example, I think. Or quadrophonic records.
...and that's just one product in one category of one vendor. Not a comparison to the whole vr market that is half the size as that one product.
Also, yeah, Apple is kind of niche in computer sales. Maybe not in very affluent parts of the US but globally less than 10% in desktop and notebooks each.
Also also - VR might be a growing niche. I'm not arguing that. Hype's over but apparently there is still growth.
MacBooks are basically their own category. Since you can't really install osx on other hardware. An MacBook and a laptop are not interchangable for many people. You could as well say VR gaming and gaming are the same category but that distinction matters as much as MacBooks non-MacBooks.
All they really need to do for me to purchase one is add multiple user support. I’m sorry, I’m just not going to buy such an expensive device for each person in my family no matter how awesome it is. For Apple this is a trivial fix.
Even ignoring the software side, the current hardware leverages several sized components to get proper fit / focal length. I don't think it is really marketable as multi-user unless you can have it adjust to a face/head without juggling parts.
Yes I am aware. That is not a technical limitation that could not be overcome, that is an implementation choice by Apple that could be changed anytime they want. The OS is still literally multiuser. Your iPhone’s homescreen runs as UID 501.
This is not going mainstream until we have the killer usecase for it.
These are solutions in search of a problem - a better solution (think the whole thing in a contact lens) may solve bigger problems. A brick inside a paper bag on your head, sadly, has limited scope to solve real world problems.
The apps are there. The problem is still hardware. Pass through, although decent in perfectly lit rooms, is terrible. Long term comfort is another issue. Apple really should have spent more time working on a better strap. The fov is far too narrow for multi tasking and neck strain ends up being a huge problem when trying to do real work. Multiple physical Montoya properly set up don’t have this issue as much.
It’s getting there for sure. But won’t go mainstream until that hardware goes through a lot of revisions to minimize weight and improve comfort (not to mention price).
> This is not going mainstream until we have the killer apps for it.
Do apps really seem like a compelling enough thing these days? Really?
> Apple should really build a virtual workplace product and package that with the VP. WFHers like myself would jump on it.
Same question, really!? Like... what would you jump on? Why? What do you do that some hypothetical "killer app" would improve, and so much so that it would be pivotal in helping this thing go mainstream?
I work in a global team with people across every continent. It would be really great if we could all be in a room with few whiteboards and computer displays we can all look at when we feel like so just like we would in an office.
Chat and video calls are very different from that seamless office experience of walking over to a whiteboard with a smaller subgroup, returning to the computer of one of us to try it out, inviting someone else from the larger group to check it out while pointing at the screen and the whiteboard etc.
Not every day, not all day - but few hours for a hacking/bug fixing session would be super great.
I feel like I wouldn't want the Apple Vision Pro until they open up the OS; it is way too restricted right now, like iPad OS. Is this a reasonable concern?
It’s just as locked down as the iPad, but more frustrating since there is so much clear potential that won’t be realized until Apple gets the fuck out of the way.
They never will, since they claim ownership over both the platform and every single experience on it. Developers work for them, get paid by them, and do what they are told they are allowed to do.
And it’ll choke this headset to death. They can’t pull the same crap with this platform but they’re going to try.
I agree that being much more iPad than Mac makes it feel like a huge waste of potential. Maybe it can’t be Mac-like in UI since you need large interaction targets, but it could allow much more “full computer” style productivity
I bought and returned the AVP. I feel like there's a cohort of people who always mention wanting "opened up" operating systems, and I get it, but this is totally not the problem with the AVP. iPads are popular too, after all.
The AVP is an iPad, not a computer. It does offer a better "personal computing" story compared to a tablet, but that's it. There are many issues, but the cost and general UX is the issue. There's not a lot to do, and it's worse at most tasks than the alternatives.
Vision Pro runs iPad apps, and has a windowing system UI that’s similar to iPadOS. It feels like a “spatial” fork of iPadOS.
iPad apps respond to “touch” if you bring them in arms reach you can do all the typical iPad gestures like scrolling, tapping, etc with your hand physically touching the app window, in addition to doing it with gaze.
It's probably going to be cancelled, re-imagined, relaunched - this thing is a dud. But that's not end of '26. That's going to be whenever Cook steps down, which honestly could be in the next few years.
Next try in 35 years? The future of VR is as bright, as it has always been and always will be. For perspective, read https://www.nytimes.com/1989/04/10/business/for-artificial-r... A lot of problems have been solved since 1989, but I see its future in military applications. The rest of the world does not have the problems that VR helmets solve.
The problem they may solve is ‘the real world is increasingly bleak’.
When living in ever-smaller homes with minimal personal space and accelerating urban decay outside, with decreasing access to transport to escape the cities, escaping to virtual spaces is likely to become more desirable.
But VR headsets are as much as an escape as drugs are and that's not an exit, but more like a trap. As in: you are not entrapped within it, without actually improving anything in your life.
Living space isn't shrinking fast enough to save the Apple Vision Pro. We're talking 10% shrink over 20 or 30 years. That's just not gonna be the tipping point for enough people to drop their glorious 86" QNED/QLED TVs and their 32" 4k @ 240Hz QD-OLED gaming monitors, which can be had for less than the price of an AVP, certainly not in time to save it.
I think people here are underappreciating just how much generative AI is going to solve the chicken and the egg problem for VR that's been plaguing it.
Within the next five years, at least tens of millions of people will have interactions they would rate as very important to them with AI personas.
Personas they can't interact with in the real world.
But strap on a headset and you can talk and see your AI buddy/therapist/girlfriend right there in the room with you?
People are going to be throwing money at the hardware. It's always ultimately been a software issue. Yes, the hardware could get much better in comfort, fidelity, and all sorts of ways. But the thing that's been holding it back is that the software for VR is broadly a solution looking for a problem.
Well, we're about to see a problem for which it's the perfect solution, and that's enhancing interpersonal interactions that are going to take up more and more media share as the next few years progress which can't be replicated nearly as well in any other format.
I'm not sure why you're being downvoted. If you look at how many people cried out when they removed the sexual content from the Replika chatbot app (which wasn't even an LLM afaik, but I never used it) the number of people who will spend all day with their, ugh, waifu in VR once they can hold realtime, realistic conversations with them will be both immense and kinda depressing.
The current tech available is just too clunky, slow, power-hungry, and expensive. And it just plain needs to look cooler than a weird pair of ski goggles.