Apple Vision Pro U.S. Sales Are All but Dead, Market Analysts Say

https://gizmodo.com/apple-vision-pro-u-s-sales-2000469302

by ripjaygn • 2 years ago

123 216 2 years ago

walterbell7• 2 years ago

Did Vision Pro inherit limitations from iPadOS?

snapcaster8• 2 years ago

Yes, I want to like mine and use it more but the software support is the real problem. The hardware is truly amazing (ignoring price point) and i've never had a VR/AR experience anywhere close but doing anything like my current computer flow is such a pain

nox1013• 2 years ago

i've never had a VR/AR experience anywhere close

What VR experiences have you had?

I was not impressed at all. Have had a Rift since they launched. Rift-S, Quest 2, Quest 3, PSVR, PSVR2. Nothing about the Vision Pro did anything for me. The "try to hold your eyes still to point" is the worst possible UX interaction I've ever used. Super un-natural and un-intuitive. That's not how my eyes work. I knew that the first time I tried "stare to point" on PSVR2. It was awful there and it's awful on Vision Pro

It also felt horrible. I'm not saying any of the other HMD are great but Vision Pro's weight was awful. It's either too tight to stay on or resting on my nose. Someday that will be fixed (glasses?) but in the context of shipping devices, the devices that put the weight on the forehead are way more comfortable. I think PSVR(1) was the first to do that. Rift-S copied. Quest is a step back unless you get a 3rd party accessory

The "you get one screen from your mac" was also disappointing. I've had 6 screens in VR from my PC since Rift shipped. It's built into the Rift/Link OS. Yes, it's got issues but 1 screen is still a step back of many years, not forward.

walterbell7• 2 years ago

In the absence of a visionary like Steve Jobs, new devices need "accidental" jailbreaks for creatives to seed Sherlock fields for Apple harvest.

LordKeren8• 2 years ago

Yes. It is not useful for most common office work tasks without connecting it to a Mac

brink• 2 years ago

Might have been exactly the plan. Soak up all the sucker enthusiast money with the expensive model while establishing vision OS as "premium", then bring that "premium" product to the masses by coming out with something much cheaper later for the main market.

zamadatix7• 2 years ago

Is VisionOS itself seen as particularly premium just because the launch hardware was? I mean it had some good features but, outside of hardware, Meta has done a good job of catching the big ones they lacked before anyone has really tried VisionOS.

bwy• 2 years ago

The Tesla playbook?

jkestner• 2 years ago

Sure, but you still need to reach the critical mass of developer support. No one downmarket is any more likely to buy one if there aren’t any apps.

snapcaster8• 2 years ago

Damn, i was hoping at least the hype would last long enough for google to release their apps on it

lern_too_spel• 2 years ago

It's not even worth the bother to release an ads SDK for.

skilled• 2 years ago

The thing costs a bazillion dollars, what did they expect… people to suddenly wear this for day to day tasks?

I said it on the day they first announced it, as soon as the media hype was over, no one would ever mention it again.

Other than price, not sure what else they could do to make it appealing.

itsoktocry• 2 years ago

The cynics are right more often than not, but the poor "why do I need Dropbox?" guy still gets trotted out.

zamadatix7• 2 years ago

I don't think the price itself is the root problem. I mean don't get me wrong if it were $350 it'd sell a lot more than $3,500 but the point is it still wouldn't sell well anyways so why only ever talk about how it costs a lot.

To me the problem with the Vision line is it doesn't give any compelling reason to want it now or in the imminent future, even if it were priced similarly to lower end headsets, to really drive large numbers of sales on yet another VR walled garden. There is no killer app you'll spend hundreds of hours in, it's not going to actually replace/upgrade using your traditional apps, VR gaming is already relatively niche in established and open marketplaces but this has a brand new walled garden marketplace, and it offers nothing particularly "revolutionary" people haven't been promised 100 times about VR/AR to be disappointed with already. If it offered something meaningful against all of these points then it'd still sell decent numbers even at $3,500 but the problem is it's just lame despite being so high end.

anakaine4• 2 years ago

When the price is higher than many people's average monthly post tax income, and its not a must have device like a fridge or washing machine, it's definitely a pricing problem.

In 2022 the US median personal income was $47,000. That's pre tax. Consider approximations with averages and marginal tax rates and take out 12% for tax, and you have $3445 per month median personal income.

The apple headset is $3500.

Take out average rent of $1350. Average credit card debt per consumer is just over $6300 in 2024, which seems high, but is also nearly twice monthly post tax income (holy crap). Average car payment for used vehicles is just over $500. I've not discussed food or utilities.

Given the above are for the average consumer, I'm not at all surprised a luxury and discretionary niche item such as the AVP has had next to no sales.

SkyPuncher2• 2 years ago

I think the price is a massive problem.

I have the Xreal Airs. They run $300 for a 1080p screen. Apples screen is much better, but not 10x better.

Apple really needed to come in the $1k price range for this to be viable.

thiht• 2 years ago

I don't know if it's the root problem, but it's the first and biggest problem. I earn a comfortable salary in France and although I think I would like to get one (the movie watching experience looks really cool), there's absolutely no way I'll spend more than 1 month of salary in this. I don't even know if I would like the thing, even if I were to buy it, I can't afford to buy it and then not using it because it turns out to be useless.

LordKeren8• 2 years ago

While I think this was largely expected from everyone following AVP, it will be very interesting to see how Apple attempts to salvage this project.

They’ve really backed themselves in to a corner with the pricing of their headset far exceeding what all but the most enamored enthusiasts are willing to stomach. On top of that, the sales are so bad that it is not worth companies of nearly any size to dedicate time to creating apps or content for the platform.

Apple is probably going to have to light a gigantic stack of cash on fire to try to course correct this. Or they’ll cut their losses and write it off entirely

helloooooooo• 2 years ago

It can also be that AVP is an “emergent” product while they work on the parts for something larger. I would imagine a lot of the “harder” parts for AVP line up closely with whatever car Apple is attempting to build.

dgritsko• 2 years ago

Apple recently "pulled the plug" on their car project, apparently. https://www.npr.org/2024/02/27/1234315814/apple-cancels-elec...

voidfunc• 2 years ago

They cancelled the car project.

LordKeren8• 2 years ago

It is widely believed that the car project has been canceled

https://www.theverge.com/24085629/apple-car-dead-project-tit...

While Apple’s R&D budget can rival some small nations’ GDP, I think it will be exceedingly difficult for Apple to continue to pour resources into these project amid the apparent flop of AVP

walterbell7• 2 years ago

Apple is probably going to have to light a gigantic stack of cash on fire to try to course correct this. Or they’ll cut their losses and write it off entirely

Much cheaper: ship a bug that allows OS jailbreak to run VMs. See what unshackled creators develop. Add official interfaces to support those use cases. Rinse & repeat.

hu32• 2 years ago

ship a bug that allows OS jailbreak to run VMs

Apple lacks that courage

LordKeren8• 2 years ago

As someone who spent a lot of time tinkering with jailbroken iPhones back in the day, there was always an ongoing rumor in the jailbreak community (maybe better to call it a myth or legend) that Apple knowingly let jailbreak vulnerabilities out. Apple probably could benefit massively from letting enthusiast users tinker with the OS in a way that gives Apple a bit of plausible deniability.

anakaine4• 2 years ago

There's still the cost of hardware problem. With so few sales it's unlikely that even this functionality would tip the scale.

revscat• 2 years ago

This would never happen. Apple is terrified to the core (apologies) of breasts and panties and cursing and such. The thought of someone being caught doing those things means the chances of this happening is less than zero.

TheLoafOfBread• 2 years ago

ship a bug that allows OS jailbreak to run VMs

That's why I am always surprised when somebody calls it a devkit. It is just a coping mechanism for a failed product.

Furthermore if Apple wants to turn it into such devkits, why do such weird and unnecessary mating rituals? Just let anyone who has active developer license on Apple ID to modify Vision OS and see what they are going to come up with. Apple will then add it into Vision OS and ban people who come up with the solution at a first place. As it is done in AppStore today.

crooked-v3• 2 years ago

I think it's more likely than not that the entire AVP project is just meant as a way of recouping a little cash from an ongoing dev program. What they really want is Apple Glasses ten or fifteen years down the line that will be a practical phone/iPad alternative, but they know they need to start building the expertise and UX workflows right now or Meta will beat them to that point.

GeekyBear2• 2 years ago

Apple is probably going to have to light a gigantic stack of cash on fire to try to course correct this.

It would certainly cost an absolute fortune to acquire the streamung rights, but live sports is an area where fans have demonstrated that they are willing to spend a fortune on AV equipment and subscription fees.

1986• 2 years ago

But people like to watch sports together, not alone

zengid• 2 years ago

<humerous-speculating> What if Zuck made the Meta Quest Pro as a psy-op to get Apple to make a pro headset and waste resources, simply to get back at them for clamping down on user tracking? </humerous-speculating>

supernova87a• 2 years ago

Hah, if that's true, they both got burned to the tune of $5B each, I'm sure. So not much payback achieved.

And inside the company, everyone can see that it's an embarrassing loss of interest from MZ after 2 years of urgent enthusiasm that didn't pan out. On to LLMs now!

lancesells2• 2 years ago

Meta is also a company with little to no business in entertainment or content creation. Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, Epic, Valve, etc. have a better chance of making a metaverse happen than whatever Meta is trying to buy their way into.

Meta's entire business doesn't exist without it's user's giving them content. They are so far away from a creative company.

matwood• 2 years ago

There could be an insurance angle. IF VR took off, Apple wanted something to point to. Welcome to the age of trillion dollar companies peacocking each other.

wnevets• 2 years ago

The best part about product launches like this one is that it helps me know whose opinions to ignore.

rubyn00bie• 2 years ago

I think about buying a Vision Pro from time to time, but Apple’s lackluster support for gaming keeps me from it. I spend a fair bit of my free time sim racing, and I think the Vision Pro would be amazing for it. But! I really don’t want to spend $3K for an unsupported experience.

Apple needs to accept that even a “pro” product needs be usable for non “pro” tasks, and needs to support them. If their Vision line is going to be successful they’re going to need to have more first party support of things like gaming. Partner with Steam, and/or Sony, to get more titles on it. Or pay developers to port games to it and ensure the experience is stellar. It won’t be a short term strategy, but I think a lack of good and unique applications will create a chicken and egg problem. No one wants one, because there are no killer apps, and no one is making those killer apps, because there isn’t a large enough audience.

I personally like Sony’s PSVR2, a dumb headset, but has good fidelity. I hope Apples next cheaper VR headset has the same visual quality but less of an OS.

quux• 2 years ago

Check out the used markets in your area (Craigslist, FB marketplace, eBay, etc) People are selling used Vision Pro's for a steep discount. In my area (NYC Metro) the lowest I've seen was $1,500 and that was a couple of months ago. When they cross below $1,000 I think I might get one.

snapcaster8• 2 years ago

Totally agree with all your points. Honestly if they just made it run mac os x it would be my favorite computer I own

hsavit1• 2 years ago

no developer wants to waste their time developing apps for a product that nobody other than the .001% will ever use

gizajob3• 2 years ago

Someone should make an app that flashes “I AM RICH” on the front screen and plays a klaxxon as you walk around Dubai with your Vision Pro.

OnionBlender• 2 years ago

The APIs are extremely limiting. You can't do interesting things like draw to the external display.

Things like reading QR codes or accessing the camera feed are "enterprise" features that require Apple's permission to even access.

The docs also suck and too much information is only available in WWDC videos

BitwiseFool3• 2 years ago

I enjoyed demoing my friend's Vision Pro but I regularly found myself displeased with the gesture controls. Once the novelty of interacting with the demo features wore off, I found myself thinking that the device was best suited as a monitor replacement. To that end, I would absolutely need to use a mouse and keyboard.

I also wonder if Apple's decision to eschew any special pointing or peripheral device in favor of hand tracking was the best idea. If I owned one of these things and used it for casual internet browsing, I would much prefer some little handheld accessory so I could press buttons without having to gesticulate and make sure my posture was correct so that the cameras could pick up my hand movements.

snapcaster8• 2 years ago

Yep my daily use for this is just using it as a mac os x external display

LordKeren8• 2 years ago

Genuinely asking — do you work outside an office a lot and/or travel with it?

nottorp4• 2 years ago

Minority Report style UIs look good in movies. Use them 8 hours per day every day and they're just tiring.

BitwiseFool3• 2 years ago

I noticed two things very quickly, my arms started getting tired and I was never quite sure if I was holding my hands in the right place to have my gestures get picked up properly.

mjhay2• 2 years ago

The hype on VR dying so fast does not bode well for gen AI. Unfortunately, C-suite brass will continue to insist that everyone, deep down, wants it. If they don't think they want it, it's only because they haven't had it shoved in their face nearly enough.

bowsamic• 2 years ago

How are VR and gen AI related?

efnx• 2 years ago

I think the sentiment is that they’re both hype bubbles.

pjmlp2• 2 years ago

I guess, Apple coming late to the VR party, when everyone else that did headsets was already in the AI party.

mjhay2• 2 years ago

They're not particularly related technologically, but they share the characteristic of reaching insane valuations because of whizz-bang sci-fi coolness and neophilia being mistaken for actual utility. The tech industry has been through a few of these.

pennomi• 2 years ago

VR was always a solution looking for a problem. Gen AI has obvious uses even today, and billions of uses once it becomes smarter.

viridian• 2 years ago

The difference is, lots of companies are building out AI solutions right now. And when I say lots, I mean a significant percentage of fortune 500s who never had any intention of touching crypto or VR with a ten foot pole.

Also, based on my own user feedback, we've started to get requests across different apps with different user slices, all asking us for what amounts to replacing or adding AI chatbots on top of search (presumably withb some type of RAG implementation). The demand is definitely there.

ProfessorLayton• 2 years ago

"...analysts have noted that many who bought one were confused by its more complicated setup and what they were supposed to use it for in their daily lives."

There's the root of the problem right there. Apple's best successes had a very clear purpose in mind from the beginning:

- iPod: 1,000 songs in your pocket

- iPhone: A phone, an internet communicator, an iPod

- iPad: Media consumption

AVP didn't have a clear purpose right out the door, and it's very un-Apple to launch a new product category without figuring that out first.

jdmoreira2• 2 years ago

Headphones for your eyes.

That's the product and its inevitable in some form or another. Its just too early

bitwize• 2 years ago

Headphones for your eyes.

"I need a SinoLogic 16, Sogo-7 data gloves, a GPL stealth module, one Burdine intelligent translator, and Thomson eyephones."

HumblyTossed4• 2 years ago

People don't like stuff on their face. People wear contacts or get surgery to avoid wearing glasses. People don't like stuff on their face. I paid for college working in the eyeglass industry and it's nearly universal that people "wish they didn't have to wear glasses". People don't like stuff on their face.

dawnerd2• 2 years ago

I returned mine. It was amazing, but very uncomfortable like all other VR head units. I spent an entire workday in it. The next day got half way through the day before getting a massive headache. My neck was sore for a week following. Apple store employees said I wasn't the only one.

They need to focus on weight, them making it have the glass front+screen and being made of metal was a terrible idea.

lagniappe• 2 years ago

My neck was sore for a week following.

neither here nor there, and I know you didn't ask, but from one tech worker to another, this isn't normal and unless you had some condition before you should be addressing this with exercise.

SkyPuncher2• 2 years ago

Given it already requires a battery tether, I can’t believe they didn’t put everything they could in the pack.

The front facing display also seems absolutely needless.

karmakaze• 2 years ago

Not all VR head units. Check out the Bigscreen Beyond.

wrsh072• 2 years ago

I'm not sure that's right. Apple launched the watch thinking "apps like iphone"

A few versions in, they settled on "watches are for health and fitness"

Ben Thompson discusses the AVP as an immersive iPad, and that's kind of the problem. It's too locked down to be my productivity device (something that could justifiably command a premium price), and my entertainment budget isn't that high for one person (I already have a tv in that price range - cheaper tbh - that's really really good)

lancesells2• 2 years ago

And a TV can be viewed by other people at the same time. And you can get up and answer the door, or use the bathroom, or watch it out of the corner of your eye while you cook dinner.

Even watching the VR sports that they are trying to make happen, you'll be doing that alone. For a lot of people watching sports is a communal experience and you'll never get that with the Vision Pro.

taeric3• 2 years ago

The watch is a bit odd, though? It is, far and away, more of a fashion purchase than it is anything else.

Yes, I think it has some good uses for health/fitness. I can't bring myself to think it is the driver for people buying it.

jpc0• 2 years ago

Might not be the popular experience but for me there are some killer features I like the apple watch for, fashion isn't one of them.

The health and fitness stuff is nice, but more so for productivity it's nice. I never need to take my phone out of my pocket most days purely because notifications and phonecalls pop up in my watch.

More on the health and fitness front is that I can leave home with airpods and my watch and not be cut off from the world when I go out for a jog, previously I would need to deal with a holster for my phone.

The thing I generally miss the most when I don't have my Apple watch on, I can't lift my arm to look at the time or get today's date. And that leads me to want to go back to my old analogue watch.

elicash• 2 years ago

I think Apple gave it a clear purpose: productivity and media. Basically, it's a giant screen anywhere you go.

It's just not that useful, or alternatively way too expensive. But I think they communicated their theory pretty well.

scottLobster• 2 years ago

Sounds like the consumer tech version of "$70k EVs aren't selling anymore!"

It was extremely pricey and saturated the market, and from what I read most of the market was underwhelmed by its capabilities. I'm still waiting on my virtual workstation where I can have infinite virtual monitor space, instead we keep getting various whiz-bang gimmicks that are good for a demo but have no real use.

mjamesaustin2• 2 years ago

Apple is extending the monitor capabilities in their next software update, which at least to me is a good sign that they plan to keep expanding support for that mode.

I'm in the same camp as you – my main objective for a headset would be infinite portable monitor space. I really hope we get there in the next few years.

JellyBeanThief• 2 years ago

I'm still waiting on my virtual workstation where I can have infinite virtual monitor space

This is it. Right now my work has to shrink down to fit on four monitors. Virtual desktops can help, but only so much. When I'm trying to puzzle something out over 20 windows--source code files, git history, documentation for two or three libraries, Wikipedia, Slack, StackOverflow, I spend a non-trivial amount of time just keeping all that organized and switching between things.

What I want is a room where I can spread out. And I need it for $1500 or less.

stcredzero3• 2 years ago

Sounds like the consumer tech version of "$70k EVs aren't selling anymore!"

Misinformation. The good EVs are selling quite well. It's just that their price has effectively dropped quite a lot. My wife's Model Y which cost us nearly $80k (we bought at peak price: the prior Corolla got totalled) now has the equivalent 2024 model selling for $42k!

The crappy EVs (ie most everyone else's) aren't selling, because they are inferior in efficiency and software implementation. Rivian and Lucid vehicles are pretty good, but those companies are still at risk of never showing a profit. I've been in a Hyundai Ionic 5, and that seemed decent too.

stcredzero3• 2 years ago

Instead of just downvoting me, how about doing some actual research:

Proof that Tesla demand is up in July 2024: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHiAIZsXT1Q

gizajob3• 2 years ago

I’ve said it before on this forum: Tim Cook needs to go for this.

LordKeren8• 2 years ago

I’m not sure many influential people at Apple would be looking for Tim Cook to resign over this— especially given that Apple is now sitting at a 3.5 trillion dollar evaluation under his leadership.

zamadatix7• 2 years ago

For this specifically? I dunno, I mean let Apple release a new flop AVP every year for the next 5 years and so long as the rest of the company performs like it has during the last decade then it still isn't really more than a dent against the guy. Vanishingly few want leadership out because of a single botched product launch that didn't even prevent the quarterly numbers from being extremely strong.

Maybe there are other reasons that factor into why you think Tim should go as well but that's not really "for this" then (and probably still not a generally popular conclusion but at least more reasonably based).

stephc_int13• 2 years ago

I remember having conversations here on HN about how the launch of this device would change everything in the field, because only Apple knows the magic sauce, and they always win, or something along those lines.

Well, I think they confused Apple with Steve Jobs, yes Jobs had almost a Midas touch regarding product design, especially when given the time to reflect on competition mistakes, and people forget that he also "missed the mark" a few times.

Tim Cook is a different character, his special ability is his uncanny focus on squeezing the supply chain and keeping the money printer churning.

This is not the Jesus goggle the fanboys were looking for, even if the tech seems impressive, I think they should not have launched it.

ericmay2• 2 years ago

Tim Cook is a different character, his special ability is his uncanny focus on squeezing the supply chain and keeping the money printer churning.

Apple Watch, AirPods, Apple Silicon… plenty of great products and services have come out under Cook’s time as CEO.

In my lifetime it has been exceedingly rare for Apple to launch a failing product. The company tends to be pretty conservative in what new features and products it launches to protect the brand equity. It’s not impossible, but I would be hesitant to consider Apple Vision Pro and their AR/VR efforts to be a failure unless you are negative on the entire AR/VR industry and future applications.

asadotzler• 2 years ago

A couple of iPhone accessories and an extension of the iPhone processor to Macs isn't really making the case for Cook as a "product guy" much less a product genius. His two big swings at the fence, the car and this AVP monstrosity, are both duds. Elsewhere he's just riding Jobs' coat tails.

hunterclarke• 2 years ago

I was in an Apple Store the other day for something unrelated. While waiting, I asked one of the employees if I should try the AVP. Their response was "it's cool I guess. Probably not worth the effort." Pretty telling.

al_borland2• 2 years ago

Wow, it sounds like the quality of employees at the Apple Store has really taken a nose dive. I could never imagine anyone who worked there saying something like that in the past.

gizajob3• 2 years ago

They’ve been virtually McDonald’s-level for years now.

tpush• 2 years ago

You mean, being honest?

pirate787• 2 years ago

I wanted to buy but it requires custom fitted lenses for glasses wearers, and Apple doesn't support my prescription.

nottorp4• 2 years ago

Even if it did, they should publish the specs and allow me to decide where I get my lenses.

newaccount74• 2 years ago

I don't think the price is the problem. People spend a lot on hobbies (it amazes me how many people ride 5000-10000€ road bikes). It's obviously too expensive that everyone buys one, but there are still lots of people who could afford it.

The bigger problem is that I just see absolutely no reason to buy it.

jayski• 2 years ago

They spend that amount on a bike, because they first bought a $300 bike, then upgraded to a $1500 one, etc. It's the same with guitars, you can start cheap and figure out if it's really for you.

wombat-man• 2 years ago

I was hyped. 100% ready to buy. Then I did the demo. It is too heavy and the field of view is too narrow. I simply don't want to watch movies in it or use it for long periods. Maybe future iterations

twoWhlsGud• 2 years ago

I agree with the exception of you being surprised that folks will spend 5000E on a road bike. Of all my discretionary purchases my custom roadbike might well be my happiest. A well fitting allroad bike can take you to the grocery store or up a gravel road to a mountain pass and make both journeys joyful. I'm on mine most days to do something practical made fun and healthy and sustainable, too : )

andrewsuzuki• 2 years ago

Well-fitting bikes are nice, but 95% of people that buy custom frames have fit coordinates that can be easily achieved on stock geometry.

Sir_Twist• 2 years ago

I wonder whether the behavior Apple has exhibited around their developer relations (especially their EU / notorization related troubles) has had a chilling effect on people's willingness to support a new platform like this. Without the raw number of users that something like the iPhone has, does Apple make it worthwhile to create apps / games for their platforms? I'm not a developer, so maybe there is a more technical reason for this, but from the outside it seems as though both indie developers and large tech companies (like Google not making a YouTube app, and Netflix) are reluctant to support VisionOS.

Or, maybe it isn't Apple-specific; maybe there simply isn't enough users, or VR/AR as a software paradigm is currently too far removed from how companies design their applications, and it is just a matter of time until they adapt. Like I said, I am not a developer, so maybe I'm missing something obvious here.

haunter2• 2 years ago

maybe I'm missing something obvious here.

It's an expensive gadget for a niche [0] market. $3500 is an incredibly high price for what it is.

0, https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/ 1.75% of Steam users have a VR headset as of June this year which is lower than the people who are using Linux for gaming (2.08%). So you can see how small the VR market is. And the top alternatives are $500 (Quest 3) and $1000 (Valve Index) which are expensive on their own but $3500 (that you can't even use on Steam gaming lol) is just an astronomical difference

TulliusCicero2• 2 years ago

Linux for gaming presumably includes the Steam Deck, no?

jonwinstanley2• 2 years ago

Exactly. Revisit this stat in a couple of years once we are all talking about Vision Pro v3?

This product is going to take a while to a) get good and b) go mainstream

autoexecbat• 2 years ago

I'd happily buy one for $500, but $3500 is way too much

lylejantzi3rd• 2 years ago

It's an expensive gadget for a niche [0] market

With an interesting chicken and egg problem. There aren't enough users to justify making content for it and nobody wants to buy it because there isn't enough content.

Pretty much all of the VR headsets have this problem. So did the Amazon Echo devices.

SapporoChris• 2 years ago

https://backlinko.com/steam-users 132 million active subscribers. So perhaps 2.3 million VR sets on steam. Any VR producer capturing 10% of the market has 230k VR sets sold. Doesn't seem like that small of a market.

But I completely agree, the high price for a VR set without good support is absurd.

Someone• 2 years ago

$3500 is an incredibly high price for what it is.

I think “$3500 is an incredibly high price for what it does for me” is true for most consumers, but if that were incredibly high for what it is, we’d see other companies sell comparable hardware at half the price.

I also think that means they have a bigger problem than just bringing the price down. What it is is incredible, but what it does for me? Mwah.

I don’t think it would fly off the shelves (for a company of Apple’s size) for half the price.

ocodo2• 2 years ago

just an astronomical ~~difference~~ waste of money.

seanmcdirmid3• 2 years ago

0, https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/ 1.75% of Steam users have a VR headset as of June this year which is lower than the people who are using Linux for gaming (2.08%). So you can see how small the VR market is. And the top alternatives are $500 (Quest 3) and $1000 (Valve Index) which are expensive on their own but $3500 (that you can't even use on Steam gaming lol) is just an astronomical difference

Apple Vision Pro was never touted as a gaming device, so I get that. I still hope Facebook/Meta keeps up with the Quest.

epistasis2• 2 years ago

I doubt developer relations have anything to do with this at all.

There's no users, no plan to scale to lots of users, and therefore no developers.

It might be partially because of the size of the VR/AR market, but Apple's approach with Vision Pro was never to try to capture all of it. It seemed mostly to gain experience in manufacturing and start to see if anything actually materialized.

In many ways it's a very anti-Apple product launch in that it didn't have a very clear use for the common person from day 1, which has been the mantra for everything from the iPhone to AirPods.

HumblyTossed4• 2 years ago

It might be partially because of the size of the VR/AR market, but Apple's approach with Vision Pro was never to try to capture all of it. It seemed mostly to gain experience in manufacturing and start to see if anything actually materialized.

Did they say this, because otherwise I'm calling ... you know what.

This is a failed product by Apple.

LordKeren8• 2 years ago

Apple has definitely, definitely soured their relationships with third party developers— but I think the far larger issue is the install base. There isn’t enough AVPs sold to ever recoup the cost of developing a VisionOS native application.

There are also effectively 0 well qualified developers for VisionOS — it’s so new that no one outside Apple has a significant amount of experience. So even beyond pure build hours alone, getting an application launched on the platform is a non-trivial amount of developer training.

jsemrau• 2 years ago

Reminds me of the time where I taught myself AR skills and launched some mildly successful apps for iOS then applied for a bunch of roles only to be rejected soundly for all of them.

jmspring• 2 years ago

Apple’s issues with the EU/etc have nothing to do with it.

Apple has a hard core base market. That said, the Vision Pro/headset market is small and Apple is only really going to get the Apple fanboy portion of that.

bastien2• 2 years ago

It's more that VR/AR is a high-cost solution still in search of a problem that makes it profitable.

So far the only market for VR is niche entertainment. VRC is fun, but VR games have been arounds for decades and never gotten past novelty.

AR has value as an accessibility tool because it can get around the high cost of some infrastructure changes. But like all accessibility tools, profit-focused eyeballs see it as a small, low-margin market. Enabling human rights is not considered profit.

wkat42425• 2 years ago

So far the only market for VR is niche entertainment.

That's not true. VR also thrives in corporate. Niches, yes. But it does do well there. Training and simulation scenarios in particular. There's some tools like uptale and arthur that capitalise on this.

And VR games are really really good and add a lot of immersion. I don't like to game without it anymore.

I don't think VR is for everything and everyone but there certainly are usecases for it.

peppertree• 2 years ago

The relationship is transactional. If there's money to be made developers will be there. The core problem is there's no killer app for Vision Pro and price is way to high to be a impulsive purchase for most.

crooked-v3• 2 years ago

It's a combination of two things: there's not enough users, and the device just isn't comfortable enough for that niche of ultra-enthusiast users to use it for extended periods.

Apple really shot themselves in the foot here with the headstrap design and by weighing it down with the metal and glass housing. Even the "good" strap is unbalanced and uncomfortable and so practical for very little but consuming content in a reclined position.

By contrast, the Quest 3 is noticeably lighter and has an entire ecosystem of head straps that allow for extended wear without discomfort, to the point that the limiting factor is the battery. Between that and the much lower price, the market of people willing to actually buy apps and services (mostly games, but also stuff like Bigscreen or workout apps) is orders of magnitude larger.

crazygringo5• 2 years ago

practical for very little but consuming content in a reclined position.

You can create content in a recline position too. It's utterly fantastic, actually, if you just have a little tray in your lap for a wireless keyboard, and a mouse on a table on your armrest.

I really think the future of VR is mostly in a reclined position, actually -- headset weight becomes a non-issue, and it just avoids developing postural problems. It's infinitely better for your back and neck and shoulders than sitting in a chair at a desk all day long.

The Meta Quest finally recently gained the ability to shift your environment to a vertical angle, for reclining or lying down in bed.

I don't really see VR's killer app being immersive games while standing up or sitting down, because of motion sickness. I think it's going to be reclining, doing work on big screens as well as watching content on big screens and immersively. I think we're just waiting for the displays to increase their resolution a bit more, and for prices for those displays to come down.

stcredzero3• 2 years ago

Long term, here's what I suspect may happen. Robotics+AI is going to eat the lunch of VR. VR is only used when it's not economical to have the actual stuff, but the realm of nifty real world stuff is going to expand tremendously.

This may well result in a societal bifurcation, where the rich have a bunch of robots, and the poor have to settle for VR.

HumblyTossed4• 2 years ago

Or, maybe it isn't Apple-specific; maybe there simply isn't enough users, or VR/AR as a software paradigm is currently too far removed from how companies design their applications, and it is just a matter of time until they adapt.

Pretty much this. People, generally, just are NOT going to wear this on their face for very long, if at all. This product solved zero problems that most people have. It's literally an iPad you wear on your face and most people would much rather spend $500 on an iPad.

renewiltord• 2 years ago

Nah, people aren’t religious. It’s just not a large enough platform. Too niche and it looks like they’ve given up on it.

tomwojcik2• 2 years ago

I used to work in game dev ~9 years ago. iPhone is where the users are, so naturally that's your main target. But your game will accomplish success only if you're featured in the app store (I don't own apple so this might have changed drastically). But in order to get featured...

Haptic feedback in the newest iphone? You need to support it in order to be featured.

You can play games on apple watch? If you support it, a guaranteed feature.

New localisation guidelines? Featured only if you support all of them.

So back then (not sure how it is right now) you needed to implement useless or at the very least something unnecessary in order to be featured on iPhone and make a buck. Otherwise apple wasn't able to sell their new technologies.

If nothing has changed, people will try to port their games to apple vr so they are more likely to be featured on iPhone.

All our games (6, iirc), were featured.

tomwojcik2• 2 years ago

I can't seem to be able to edit. My wording was incorrect. It was not needed to implement all those useless features to get your game featured in the store, but very helpful. And it makes sense, imo.

kernal• 2 years ago

The hubris of Apple thinking people would buy a $3500 USD VR/AR headset.

pjmlp2• 2 years ago

Anyone that has been following VR/AR headsets for the last 30 years was already expecting this.

How come does Apple come to a market that was already going down, pretending that Quest and HoloLens never did developer sessions showing exactly the same kind of content, a decade ago?

To make matters worse, their current attitude that developers should feel grateful and blessed to even be able to touch their SDKs, means that very few feel like targeting a device that costs as much as it does.

nottorp4• 2 years ago

Sales expectations will put even more pressure on Apple engineers to design something that can compete with devices like the $500 Meta Quest 3 while justifying the higher price tag.

... and it's not like the oculus thingies have sold in the billions. VR still has no killer app.

prmoustache• 2 years ago

I don't think much people are interested to wear some heavy stuff that makes them look stupid, regardless of how practical or not the computing experience is.

It is as simple as that. When the capabilities of a Vision Pro will be available directly from an invisible chip implanted in your head, yes it will be a success. Not as long as you'll have to wear goofy headsets.

Damogran6• 2 years ago

I think VR is a symptom that we're both running out of fertile tech to mine, and the population at large is tired of it.

In order to make a compelling experience the tech is Very Expensive...and what it really is is a funky monitor and funky mouse.

Well monitors are a couple hundred bucks and a mouse is $50.

And even when it _is_ affordable, it's just not 'sticky' (yes, I know, poor choice of words)

I've used 'em since the Vive and some of the experiences are outstanding....and yet they end up collecting dust for weeks at a time. I use it, it's great, I enjoy it...and then it goes back to collecting dust.

And I'm pretty sure the cheap, sunglasses, 4x better display of the future would be the same.

anakaine4• 2 years ago

Got to agree here. Outside a very small number of cases beyond the honeymoon period with VR, it's just not something that I'm interested in wearing. The AVP looks like a fantastic device, bit sitting in my own world of isolation with a screen on my face does not sit well as an every day interaction. Not even every week or month these days.

I suspect AR will be similar for your average consumer. Info overload is also real. If it's built into a car, or something else it then has a function and is good.

LordKeren8• 2 years ago

I think this is approaching the end of what this VR form factor can produce. Compact pass through glasses + Dramatically improved “AI” assistants is almost certainly going to be the end goal for what these technologies look like.

Google glass may have been on the right course all along

Jack000• 2 years ago

It's heavy and the extra encumbrance is not great for general purpose computing, though I never felt the need for extra screen real estate while I'm coding, watching youtube, sending emails etc.

That said I still use my AVP regularly, it's a great home theater system for 4k HDR content that's portable for travel. I've owned other headsets like the valve index but the novelty of 3d gaming wore off pretty quickly.

crooked-v3• 2 years ago

VR gaming is in a weird state because a lot of devs still haven't gotten over the hill of trying to design everything almost exactly the same as PC games despite the fundamentally different paradigm.

For an example of what I mean, compare a game that actually embraces the medium like Gorilla Tag to the endless numbers of "PC FPS, but in VR with nausea-inducing stick movement" shooter games that don't.

tunesmith• 2 years ago

I've been on the verge of buying it for a while, because I normally work from my laptop and can't be bothered to sit at a desk with a big clunky monitor.

OS 1 had disappointing mac mirroring, only slightly bigger resolution than my laptop.

But later OS versions talking about large-resolution or panoramic mac mirroring... that's super compelling for my use case. The productivity benefits of larger or multiple monitors, without having to sit at a desk.

hdhshdhshdjd• 2 years ago

It’s kinda interesting seeing Google try and fail to find the next revenue source after search ads, and now seeing Apple try and fail to diversify away from iPhone sales. They are both wildly successful, but I’m ready for a new crop of competitors in the market.

GeekyBear2• 2 years ago

Leaks of Apple's attempts to create a cheaper consumer version of this tech in an eyeglasses form factor go back to around the time of ARKit's release in 2017.

Every time they restart the effort, they eventuslly come to the conclusion that the tech just isn't there yet.

Currently, the short term plan (now that developers have something they can work with) is to produce a lighter/cheaper version of the shipping headset, while they continue long term work on an eyeglasses form factor for the consumer market.

christkv• 2 years ago

To be fair to Apple, seems Sony is also struggling to shift their VR googles for the PS5. Maybe the mass market novelty of VR is ramping down or is the Meta Quest 3 still selling well?

oidar• 2 years ago

Each of the newest headsets are disappointing for different reasons.

PSVR 2 is suffering from lack of original content on the PS5 and not making PSVR 1 content automatically backwards compatible - that would make the PSVR 2 a no brainer winner for gaming. Also the fresnel lenses on the PSVR 2 are distracting after you've used pancake lenses.

Quest 3 is suffering from image compression for video streaming and poor battery life. The game catalog / app catalog is large, but has the typical android feel for the apps - never smooth, unified, or polished. But I feel in that the Quest 3 is probably the best positioned right now for the average user d/t most content, no wires, and cost.

AVP is just too expensive for anyone atm, plus they don't have a catalog of VR games, so they are falling behind. If they had maybe 2-3 AAA games at launch, there would be a different sales arc. Not enough apps or content is available.

freeopinion2• 2 years ago

Let's say you are committed to AR/VR research. It's expensive. Let's say your research has generated tech that can be built into $2500 headset. You still have a long road to get better tech into a lower price range.

Then somebody proposes that you sell 100,000 of what you have right now for $3500. This provides $100 million dollars of profit to offset your research costs. In the end, you manufacture 80,000 and sell 60,000 of them. So you net $10 million plus 60,000 free testers (well, 1000 after everyone stops using them at all) plus 20,000 surplus units to use in various research.

Gizmodo can paint this as a commercial failure. Apple could sell the 20,000 unsold units for $100 each. That would generate another $2 million of profit even at a $2400 marginal loss per unit. They would fly off the shelves and Gizmodo would paint this as a huge commercial success. Even though Apple still wouldn't hit their 100,000 unit target. It would create panic in Apple's competitors even though they actually make a profit on $500 headsets.

So read this however you want. It's a commercial failure because it only netted $10 million dollars and might only net $1 million/year going forward. Or it's a successful funding round on the road to cheaper and more capable future products.

I'm not particularly an Apple fan, but I think it's silly to portray this in such a bad light. Would somebody like SimulaVR love to experience such a "failure"?

(All numbers above except the 100,000 target units and the $3500 price are hypothetical.)

al_borland2• 2 years ago

I'm interested, but am waiting for v2 or v3. At this point it's already been out for 6 months, so what's another 6 months in hopes of a smaller/lighter version with a slightly lower price point, not to mention more apps and content. Reviews haven't been strong enough to make me think I'm missing out on much with the v1.

ShakataGaNai• 2 years ago

This is really not a shock. If you wanted one, you bought one already. But the number of people who wanted one is fairly minimal: Super early adopters, those with more money than sense, and developers.

It's too expensive for the every-person to buy, too early for even most early adopters, has very little practical uses so far. And those who know, know this device is effectively a devkit in retail clothing.

The first iPhone sucked. The first Apple watch wasn't great (and quickly lost support). The first iPod was probably one of the better "firsts" because it was better than what was out there, same with the iPad. But it generally takes even Apple a couple generations before their products really get going. Just wait till the AVP2 or 3.

duped2• 2 years ago

Disney should buy them up at a discount and set up some AR "shows" in their parks to handle crowd capacity while during the ongoing renovations in Orlando and Anaheim.

medhir• 2 years ago

Personally, such a product is a non-starter if it faces the same restrictions that an iPad does.

If I’m spending “pro computer” money, I want the pro computer. Having no way to access the file system or run code is just crazy to me.

dagmx• 2 years ago

It’s important to note that predicted numbers for the whole year are limited to <450k units because they are limited by display manufacturing.

The report says they will sell under 500K units in the year, which matches that.

It also says they’ve sold around 100K units within this most recent quarter . Which if you divide by the number of months since its launch, is also completely inline with the linear projection of the number of units that could have been manufactured for that period.

freeopinion2• 2 years ago

An Apple 15" Macbook Air runs $1300. An Apple 27" Studio Display with stand runs $2000.

I'm amused that Apple fans are not willing to spend $3500 for a computer with a 3000+" display that you don't have to hold on your lap or desk.

What would they pay for a 15" Macbook Air with two fold-out screens?

I can't help but feel that somebody is going to get things just right and disrupt computing as we've known it. Even if it takes several "failed" experiments like Glass or AVP to find the sweet spot.

root_axis• 2 years ago

Makes sense. The only VR market up till now has been the gaming market, and the AVP is a locked down device that's incompatible with the preeminent gaming platform. This is probably why Apple has marketed it as an AR device, but although AVP is a nice step forward towards that vision, AR experiences will have a gigantic technology gap for the foreseeable future due to battery life issue. That's all without considering the show-stopping price for AVP.

wkat42425• 2 years ago

The true test for Apple’s spatial dreams may rest on the rumored (slightly) cheaper headset.

They're gonna have to do a lot better than "slightly" there. At least to make it a success in more than just the US.

schaefer• 2 years ago

I fancy myself a "VR for productivity" enthusiast. I own a PCVR setup, an Areo by Varjo[1]. And I do not use it. My cost out the door was higher than the cost of the Vision Pro and I learned some very painful lessons:

1) For VR productivity, I need my desktop application windows to run native in a VR 3d window manager. So far, all I've found are variations on the following: you get to remote into your existing desktop window manager which is projected as a 2d plane into your 3d space. This is practically useless. To actually use VR for productivity... I need to have my task windows not be co-planer.

2) Last time I checked up on this, practically no one [2] is working on this, I have stopped even watching the VR space. The hardware is here, but no one is making the software I want.

3) Vision Pro (as I understand it) is not a productivity VR headset. It's an ipad on your face that can remote into your desktop - but not in a way that integrates into the 3d window manager.

[1] https://varjo.com/products/aero/

[2]: Okay, techincally SimulaVR is working on a native 3d window manager, but they opened preorders years ago and still don't have a ship date.

nunez• 2 years ago

The super-expensive Tesla Model S and X barely sold until the cheaper Model 3 took off. Given that the people who have bought the Vision Pro consider this device revolutionary, this is probably headed on the same trajectory.

I would have gotten one if the DPI for text was as good as a monitor and I didn't need to depend on a MacBook. (I don't watch videos, but I'd love a monitor-less solution for coding on the plane.)

cmilton• 2 years ago

No one wants this. It’s a gimmick. Google glass was 2013.

Trick my brain into believing it is in another world. That is what is exciting. This is what your consumers want. An escape from this world into another. Sometimes it’s there, most of the time it’s not.

nox1013• 2 years ago

My feeling is, if most of Apple's employees are almost all not using the thing then it's a failure. I suspect 98% of all Apple employees use a iPhone, a Mac, and probably an iPad, and an Apple TV. I bet < 2% use a Vision Pro. If their own employees don't use it, why would anyone else?

To take that further, one dream of AR (and maybe VR too) is it's supposed to make you more productive. Maybe it's having 2, 3, 6 screens instead of one. Maybe it's 3d manipulation instead of mouse, touch. Maybe it's 2 hands instead of a finger. Maybe it's no computer needed because virtual displays.

If a device actually made you more productive then Apple would buy every employee that device. It would be stupid not too. Clearly the Vision Pro is not that device.

I'm pretty confident Meta has the same issue. They pushed using Quest for meetings, for productivity, and now their new commercials are pushing it for better instruction. But, I'm pretty confident, none of their employees use it for those purposes and if they don't, why would anyone else?

The Quest at least as a bunch of games, some of which are worth the experience I know several of their employees that play those games so that's the one thing they are actually using the device for themselves.

Theodores• 2 years ago

I can remember the virtual IO headset from 25 years ago, great for playing games and for watching TV whilst doing the washing up in the kitchen - or so the marketing men said.

This last application amused me because nobody does washing up, they just use dishwashing machines or eat disposable junk food, plus the family unit has been atomised.

I spoke enthusiastically about these headsets to a friend and his conclusion was that people just would not want these things on their faces. People go out to be seen as well as to see.

In recent years we have had people scorn the failed IO Goggles for the latency, low resolution and price, to claim that Meta and others have fixed these problems. They might have done, but they haven't conquered games or transport. You would think kids would be wearing these things on long car journeys and grown ups using them on plane flights.

Nothing has changed significantly for the mass market and these Apple VR headsets are clunkier than what we had 25 years ago, I am sorry to say. They are more expensive too.

If they were an open platform, a glorified monitor, they would have a niche with VR applications, such as when you want to present a 3D model to someone, for example, a building or a car, where the ability to have a proper walkaround has some advantage in impressing the client.

Civilians, whom this product is aimed at, do not and will never have the hard to learn 3D content creating skills. Nobody is going to remodel their kitchen with these gadgets.

Really it is for gaming where this product should win.

The elephant in the room is glasses, anyone with the money for this gadget wears glasses and they don't really mix.

Apple Vision Pro U.S. Sales Are All but Dead, Market Analysts Say

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