Apple Has Given Up on the Vision Pro After M5 Refresh Flop

https://www.macrumors.com/2026/04/29/apple-vision-pro-m5-flop/

by jurmous • 3 months ago

87 67 3 months ago

hyperhello• 3 months ago

Anyone could have explained that people don’t want to wear a Super Nintendo on their head. It seemed more like a “best we can do right now” technology testbed, or supply chain resource, than a real product. I assume they learned everything there was to know about building it and what it turned out to be good for.

I volunteered to help evaluate the HoloLens at one point. My feedback was that whatever the dream was (checklists in your field of vision, etc), you can do that yourself and get all the value, and the headset didn’t add anything.

idontwantthis• 3 months ago

Also my experience with VR and AR for the most part. “Do you want to do what you do now on your phone/computer except be extra tired?” is basically the sell.

ChoGGi2• 3 months ago

I mean, I enjoyed my Virtual Boy, but I definitely put more hours into my Super Nintendo.

RyanOD• 3 months ago

I may still be nursing a headache from my Virtual Boy...30 years later.

throwuxiytayq• 3 months ago

Most companies don’t have the attention span for the sustained burn needed to develop a new hardware and software platform. These days Apple is just another company. Valve will show them how it’s done.

tootie2• 3 months ago

They plower a ton of resources into this for years. And it was breaking into an existing market with established competitors. There was just never a market for this product at all no matter how good it was or how good it could have been. 99% of people just aren't wearing headsets and the value prop is just way too small to convince them.

bitpush3• 3 months ago

Someone more skilled than me start killedbyapple.com

999900000999• 3 months ago

Setting it up with Ghost blog or whatever is the easy part.

Not getting sued or harassed by Apple fanboys is difficult.

dagmx2• 3 months ago

This article is an opinion piece. It doesn’t have any substantive claims, even from insiders that this is the case. It’s most credible claim is that people are moving about to new projects which is not irregular in the least.

bitpush3• 3 months ago

It matches my lived experience. None of my friends use AVP. It is gathering dust. Do you have data on the contrary that AVP is growing gangbusters (like say, Macbook Neo?)

netruk44• 3 months ago

The argument is "there is no significant evidence to support the claim that Apple has given up on the Vision Pro".

I don't think anybody is arguing that it's selling amazingly well or is a growing market.

And I agree with the argument. It seems a little premature to make this claim now, so close to WWDC.

If WWDC comes and goes with no major announcement for the future of visionOS or the Vision Pro, that would be a significant indicator of Apple having given up.

dagmx2• 3 months ago

That’s a bit of an absurd rebuttal.

1. I’m not making the claim it’s selling well. I’m just saying the article puts forth no supporting claim beyond the authors own repetitive opinion.

2. Your lived experience is (no offence intended) meaningless to the discussion unless you somehow live a very related lifestyle. Conversely many of my friends have Vision Pros because they use them professionally. I wouldn’t extrapolate anything from that.

wolvoleo• 3 months ago

It's never even been available to buy here in Spain lol. And it was really just way too expensive, and they've never really demonstrated a good usecase. I don't think the size and weight were even the biggest issue.

But I'm probably an outlier, I use my meta quests several hours per week.

stormed• 3 months ago

surprisingly, the people I saw getting the most use out the Apple Vision Pro has been healthcare workers (even though that's already incredibly rare to see). There was a doctor I used to talk to at my old job that swore by it. He would pin EPIC app windows in individual patient rooms and would use the built-in microphones for doing speech dictation on patient charts.

I thought it sounded a little goofy when he was explaining it to me, but hey that's at least a more productive use case than watching YouTube videos on the couch.

elzbardico2• 3 months ago

It is not very different from the Microsoft thing, that found its only place in maintenance crews of complex equipment in factory floors and hangars.

fragmede• 3 months ago

"only place".

There are quite a large number factory floors across the entire world. That's a fairly large niche.

rbd765• 3 months ago

The AVP is an incredible device, but it's too restrictive and the 3D spectacle doesn't offset the myriad of issues that I've run into:

- If I want to watch movies, I'll typically do so with my wife, on my 4K smart TV. The AVP is not a shared experience unless you purchase an additional unit.

- The virtual display can't be used with arbitrary devices (e.g. PS5, PC, Raspberry PI) via direct HDMI, only over network streaming, which has latency/quality constraints.

- The passthrough quality is not good enough to do anything non-trivial.

- The native Vision Pro apps tend to be neutered compared to the MacOS equivalent.

- When flying, it's a bit too bulky to take as carry-on, unless you dedicate your entire backpack to it or carry by hand.

From a development standpoint, I found that the SDK was quite shallow and didn't provide as much hardware access as I would have liked– particularly the raw camera feed. Apparently there's now an enterprise program that unlocks access, but you have to jump through some hoops and get manually approved, which is too much friction. Additionally, the market is quite weak. I had my app get featured in the App Store a year ago and hardly made enough profit to justify further time investment.

If there was a Linux equivalent to the Vision Pro that didn't require a social media account, I'd be more receptive. The biggest issue across modern AR/VR devices is the tendency towards closed ecosystems and lack of integration with external devices. For now, my AVP is largely collecting dust on the shelf until I get bored on a random Sunday afternoon and decide to see what's new.

retired• 3 months ago

When flying, it's a bit too bulky to take as carry-on, unless you dedicate your entire backpack to it or carry by hand.

Just wear it. I bet the cabin crew will love it!

alsetmusic• 3 months ago

The AVP is an incredible device

It's one of the most impressive feats of engineering that I've interacted with and yet mine sits in a drawer. If they'd produced ongoing immersive content, I'd keep watching it. I especially loved the dinosaur experiences. Oh well…

testaburger• 3 months ago

sounds like a missed opportunity by apple to partner with the las vegas sphere folks for content.

umeshunni• 3 months ago

My impressions after trying it in the Apple Store was - amazing v1 hardware, beta quality software and alpha quality content.

andrewbastin• 3 months ago

If there was a Linux equivalent to the Vision Pro that didn't require a social media account, I'd be more receptive.

Really hope the Steam Frame starts shipping at some point. https://store.steampowered.com/hardware/steamframe

raffael_de• 3 months ago

If there was a Linux equivalent to the Vision Pro that didn't require a social media account, I'd be more receptive.

An open source product, maybe crowd funded, would be amazing. Even if it was two generations behind. Two displays or another version of that smartphone + cardbox frame approach.

upmind• 3 months ago

Apple has really dropped the ball recently, as someone who was a die-hard apple fan 10 years ago now I've started moving off the ecosystem.

SlightlyLeftPad2• 3 months ago

This product was incredibly ambitious but the real miss was the market fit for what they were targeting.

They still continue to make the highest quality consumer hardware on the market, by far. My macbooks and phones are expected to last (and have lasted) nearly a decade and for that reason alone it’s worth staying in the ecosystem for me.

bitpush3• 3 months ago

This product was incredibly ambitious but the real miss was the market fit for what they were targeting.

Why is it that Apple gets 'participation' brownie points? When a movie flops, we dont go like 'The project was incredibly ambitious, but the market fit was bad' - We just say that 'it is a bad movie because nobody watched / liked it'.

tracerbulletx• 3 months ago

10 years ago was pre apple silicon which is an orders of magnitude more impactful win than anything else that you might want to hold against them. So I'm not sure how you go from being a die hard fan 10 years ago to not just because you dont like a vr headset and the software has gotten a little sloppy.

platevoltage4• 3 months ago

I don't even want hoverboards. I would settle for the people sleeping on benches and in tents 8 blocks from my house to have homes.

platevoltage4• 3 months ago

I would have said that 7 or 8 years ago when MacBooks were absolute garbage. Now, the only complaint I have is that the 'control' key isn't in the bottom left corner like it should be.

tootie2• 3 months ago

I feel pretty vindicated saying this product had zero chance of success. AR headsets have very little utility beyond some tiny niches. It's never going to produce a consumer product. VR hasn't really gotten past gaming and arguably hasn't gotten past Beat Saber. It's been decades at this point and the market just isn't expanding past enthusiasts and a handful of industrial niches.

spacechild12• 3 months ago

I've used VR glasses in audiovisual performances and even in an opera. So it's not only industrial niches but also artistic niches :)

Muhammad523• 3 months ago

I believe it flopped because people simply dont want this kind of device. Maybe because it's seen as recreational (I'd never accept to try to do any work on it) and also because of the high cost. Most people are ok with just a phone.

m4rtink• 3 months ago

Did they ever got some controllers for it ? Not sure how useful would it be without them if you need to move in VR environment like VRChat & don't have a warehouse as you play space.

jurmous• 3 months ago

It works with third party controllers. Both the classic console ones as more VR styled ones.

Example: https://www.surreal-interactive.com/

hannahstrawbrry2• 3 months ago

A lot of comments on this talking about how an AR/VR product would never make it but I think a lot of people fail to understand just how badly Apple failed to meet existing VR/AR developers where they are. Apple told us all to learn Swift and port our projects or pay thousands of dollars in Unity licensing costs to ship our existing projects to the new platform. Was incredibly heartbreaking to realize I simply can't afford the fees to put my XR projects in the App Store despite having iOS & XR experience and already being part of the developer program.

scyzoryk_xyz• 3 months ago

This.

We're 2 years into it and one would expect they'd incentivize the hell out of making sure this niche device has all the gates wide open. You can't have a walled garden if it's just wall.

Where are all the fascinating weird experimental trippy spatial computing concepts that we were supposed to see emerge. Where are the drone interfaces, the medical simulation applications, the training paradigms. New forms of entertainment, I mean least they could do is ensure that one awesome AAA game Half-Life Alyx had been ported over for this thing.

anvuong• 3 months ago

Both can be true. The current form factor of VR headset is too cumbersome for daily use. And Apple being Apple, they made a beautiful Ferrari that has no wheels.

elabajaba• 3 months ago

If it was a Ferrari it would at least be light. Considering how heavy it is, it's more like a Rolls Royce lol.

tencentshill• 3 months ago

It's more like a hydrogen-powered ferrari. You can only fuel it in one state, and it's expensive.

ramesh31• 3 months ago

"Apple failed to meet existing VR/AR developers where they are. Apple told us all to learn Swift and port our projects or pay thousands of dollars in Unity licensing costs to ship our existing projects to the new platform."

The thing is there's still no actual platform for AR, and Apple took probably the very best shot at giving us one. Your other options are Meta's pile of React garbage "Horizon OS", or Android... which is Android. Sure Steam is great on the PC, but it's been proven pretty conclusively at this point that tethered devices are a dead end for niche hobbyists. Like it or not, visionOS is by far the only viable platform moving forward after Daydream and Fuchsia were abandoned.

halJordan• 3 months ago

That's the sort of thinking that killed Kodiak and ibm and xerox. There's absolutely a better way to do this platform. Apple just cannot bring itself to make another mac. It has to be another iPhone.

hannahstrawbrry2• 3 months ago

More than the Android problem, Meta has shat the bed over and over again on their MDM solutions- it's really hard to sell any company on experimenting with headsets when there aren't good ways to manage them.

steve1977• 3 months ago

For starters, it's not even available where I live.

ChrisRR• 3 months ago

Apple's approach has always been "You'll do as we say and thank us for it"

bdangubic2• 3 months ago

To me the most amazing things about AVP are things that I would enjoy socially and not alone with goggles on. I compared it to:

- The most amazing movie theatre experience in the world - but you have to go there alone

- The most amazing arcade you have ever seen - but you have to go there alone

- The most amazing restaurant in the world - but you have to dine alone

- ...

It is like everything that is great about it is (for me at least), is 100% social thing which I cannot enjoy alone with the goggles on.

cguess• 3 months ago

As someone who lives alone, I very much wanted to want it (I do much of my life by myself anyways since I WFH and live in NYC where all my friends have very different schedules). $3500 just couldn't justify it for me though, $1000 less... maybe.

jnsie2• 3 months ago

That price always made it seem like a tech demo. I suspect that they would have sold like crazy at (the unfeasible price point of) $500.

dabinat• 3 months ago

I think it would have sold much better if the price was lower, but it was still missing an obvious use-case. A lot of people in this thread have mentioned their Vision Pros are gathering dust.

jnsie2• 3 months ago

A lot of people in this thread have mentioned their Vision Pros are gathering dust.

That part is indeed interesting. I would have thought this would be exactly the audience likely to travel with the device, use it as a large monitor for daily work, etc. Apparently not.

apparent2• 3 months ago

Yeah, partly because a couple/family could have bought multiple of them. At $3,000 each, almost no one would buy more than one.

expedition32• 3 months ago

No I disagree. Even heavily subsidised VR hasn't gone mainstream.

At some point one just has to admit that it looks cool in anime but doesn't work IRL.

BiraIgnacio• 3 months ago

I like to think the Vision Pro was ahead of its time. Just because it's such a cool product. Just not practical yet for every day use cases

apparent2• 3 months ago

If they had gotten their sports programming up and running, this might have gone differently. That part of the in-store demo was incredible, and I don't even care about sports that much.

benoau• 3 months ago

Concerts and performances as well. Taylor Swift fans could have saved the device by themselves lol.

rambojohnson• 3 months ago

Vision Pro, the metaverse, all this money-sink tech the money for which could’ve fed the world a hundred times over... late-stage capitalism is a circus. We were promised hoverboards.

pharos92• 3 months ago

I've never been impressed with VR/AR.

But on a work trip I visited an Apple Store and tried out Apple Vision. I was quite honestly blown away by how capable and usable it was.

The price is clearly prohibitive, and as a general-rule-of-thumb avoid first-generation anything Apple.

I would happily work in a Apple Vision environment. However that weight and price needs to come down.

platevoltage4• 3 months ago

Not that I was ever in the market for this type of tech, but Apple also gave up on the Newton...

lifis• 3 months ago

Well, that was quite predictable.

Absurdly high price for a novel device of unclear utility (a VR headset but incompatible with all existing VR software) resulting in few users.

No support for PC VR nor Android/Quest VR apps resulting in little software, no massive investment in getting Vision Pro specific software written, little interest in porting due to the few users.

ksec• 3 months ago

Vision Pro is at least 10 to 15 years ahead of its time. Had they done it in 2033+, the tech would have been a lot better and affordable. But even then I doubt it will be successful.

chaostheory• 3 months ago

Gen Alpha and younger generations need to become adults with jobs before VR becomes a success. They are the only demographic who’s open to VR

archagon• 3 months ago

Hardly. Despite the superior innards, it’s a sidegrade at best from the Meta Quest. I can’t believe it shipped with zero focus on games and a completely hobbled SDK.

Apple Has Given Up on the Vision Pro After M5 Refresh Flop

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