Bloomberg News‘ Mark Gurman writes this week that “it feels like the Vision Pro is following the same script as every VR headset to come before it” as initial enthusiasm from early adopters dies out.
Mark Gurman for Bloomberg News:
After an exciting launch period with a sales surge and users flocking to stores for demos, interest has died down.
Here’s what I’m hearing from Apple retail stores: Demand for demos is way down. People who do book appointments often don’t show up, and sales — at least at some locations — have gone from a couple of units a day to just a handful in a whole week.
A big question is whether current Vision Pro owners have stopped using the headset regularly — a problem that plagued previous virtual reality systems. Let me speak about my own experience. During the first couple of months that I owned my Vision Pro, I used it every day (sometimes several times a day). Now I’m down to maybe once or twice a week.
I had initially used the Vision Pro whenever I watched a movie or YouTube, or when I wanted a more immersive screen for my Mac at home. These days, with the initial buzz wearing off, it seems clear that the Vision Pro is too cumbersome to use on a daily basis. Going through the process of attaching the battery, booting it up and navigating the interface often doesn’t feel worth it. And a killer app hasn’t emerged that would compel me to pick it up. It’s far easier to just use my laptop as a laptop and watch video on either my computer or big-screen TV.
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MacDailyNews Take: This is all proceeding along a very predicable path.
[This Vision Pro reaction] is exactly what you’d expect to occur when a product is released too early to average users.
Apple Vision Pro is a devkit for developers, not for average users, and should have been released as a devkit for developers.
When a product is released too early to average users, you get reviews like “it’s the spiritual successor to the Newton.” And you deserve them. – MacDailyNews, March 26, 2024
As we wrote on March 22, 2024:
There are a lot of people inside and outside of Apple who think the company should have waited on the Vision Pro, but it’s fairly easy today to see why Tim Cook released this beta (alpha?) devkit: He likely knew last year, or had a strong inkling, that Project Titan was a goner and there wasn’t much excitement in Apple’s pipeline. He’d need something to point to as “innovation” while he continued on his seemingly unending quest to iterate and monetize products invented by Steve Jobs’ Apple (a very different place) while continuing Apple’s retail store buildout. He also needed something to energize developers and, who knows, they might come up with a killer visionOS app while Apple toils on the long road to real lightweight spatial computing glasses and beyond.
More importantly, Apple last year had already come to the sad realization that they’d missed the generative artificial intelligence revolution and would need a distraction while they feverishly scrambled to catch up (the fruits of which — alongside what sound like disappointing partnerships which hopefully, somehow, preserve user privacy — we’ll hopefully begin to see at WWDC this June).
You have to feel for Cook. After a decade plus of being able to iterate and monetize Jobs’ inspired products and services and continue adding retail stores around the world to spectacular effect, and being lauded for it, he now finds himself in a place that requires actual vision to be able to see which path to take. And he’s not the guy. Even the guy who put him in the position knew it.
Tim’s not a product person, per se. – Steve Jobs
See also:
• Contrary to popular belief, Steve Jobs knew about Apple Watch – February 13, 2023
• Work on Apple Vision Pro began under Steve Jobs – August 23, 2023Beyond the fact that Cook can’t even execute a compelling live keynote address, his big send off, the “Apple Car,” [the idea of which was also germinated under Jobs] fizzled in ignominious failure.
See also:
• Scrapped Apple Car ‘a massive disappointment that will alter the course of the company’s history, perhaps for decades to come’ – Gurman – March 11, 2024
• Apple employees referred to doomed Apple Car project as ‘The Titanic Disaster’ – February 29, 2024So, despite myriad misgivings and protestations inside Apple, Cook pulled the trigger early on the Vision Pro. He had to have something to point to that would buy him some time. Even Apple’s rubber-stamping board of lackeys would wake up and start asking questions otherwise.
While Cook is hemming and hawing when faced with shareholders (virtually, of course, never again in person for as long as Cook remains), Apple is currently in scramble mode trying to catch up to rivals — including the world’s most valuable company, Microsoft — in generative AI, a technology the company seems to have completely missed while focusing instead on the not-ready-for-primetime Apple Vision Pro, visionOS, its now-canceled decade-long multi-billion-dollar electric vehicle boondoggle, replacing leather in iPhone cases and Apple Watch bands with overpriced junk in a quest to “save the planet,” forcing employees to endure a constant barrage of time-wasting zero-productivity DEI sessions, and myriad other various and sundry “initiatives” which Cook deems of import. – MacDailyNews, February 28, 2024
When you lose your visionary CEO and replace him with a caretaker CEO, this is the type of aimless, late, bureaucratic dithering that ensues. – MacDailyNews, November 21, 2017
Until it gets another visionary leader (fingers crossed; Apple’s history has shown – cough, Sculley, Spindler, cough – that the next CEO could be far, far worse than the very competent caretaker Cook), Apple can afford to miss things like generative AI – which they clearly did – and then use its huge war chest to catch up – which they’re doing right now (fun times and 80-hour weeks inside Apple Park!) – and, hopefully, surpass rivals (or at least be as good). Apple will very likely unveil their catch-up work within months (this June at WWDC 2024) in iPhones (and iPads, Apple Watches, etc.) with built-in on-device generative AI and other new AI-driven features. – MacDailyNews, February 14, 2024
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Did the demo, was impressed with the tech but cant think of a single pratical use
It’s a wearable Mac-iPad hybrid. The use case is every single thing you’d do on those, it’s not that complicated. The question is whether doing Mac-iPad stuff in AR is worth the hassles of weight, fatigue, price and its other current limitations. For most people it’s not, even if they got it for free.
Maybe it will in a generation or two but this product was released way too soon, it should never have been unveiled and sold in its current form to the general public. I also did a demo and it was underwhelming. I almost dropped it putting it on once the magnetic light seal detached and the field of view was very limited, almost like binoculars. It’s the type of thing companies show off as a proof of concept at a trade show, not a consumer-ready device.
Tim is a pipeline person, per se. He likes the pipeline filled with product moving back and forth, in and out. He likes it. It excites him. But no-one else is excited. Not even Scott Foreskin, who was stretched into the rubber room before lbeing kicked out of the company. Tim Crook is all money man hat but no creative cattle. Don’t get spooked. Tim Cook !
MDN quoting itself again, how obnoxious that is. I said it from day 1 this things is DOA. Very little practical use and nobody wants to wear a headset.
No, Apple will not “fix” the issues with AVP in future generations. It’s like saying you will fix the issues with a lawn mower with wings. You can paint it a different colour, reduce its weight by half, update the software, get it to double its battery life, put on new features including a triple blade with triple fast lawn cutting, and… it will still be a lawn mower with wings.
The problem with AVP is the medium itself: a VR headset. That means hamstrung input compared to standard computing methods, a bulky thing stuck to your face, a cheap imitation of reality, and more issues.
It’s dead, it always was dead, and it always will be.
Dwse is an obnoxious little twerp. MDN has been quoting itself for 20+ years, they always do to show you they have had their finger in the pulse. Not Dense Without Sense Enough.
I don’t share the negativity about this product. But it will take time before it could become mainstream. Apple have developped a great technology there. It’s a great first step.
A great first step shouldn’t require so many compromises.
Bulky, awkward, external battery pack, short battery life, clunky input.
Not even one killer app from the maker of the device.
A grade school student could have determined this product is not ready.
So many compromises for the user.
Steve would have pushed for better and would have waited.
You only get 1 chance to release a new product right and they blew it.
It reminds me of a comment Jobs once made about the quality of the products apple refused to released where others would have released them.
Steve wasn’t fooled by gadgets.
Cook is trying to pull the wool over everyone’s eyes.
As cook slowly sells his apple shares apple rots.
Digsy, please stop being a foolsy. Thanks.
I actually really like my apple vision pro. I use it every day.
I use mine too. Not sure wtf all the complaints are about. I love mine. Just a bunch of whiners
I can imagine it being very cool. It’s new, kind of weird (no one wants to look like a borg and socializing simultaneously, well…that’s kind of weird too–I imagine), but it will mature and become more svelte…in form and $$. All others of same tech sound cheaply made and less advanced.
Without Steve, Apple is just another non creative tech company. Cook has no creative thoughts and all he’s done is to hitch on ride on Steve’s iPhone.
Now the last of Steve’s vapors are gone, Cook has nothing to grab onto, but I’m sure Cook will put in a better camera in the next iPhone.
Reality Distortion Headset
That’s it? We get Gurman’s “feelings”? Not even a quote from Apple? I ‘feel’ that the AVP served its purpose quite well. This is a first generation product to establish the technology. The engineers get tons of feedback from users about use cases and reliability and problems. Now they have vast amounts of information to guide them on version 2.
Gurman is… a bore, man.