Apple’s Vision Pro is a bad product with an even worse vision for the future of computation.
New sales numbers prove it’s a failure, but more than that it shows the idea of tech’s inevitability is a myth. We have the collective power to stop tech that doesn’t serve us.
@parismarx It feels like Apple managed to make something that isn't for VR enthusiasts but also doesn't appeal to average folks...
Also just fyi - with JavaScript disabled, the site has black text on a dark grey background (in dark mode). Had to enable JavaScript in order to read it!
Viable stereo imaging technology has been around since the mid-19th century. VR has been around since the 1980s. This stuff always pops up once a generation under various guises (stereograms, anaglyph, holograms, Virtual Boy, etc.)
and then just as quickly fades back into obscurity once the novelty wears off.
While 3D stuff has a big initial WOW! factor, beyond that there's just something about it that people really don't like.
@parismarx I don't think headsets will ever be mass market devices. Discomfort, headaches, nausea...maybe they'll be useful for surgeons or astronauts or car mechanics but for everyone else there's just not much to recommend them.
Building on what I was saying in this piece, Bloomberg reports:
“One [Apple Store] employee says they haven’t seen one Vision Pro purchase in weeks and that the number of returns equaled the device’s sales in the first month that it was available.”
@parismarx For $3500 you can get a top of the line gaming computer and monitor. Much more fun than looking like you are insane pinching and air tapping in public.
It seems very hard to look stupid or wrong in big-tech, at least to the busy masses. There is always some new shinier thing they can dangle to distract away from the last stupid thing, or some updated/new promise of the next thing.
@parismarx Agreed. I said in early February, "No matter how much Apple aggressively markets or Tim Cook enthusiastically declares, I do not believe the future of computing is something only available in Apple’s $3,500+ face-masking, person-secluding headset."
@parismarx It seems like the biggest failure is that it was pitched at the mass market without a good use case. VR is niche, and it’s mostly useful for video games and in the design industry, broadly constituted. Apple has little consumer trust in the former, but they do have a foothold in the design world, and the Vision Pro might have some success there; However, their marketing barely mentions industry, and it’s not a focus of their developer support.
@parismarx This is just the beginning!!! Spatial computing is changing everything. Vision Pro is already a success that is manifesting in slow motion before accelerating