New app releases for Apple Vision Pro have fallen dramatically since launch

Apple struggles to attract content from developers for its $3,500 headset.

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[spartan56]

You don't have to remove the headset at all to talk to and see people, but I recognize it would look odd.

Maybe I'm just super old now but it has the same energy as someone who won't put their phone down when talking to you. It comes across as disrespectful.

 

[ebf7341]

I think that Apple made a mistake, They thought that plenty of people had $3.5k and were willing to give it to them in exchange for a toy. Wrong-

 

[MisterGrumps]

I forgot this thing existed and I think this is the first news I've read about the headset since ~1w after it came out.

 

[Joel622]

Attn Apple: send me a free pair of goggles and I will implement a version of flappy bird where you have to bob your head at ever-increasing speeds to avoid crashing.

(I disclaim liability for any repetitive stress injuries caused)

 

[poochyena]

I forgot this thing existed and I think this is the first news I've read about the headset since ~1w after it came out.

yea, I had the same thought a few weeks ago. Everyone was talking about it for about a week or 2.. and then it felt completely forgotten about. Even the "THIS WILL CHANGE SOCIETY FOREVER!" people haven't even talked about it again after their first videos about it ~5 months ago.
Its a cool experience. But like most experiences, its not as fun and exciting after the 1st or 2nd time.

 

[Dean0]

Funny how heavily downvoted all of the comments about "it's too expensive for developers, so there will be few apps" people were, despite being exactly right.

I often wonder about the downvoters in the comments. Simple statements of fact and neutral questions/opinions can be downvoted to hell for no logical reason. I suspect these anomalies are related to reader projection (which I have been guilty of).

I guess at the end of the day we're talking about fake internet points, not that important (although somewhat perplexing).

 

[ChrisMarshallNY]

I'm an Apple developer.

I write apps. Really good ones.

But they are free apps, and there's no way that I am shelling out $3,500 for what is, basically, a developer kit. I spend my money on things like localization (usually $150 per language, etc.).

Also, I don't really write apps that would benefit from Spatial Computing, so I am waiting to see how it goes.

 

[blorft]

I think that Apple made a mistake, They thought that plenty of people had $3.5k and were willing to give it to them in exchange for a toy. Wrong-

I worry that Apple is growing increasingly insular and unable - or simply unwilling - to look outside of their own affluent California bubble.

Just look at how one of the new features for iOS 18 is integration with PG&E, a utility that serves just a portion of a single US state, but no other utility providers in the US or around the world. Or how frequently they talk about new Apple Watch features for hiking and diving, workouts that seem geared towards a California climate / geography. Or how abysmal Apple Maps was at launch, focusing on just a few major cities in the US and leaving the rest of the world with bare-bones and often-incorrect information. They seem to have a problem of not realizing how their own experiences in California are not universal.

The Vision Pro feels like a device born of the same "we are designing for ourselves" mindset. It's a product of their years-long mindset of designing for their own lifestyles - and incomes - and completely failed to consider that most people aren't living that life.

 

[johnnybrandom]

I simply don't see how VR/AR ever goes mainstream. Too awkward. Too many trade-offs. Too antisocial.

While I generally agree with your criticisms, what I'm noticing more and more is that people may as well strap on a set of goggles because there is almost no difference in how isolated many people are today with just earphones and their eyes glued to portable screens. At least with the VisionPro they get cues to interact with folks IRL who are trying to get their attention.

 

[ColdWetDog]

How many of those have actually put the effort into creating a good tablet experience rather then just checking a box in Xcode and hoping for the best.

I wonder how many flashlight apps we're going to see.....

 

[blorft]

Apple has been very outspoken about how this shouldn't be used outside in public. It's in their guidelines.

But...Apple shows examples of someone using it in an office around co-workers, or wearing it on a plane, or wearing it to capture a "Spatial Video" of your child's birthday party...

Apple is kinda trying to have it both ways, suggesting that it's not meant for use in public (because they know the experience is bad), but also marketing it as usable in public (because they need more use cases to demonstrate than "you should use it at home alone"). It's contradictory.

 

[Boskone]

I like VR...but wearing goggles is just awkward as hell. I was very literally concerned that there might be something going on in the room of which I was completely unaware.

I think it will be limited to e.g. FPV drones and similar niches. I could see, for instance, architectural tours before spending a bunch of money on a custom house or whatever.

 

[Darth_Buzzard]

But...Apple shows examples of someone using it in an office around co-workers, or wearing it on a plane, or wearing it to capture a "Spatial Video" of your child's birthday party...

Apple is kinda trying to have it both ways, suggesting that it's not meant for use in public (because they know the experience is bad), but also marketing it as usable in public (because they need more use cases to demonstrate than "you should use it at home alone"). It's contradictory.

Yeah, but those are just public spaces, not outdoor public spaces.

Apple is fine with you using it in a controlled environment.

 

[Zeroumus]

It's pretty obvious why this thing will fail...

Nobody really wants to wear this stuff to do anything they really want to do


I am available to hire if your company wants to avoid hype mistakes like this in the future. I won't even charge you a golden parachute like the last guy

 

[Darth_Buzzard]

It's pretty obvious why this thing will fail...

Nobody really wants to wear this stuff to do anything they really want to do


I am available to hire if your company wants to avoid hype mistakes like this in the future. I won't even charge you a golden parachute like the last guy

Do you think Steve 'Give the customers what they want? Our job is to figure out what they're going to want before they do.' Jobs would have hired you? Or the risk taker?

 

[siliconaddict]

More pointless forgotten products.

The difference? This was a clear me too product from Apple. I still have my Apple Newton Messagepad. I used the crap out of that thing and until something like 2010 it still has some of the best cursive to text detection made by anyone. Yes it bombed but simply because it was way ahead of its time and took a metric crap ton of batteries.
Then you gave their camera and a bunch of other product that actually took risks. Risk is where innovation comes from. Today's Apple may be worth trillions, but they are a clear play it safe company.

 

[stdaro]

I sincerely believe, and I think a lot of people in tech do too, that AR is going to eventually supplant phones as the dominant personal computing paradigm. If you believe that, or even think its a possibility, then there's a ton of upside on making sure you're one of the early providers of the technology.

For apple, I believe this is as much about protecting their core business as anything else. They need to have a product, an OS and an app ecosystem ready for when/if AR actually gets good. The actually good AR hardware won't materialize overnight either, it will be the evolution of products we already see on the market, like AVP.

 

[Chuckstar]

Maybe I'm just super old now but it has the same energy as someone who won't put their phone down when talking to you. It comes across as disrespectful.

I often end up out and about with one Bluetooth earbud in my ear, to make it easy to answer the phone. That is, not even that I’m listening to anything. But if I have to talk to someone — even a waiter, cashier, etc. — I will take it out so that they know they have my full attention. It’s just polite, IMHO.

I feel like I would definitely remove a VR headset to talk to someone, even if it has a good pass through system.

A pass through system is still good, to let you know someone is there and who it is. Also for a quick interactions like “dinner is ready”, “OK”, where one might not bother to remove the headset. But I feel like I would try to avoid leaving the headset on while actually engaging with someone.

 

[studenteternal]

I always love the AR use case of an aviation tech or engineer looking at some system real time, like... the hard part was not consuming the information, it would be nearly as efficeint and a lot more convient to get that data from an ipad or other screen, the magic is making reality match the model, which AR tech does nothing to help solve.

tangential but related to that, I have tried a couple of the consumer headsets, they were a neat toy fun to play with for a couple hours, but ultimatly I found them too anti social, to removing me from my dogs and family and i ended up selling them on and re-buying a trackIR for my flight simming becuase while not as immersive, it ends up being a better experience for me, I know I am one anacdotal data point, but it convienced me there is no use or demand for a mass market VR device in my life, full stop.

 

[QMaverick]

Was that Apple or some of the more breathless tech press? Everything I saw had it at home/office or, at most, on a plane. I think the big mistake was simply not calling it a dev kit or something else along those lines when it was pretty clear that was how everyone was thinking about it as starting to establish the concepts. I’m betting it’ll be at least fall before we see apps doing anything exciting since this category of interface is inordinately expensive compared to phone apps.

Apple left the launch marketing too open to interpretation, showing people at kids' birthday parties, recording it for posterity (usually done with a phone, now) and other things that seemed to imply that this was a "go anywhere" kind of device.

They also made the choice of putting an external battery pack on it instead of having an option to plug it directly into power (even though the battery life is less than amazing).

To me, the direct implication from Apple's own materials was that this is a device that could replace or improve some of the things done today on phones and tablets (both mobile devices).

If Apple wanted it to be seen as something less mobile, then they needed to be more explicit and targeted in their marketing materials.

 

[BCGeiger]

Price is the BIG problem. For comparison last year we upgraded both mine and my partner’s Macs. The total was less than one VisionPro. This year we will be upgrading both of our iPhones AND both Apple Watches. The total will still be less than one VisionPro. It’s undoubtably a great product and more apps and content would be helpful. But until the price drops by about 75% it’s not even on my radar. I don’t shop for Ferrari’s either.

 

[Talisman39]

Absolutist arguments like this don't make sense when the technology is very early on even if it seems like it's been a long while. In truth, hardware platforms take a lot longer than its been for VR to catch on. A Vision Pro engineer compared it to the Apple Lisa launch in 1983. For anyone unaware, PCs didn't take off until just before Windows 95, about a decade later. That's the kind of timescale we're dealing with here, and it's something that companies are acutely aware of as they are under no delusion that this is supposed to take off today.

Annual PC sales in the 80's were growing at 25% y-o-y, and slowed to "only" 15-20% growth per year in the 90's. I don't think we've seen that kind of sustained mult-decade double-digit growth in headsets, but I could be wrong.

And in case you're unaware, VR has been around a lot longer than the decade window you're suggesting as the tipping point. It's been around since the 1980s (Jaron Lanier etc.), and in the past 40 years the use cases for it have barely budged. The headsets have gone from being humungous down to obnoxiously large - which isn't a big enough shrinkage to make them mainstream appealing. They need to go through the equivalent down-scaling of 1970's large headphones down to wireless earbuds in order to really take off (ie, fashionable glasses not supersized goggles).

 

[Quisquis]

Funny how heavily downvoted all of the comments about "it's too expensive for developers, so there will be few apps" people were, despite being exactly right.

I think the issue is it's too expensive for consumers

 

[Dzov]

I'd maybe buy one of these if it would work on my PC for games like Elite. But it doesn't and seems rather useless to me.

 

[QMaverick]

I think the issue is it's too expensive for consumers

I think it's too expensive for consumers AND developers.

 

[blorft]

I sincerely believe, and I think a lot of people in tech do too, that AR is going to eventually supplant phones as the dominant personal computing paradigm.

With respect...a lot of "people in tech" also believed that 3D TVs were going to take over, or that Bitcoin was going to dominate finance, or that NFTs were the new "ownership" paradigm in digital content. Fast forward a few years and 3D TVs are dead, Bitcoin is just an investment tool, and NFTs are laughed at.

AR may eventually complement phones as personal computing devices just like other wearables are, but it isn't ever going to fully replace phones. My phone is easily portable, it's shareable when I want someone else to see something I'm looking at, and it's private when I want to type something instead of saying it aloud. We may eventually have AR / VR devices small enough that portability isn't an issue like it is today, but the last two points - shareability and privacy - would still be issues, with no clear solutions.

 

[Chuckstar]

Give me a headset paired with noise-reduction headphones for using on airplanes.

Give me a headset with good enough resolution that I can use it as a multi-monitor set-up for my laptop when away from my main desk.

Once I had one for other reasons, I’m sure I’d play some games on it, but not sure I’d buy one just for gaming.

Beyond those examples, I have a hard time coming up with “asks” for what I’d want to be able to use an AR headset for. It sort of reminds me of the pre-internet PC days, when they kept using “store your recipes” and “balance your checkbook” as examples of things you could do on a PC, that few ever actually used it for. Among my family and friends, the home PC was for word processing for school, games and making banners using that connected dot-matrix paper. The work PC was for word processing and spreadsheets.

 

[Darury]

I'm holding out for full sensory pods that include life-support functions. Other sci-fi things have become reality, but I'm guessing the pods won't be here in my lifetime.

 

[pavon]

I simply don't see how VR/AR ever goes mainstream. Too awkward. Too many trade-offs. Too antisocial.

I think the antisocial arguments are overblown.

For gaming, playing together with people on a single device accounts for a small minority of gaming. It was never a bit part of PC gaming, and even with consoles most multiplayer is online these days.

For productivity, I spend my day working from home where all interaction is via the computer. Back when I went into the office, I'd usually average only half an hour of face-to-face conversation each day, and it isn't a big deal to pull off a headset.

For everyday life, it is a more legitimate complaint. I don't see VR ever becoming as ubiquitous as cell phones, and AR will need some significant tech improvements before that could happen. I do think it could eventually happen though, more along the line of HoloLens.

The real reason VR/AR hasn't taken off yet is that the cost to benefit ratio just isn't there yet. I could absolutely see VR providing a better experience than a PC monitor for both productivity and gaming eventually. But current devices have major tradeoffs where you have worse resolution in exchange for the 3D presence, and there are only a small number of games and applications where that trade-off is worth it. Once we get to retina-class resolution in a comfortable device at 4k monitor prices, I really do think it will become a more ubiquitous part of the average PC setup.

AR is harder for me to guess. I do think that AR displays will eventually become superior to cellphones, but I don't know how input will work. Full voice control combined with gesture recognition is quickly becoming technically feasible, but I don't know that either of those will ever be socially acceptable to use in public. I think it will really depend on who is creating the technology and how how well they manage it. The response to Google's attempt was Glassholes, but I think Apple could be much more successful at both navigating the privacy concerns and social aspects of making it cool and acceptable to use in public.

 

[redtomato]

I think the elephant in the room is how clunky and clumsy such devices are.

Let's say I have to attend a mandatory, but boring and useless TEAMS meeting. At the moment, I can turn on my camera, have a coffee, surf the web while pretending to listen, write messages with my phone etc.

But with such a headset, I can just be bored. I guess even drinking coffee wouldn't be easy. So I'd fight tooths and nails not to be forced to wear that thing, even if my employer would pay for it.

I have one of the older headsets. I agree coffee was a nightmare. I had no idea where on my desk my coffee was.

Then I got a newer headset, the Meta Quest 2 from 2020. It has cameras on the outside and a 'pass through' mode where I can see where my coffee is, and if anyone has come into the room. The mode isn't great, but it's passable.

I would expect current headsets to be able to track my coffee and keep it visible on my virtual desktop, no need to switch to a passthrough mode. IIRC from reviews, the Apple headset already tracks the Apple keyboard and touchpad, and hackers have created coffee mugs / coffee coasters that various VR headsets are able to track to highlight in your VR world.

I like VR...but wearing goggles is just awkward as hell. I was very literally concerned that there might be something going on in the room of which I was completely unaware.

Also IIRC the Apple headset is able to alert you to whenever someone enters your room. If pets / humans etc move around you, it'll bring up a representation of them in your VR world so you don't trip over your cat or dog. No idea how well that works. Still early days though.

 

[blorft]

For gaming, playing together with people on a single device accounts for a small minority of gaming.

I think you drastically underestimate the popularity of multiplayer gaming on consoles like the Switch (over 141 million units sold) and party games like those offered in the Jackbox collection.

Even if most gaming is solo or performed online - and I suspect it is - a substantial amount is still in-person multiplayer, and a device that simply doesn't allow for that at all isn't going to be an easy sell to replace consoles and platforms that do allow for it when players want to.

 

[Darth_Buzzard]

Annual PC sales in the 80's were growing at 25% y-o-y, and slowed to "only" 15-20% growth per year in the 90's. I don't think we've seen that kind of sustained mult-decade double-digit growth in headsets, but I could be wrong.

And in case you're unaware, VR has been around a lot longer than the decade window you're suggesting as the tipping point. It's been around since the 1980s (Jaron Lanier etc.), and in the past 40 years the use cases for it have barely budged. The headsets have gone from being humungous down to obnoxiously large - which isn't a big enough shrinkage to make them mainstream appealing. They need to go through the equivalent down-scaling of 1970's large headphones down to wireless earbuds in order to really take off (ie, fashionable glasses not supersized goggles).

Annual PC sales grew at arbitrary percentages. We saw some stagnation and decline y-o-y. Check the numbers for yourself: https://web.archive.org/web/20120606052317/http://jeremyreimer.com/postman/node/329

VR may have been around since the 1980s, but so was dad when he went out for the milk. Does that mean dad was parenting all those years he was out? The same applies to VR. Not only does the 1980s have no consumer VR products, but when they did appear in the 1990s, the market for those existed for roughly 2 years, after which basically no further development went on until the 2010s.

How can technology be expected to advance, supply chains built, usecases figured out, and developers learn how to make things, if the tech wasn't on the market for a nearly 2 decade hiatus?

I agree on your last point; lots of work needs to be done to make them feasible.

 

[Darth_Buzzard]

I think the antisocial arguments are overblown.

For gaming, playing together with people on a single device accounts for a small minority of gaming. It was never a bit part of PC gaming, and even with consoles most multiplayer is online these days.

For productivity, I spend my day working from home where all interaction is via the computer. Back when I went into the office, I'd usually average only half an hour of face-to-face conversation each day, and it isn't a big deal to pull off a headset.

For everyday life, it is a more legitimate complaint. I don't see VR ever becoming as ubiquitous as cell phones, and AR will need some significant tech improvements before that could happen. I do think it could eventually happen though, more along the line of HoloLens.

The real reason VR/AR hasn't taken off yet is that the cost to benefit ratio just isn't there yet. I could absolutely see VR providing a better experience than a PC monitor for both productivity and gaming eventually. But current devices have major tradeoffs where you have worse resolution in exchange for the 3D presence, and there are only a small number of games and applications where that trade-off is worth it. Once we get to retina-class resolution in a comfortable device at 4k monitor prices, I really do think it will become a more ubiquitous part of the average PC setup.

AR is harder for me to guess. I do think that AR displays will eventually become superior to cellphones, but I don't know how input will work. Full voice control combined with gesture recognition is quickly becoming technically feasible, but I don't know that either of those will ever be socially acceptable to use in public. I think it will really depend on who is creating the technology and how how well they manage it. The response to Google's attempt was Glassholes, but I think Apple could be much more successful at both navigating the privacy concerns and social aspects of making it cool and acceptable to use in public.

I expect AR input will be mostly a combination of eye-tracking and EMG.


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kx_nVrEKwTE

 

[Darth_Buzzard]

With respect...a lot of "people in tech" also believed that 3D TVs were going to take over, or that Bitcoin was going to dominate finance, or that NFTs were the new "ownership" paradigm in digital content. Fast forward a few years and 3D TVs are dead, Bitcoin is just an investment tool, and NFTs are laughed at.

AR may eventually complement phones as personal computing devices just like other wearables are, but it isn't ever going to fully replace phones. My phone is easily portable, it's shareable when I want someone else to see something I'm looking at, and it's private when I want to type something instead of saying it aloud. We may eventually have AR / VR devices small enough that portability isn't an issue like it is today, but the last two points - shareability and privacy - would still be issues, with no clear solutions.

AR glasses are inherently more private than phones since no one can see what you see, unless networked with you. Which does of course push back against the sharability aspect.

So I think that specific privacy concern will be irrelevant, but there will be new privacy concerns involving having cameras on your glasses.

 

[blorft]

Not only does the 1980s have no consumer VR products, but when they did appear in the 1990s, the market for those existed for roughly 2 years, after which basically no further development went on until the 2010s.

How can technology be expected to advance, supply chains built, usecases figured out, and developers learn how to make things, if the tech wasn't on the market for a nearly 2 decade hiatus?

If there was a nearly 2 decade hiatus...doesn't that kinda show consumers just aren't interested?

If the first versions came out in the 1990s and the market only existed for two years before dying from lack of interest...and then the Oculus Rift DK1 came out in 2013 and the market didn't take off (again)...why should we believe that things will be different this time around?

Consumers have repeatedly shown very little interest in this market for nearly four decades now. At what point do we listen to them and stop trying to make it happen?

 

[blorft]

AR glasses are inherently more private than phones since no one can see what you see, unless networked with you. Which does of course push back against the sharability aspect.

So I think that specific privacy concern will be irrelevant, but there will be new privacy concerns involving having cameras on your glasses.

My comment specifically said "My phone is...private when I want to type something instead of saying it aloud."

Nothing you've said about the privacy of the display makes that privacy of input concern irrelevant.

 

[Resolute]

Ah, The Financial Times. The ardent fluffer of the corporate world, trying to create stiff competition in a flaccid market.

Apple won't get any market penetration because this particular corporate thrust has stimulated very little excitement among would-be customers. Seems like the results here will be very unsatisfying and anticlimactic.

In general, I try not to shit talk the partner content Ars re-hosts, but this particular article is an embarrassment. The first third is about the subject presented in the headline. The final two thirds is literally advertising for Apple. To the point that I sincerely hope Ars got a cut of whatever FT was paid for it.

As far as the ostensible topic of the article goes, it should have been pretty obvious to anyone paying attention that a very expensive tech toy with no killer app or compelling reason to exist was not going to fly off the shelves or excite developers.

It was clear from day one that Apple hoped someone else would come up with a killer app. And while it might still happen, Apple is now at risk of finding itself of being caught in a vicious cycle of nobody taking the risk to develop that killer app because of low sales, and low sales because there's no killer app.

And man, every sales estimate that gets produced points to a significantly struggling product, even accounting for what were already very modest goals. Though if nothing else, I trust Apple to try and see things through to the budget model they should have started out with rather than just abandon the system to its fate the way Sony did with PSVR2.

 

[HeartbreakOne]

It's pretty obvious why this thing will fail...

Nobody really wants to wear this stuff to do anything they really want to do


I am available to hire if your company wants to avoid hype mistakes like this in the future. I won't even charge you a golden parachute like the last guy

We should open a consulting company together, explaining to tech dorks, that no, a subscription-based bong that records you when you sleep is not going to make them Bill Gates. Give it a minimalist name like '1+1'.

 

[blorft]

a subscription-based bong

What a rip...off

 

[hubick]

I sincerely believe, and I think a lot of people in tech do too, that AR is going to eventually supplant phones as the dominant personal computing paradigm.

I've owned the OG Oculus Rift, Samsung Odyssey, Quest 2, Rift S, and HP Reverb (current), and spend free time stitching giant 360 photospheres for VR. Which is to say, I love VR as much as anyone, but I still think it's going to fail. It's just too clunky to get in and out of, strains your eyes and makes you feel a bit queasy, and despite all the immersiveness, ultimately enables you to do very little you couldn't actually have achieved on a phone or regular computer without those downsides. Even if we ignore those latter concerns, I think you'd need the AVP level screen/optics crammed into the form factor of a pair of sunglasses that's that easy to don/doff to really have a chance, and we just don't have the tech. Nor will we anytime soon I think, especially if you don't want it tethered to a battery pack (and people might go for the glasses, but once you have batteries and wires, you're back to a phone having way less hassle). The immersive experience just isn't critical enough for getting things done.