Kinda doubt about Vision Pros' future.

[nathansz]

You're touching on a crucial aspect of Apple's strategy with the Vision Pro. Apple is aware that this product category is not appealing to the mainstream. The vast majority of people are hesitant to embrace VR or AR, especially when it involves wearing bulky ski goggles. The same goes for science fiction AR contact lenses; they're just not something the average person is clamoring for.

The key to Apple's approach with the Vision Pro is the slow and deliberate establishment of a new category. They're not expecting overnight success; this is about laying the groundwork for the long haul, spanning decades.

The screen on the front of the Vision Pro, with its animations, is entirely a marketing tool, it’s not a functional feature. It's about acclimatizing people to the idea of wearing such a device, trying to make it appear somewhat cool and less intimidating. They’re trying to make it less gross!

The strap design is another example of prioritizing aesthetics over functionality, aiming to make the device look slightly more appealing than the typical double-strap design seen on other VR headsets, even though it does ship with both.

This long-term strategy is about positioning Apple for the next 25 years. Widespread adoption of this technology might not occur for decades.

Ok. Sure. I guess.

When they introduced iPhone it was a massive hit overnight

Remind me if when Apple has ever had a 25 year business strategy?

They don’t even know who’s making their CPU’s and upon what architecture 7-10 years from now

BTW. Even the watch now is a free give away here if you sign up for a new bank account

So obviously doing great

 

[nathansz]

It definitely has some v1 shortcomings right now, but I don't doubt its future at all. This is the future of computing for sure.

If the future of computing is strapping two iPads to my face I am most definitely out

 

[ZiBart]

They were popular with tech nerds and business people, but absolutely not with consumers. I’d say similar to how VR headsets are popular with tech nerds and gamers.

To be clear, not saying AVP is going to be the next iPhone. Just that in 2007 it wasn’t a given smartphones would be a mass consumer product.

Not sure if I agree with this. If you look back at the top 10 phones sold worldwide in units from 2006 and 2007, more then half of them were 'smartphones'. Crackberry's were making substantial headways in consumer markets because of BBM. The BB Pearl and Curve were huge consumer phones, even for a couple years after iPhone came out. Also, Nokia N95 was big too, along with the Palm Treo 650 and Centro. I had all of these at one point and all my friends had similar. And we weren't business people at all, nor tech nerds. Smartphones were on a sharp upward trend just before iPhone came out. The iPhone was so different and ahead of its time though. It was so good that it really put into question whether the previous smartphones were even that smart. But Apple made market penetration very difficult for themselves in the initial few years because of its exclusive deal with AT&T and a slow rollout outside of USA. Jailbreaking the SIM carrier lock, was also very difficult initially.

 

[jqc]

Fiction competes with reality, movies compete with reality. Sometimes people want something that isn’t reality.


Not sure I 100% agree. With iPhone 1 there was no App Store, and no 3G. So the usability was definitely limited compared with the iPhone 3G. Nonetheless the iPhone 1 was good for things like reading the news, getting the weather, checking a stock price - all things which were challenging on say a Blackberry.

Likewise I think the AVP is excellent for things like watching movies, viewing photos, and a handful of AR apps like the dinosaur one. I would say it has as compelling a limited use case as the iPhone 1 did, and I can see a much broader use case for this as the device and form factor evolve. Nonetheless for the basic use cases which it has nailed so far, it is excellent. To me the only reason I haven't bought one is price. I really want one for watching movies and viewing photos, and 3D documentaries. However $4000 is too much for me for this set of use cases.

My point is the form factor of iPhone 1 was pretty much there, a rectangle bar you can fit in your pocket, which was also much better than having a phone and iPod in your pocket. app store and and 3g wasnt necessary. I cant remember other phones of that era really taking advantage of 3G anyway - no one had a full “desktop class” browser to take advantage of it. Also, the slow network issue went away immediately once you got on wifi.

The AVP form factor is not there. It’s too big, heavy and unwieldy to use. Women are not going to use this product until it doesnt ruin their hair and make up. It dosent have a chance for mass adoption until the form factor is the same as putting on a pair of glasses and women start using it regularly.

And the price of course. The form factor has too many drawbacks for the price.

 

[UltimateSyn]

If the future of computing is strapping two iPads to my face I am most definitely out

Have you seen how big computers were in the '60s? The form factors will be a lot more elegant and compact as time goes on.

 

[Ghost31]

Just like 3D TV was going to be the future of TV. That failed. For near $4000 AVP is so over expensive… With that said I don’t think AV/VR will fail but the AVP is a failure at its asking price… I laugh at all the people that say it so great for watching shows and movies…. Guess what the $500 Quest 3 is also very good at doing that and you save almost 3,500. Sure the AVP has a higher resolution but the Quest 3 is still fantastic especially for the price and has a larger FOV. Quest 3 is more than enough for 99% of people that want to try out AR/VR and it can do more than the AVP.

Unfortunately the quest doesn’t have all the streaming apps I’d want to watch everything. They need to work on that

 

[Ghost31]

It will be fun to read all these forums in 10 years. Sometimes for kicks I go back and read the old iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch forums. Or maybe 🤔 in 10 years AI 🤖 will rewrite all of them and the truth will be lost 😞. Could be the Wally Syndrome is upon us and we don’t even know it. Maybe we are all just a 3d projection from a black hole or maybe we are just one of many in the Multiverse… this is giving me a headache.

I’m the only real person here. Everybody else is just a simulation

 

[heretiq]

Ok. Sure. I guess.

When they introduced iPhone it was a massive hit overnight

Remind me if when Apple has ever had a 25 year business strategy?

They don’t even know who’s making their CPU’s and upon what architecture 7-10 years from now

BTW. Even the watch now is a free give away here if you sign up for a new bank account

So obviously doing great

Huh??? Are you posting from the Metaverse where you are an authority on business strategy and there are alternative facts from those that demonstrate that Apple’s practices have made them the world‘s most valuable company? 🤔

 

[heretiq]

I recall trying a coworker's Crackberry Pearl... I wanted to throw it through a window after barely a couple minutes of use. The UI was a giant pain in the ass. I never bought a Crackberry or any other kind of "smartphone" and I had been using cell phones since 1996.

That said, iPhone was a more fleshed-out game changer than iPod which was met with some very ho-hum reactions, including this legendary gem.

The problem with iPod was that they were still bootstrapping the product ecosystem, and it really wasn't until 2003, with the iTunes Music Store, that it started to take off.

The biggest hindrance for AVP is VR adoption in general being limited by form factor. I don't care what people rationalize about it... Using it intrudes, rather than simplifies... whereas with iPod the thing it was replacing was things like the Discman or Walkman, and thus simplifying that aspect of an existing relationship with technology.

To that end, by the time iPod was ten years old, digital downloads and streaming had replaced physical media as the dominant format for music. VR is already ten years old. It is a niche product in maturity.

In the era of mobile computing, where "device" is synonymous with "computer that fits in your shirt pocket", VR goggles are a big step backward in terms of usability. That's where we are now, and VR needs to catch up. For those of us who can afford these (myself included) reality is still more convenient.

Agree almost completely with what you said — the exception is the last sentence. Tacking a “for my use cases” to the last sentence would get me to complete agreement. The reason for this is the fact that the Gen 1 AVP works as is for some users and use cases and this will improve with successive form factor, frameworks, OS and app iterations.

 

[The-Real-Deal82]

It definitely has some v1 shortcomings right now, but I don't doubt its future at all. This is the future of computing for sure.

The gaming industry is still waiting though, in 1992 we thought VR headsets were the future and everyone would be using them by the millennium. It never quite found the mass appeal and I think AVP will have its market, but never appeal to all computer users. It’s too confined to replace a laptop or desktop computer setup for everybody.

 

[BellSystem]

It’s amazing how desperate some of you are to spend all day trapped in AR/VR. Nobody wants this. Once the novelty wears off these will just sit on a shelf. I don’t know a single person that wants to spend 8 hours a day or more working with a heavy eye straining dystopia box on their head. SGI was doing this stuff in the 90s for real work in CAD and pipeline design, and as cool and useful as it was…the industry went back to monitors. It’s just another fanboy status symbol device that will soon be hanging out with the iPod HiFi and Ping. The device is cool, but not practical. It has no must have applications that even justify its existence. It’s a solution in search of a problem. Anything that would make this really useful would involve everyone else wearing one and that isn’t going to happen…no matter how much Kool-Aid you drinking. There are too many hurtles to get over for this to be practical and universal. Apples closed off from the rest of the industry mentality will also hinder this device long term. Beyond a bunch of Apple fanboys and rich people showing off….I don’t see the market. Especially when the lead story everywhere is “why I returned it” and not “why this is the future “. Nobody cares about this thing.

 

[Catasstrophy]

where can I get a phone app that can do all that, without me typing a single thing into the phone?

Samsung S24 with Google circle to search gets us most of the way to what you described tbh. Not completely. But I’m still excited about AR/MR

 

[Avatar74]

Samsung S24 with Google circle to search gets us most of the way to what you described tbh. Not completely. But I’m still excited about AR/MR.

Google circle will give you search results for literally everything that looks like the item. It will not identify the exact item. It also requires you to identify which item by circling it in a static image. This is nothing like seeing someone walking past you and saying “I want that handbag” and the AI knowing which handbag in your field of view, what “I want that” means, how to identify that exact handbag, and the dynamics of automating all of the other steps down to a snap of your finger.

Never mind that it’s creepy to stand around taking pictures of people without their consent. You’d have to take a very clear picture before the person walks away or the item is obscured by other people, objects or the angle someone is facing as they walk away.

It’s always that last 0.01% that is the most complex part of getting the user experience right.

 

[Catasstrophy]

Google circle will give you search results for literally everything that looks like the item. It will not identify the exact item. It also requires you to identify which item by circling it in a static image. This is nothing like seeing someone walking past you and saying “I want that handbag” and the AI knowing which handbag in your field of view, what “I want that” means, how to identify that exact handbag, and the dynamics of automating all of the other steps down to a snap of your finger.

Never mind that it’s creepy to stand around taking pictures of people without their consent. You’d have to take a very clear picture before the person walks away or the item is obscured by other people, objects or the angle someone is facing as they walk away.

It’s always that last 0.01% that is the most complex part of getting the user experience right.

Very cool thanks for sharing

 

[nathansz]

Ok. Sure. I guess.

When they introduced iPhone it was a massive hit overnight

Remind me if when Apple has ever had a 25 year business strategy?

They don’t even know who’s making their CPU’s and upon what architecture 7-10 years from now

Huh??? Are you posting from the Metaverse where you are an authority on business strategy and there are alternative facts from those that demonstrate that Apple’s practices have made them the world‘s most valuable company? 🤔

Actually, Microsoft is the worlds most valuable company

 

[ZiBart]

Actually, Microsoft is the worlds most valuable company

If you value companies on most recent market cap Month over Month, instead of a sustained sample size of at least a year. It beat Apple for the first time in TWO years this past January.

 

[Carac]

They will come to the same conclusion Microsoft did. VR's high-end target market is enterprise. When the dust settles and there's a post-mortem on the development and launch of the AVP, we'll likely settle on the conclusion that Apple should have just made a $1000-1500 device with the form factor of a pair of glasses/sunglasses that played video, showed you notifications, etc. via transparent OLED panels if they wanted to market it to consumers. I'm in the middle of returning my AVP and just ordered a pair of Vitrue. All I really want is a compact, light, easily portable display for watching video away from home. I had hoped that's what Apple was working on ever since the rumors about a headset came up years ago...but it's not.

 

[dmelgar]

Remarkable how many people here don’t know about the meta quest 3. It does pretty much everything the AVP does. Does some of it better. Some worse. But one seventh the price.

 

[ovrlrd]

VR's high-end target market is enterprise. When the dust settles and there's a post-mortem on the development and launch of the AVP, we'll likely settle on the conclusion that Apple should have just made a $1000-1500 device with the form factor of a pair of glasses/sunglasses that played video, showed you notifications, etc. via transparent OLED panels if they wanted to market it to consumers.

I think Apple will be selling a ton of these for enterprise users. You gotta remember that this product is the Apple Vision Pro not the Apple Vision Air (or non-Pro). With it’s current set of capabilities and price point it is already an enterprise level of product.

If you study the specs, the closest headset that comes close to it is the Varjo XR-4 and that costs $4k. Also you could imagine any company that was interested in the HoloLens 2 will probably be interested in the idea of possibly buying the AVP instead because it is cheaper.

Of course there will still be enthusiasts and early adopters that can afford to buy the Apple Vision Pro, and there are lots of things that make it easier to use (ie, more consumer friendly). They will spend some money on marketing the device in a way that appears like anyone can use it, even though not everyone should buy it. That’s because some day Apple wants to make a cheaper one and they want people to want it, it’s a common Apple marketing tactic.

Either way, I am glad you were able to figure out that it was not the right product/price for you.

 

[Carac]

Remarkable how many people here don’t know about the meta quest 3. It does pretty much everything the AVP does. Does some of it better. Some worse. But one seventh the price.

Oh, I have a Quest 3...and a 2, Go, 1, CV1, DK2, DK1, Vive. I said in another thread but the Quest 3 is what everyone is looking for the AVP to be, just without all the Apple Integration, eye tracking, and display resolution. The lenses are better, less glare, lower light bleed, better FOV, hand or controller input, a mature VR marketplace, side-loading, PC integration for SteamVR, etc. It's great. And none of the headsets I've owned have given me a migraine from weight/pressure like the AVP has. Apple's trying to force an enterprise device's use cases and price on the consumer market, but the past 10 years have shown that the primary and only real use cases for consumer VR is games first and media consumption second. If Apple REALLY wanted to get the world "spatial computing" you do it by FIRST making a media/games device then EXPANDING. Not going straight to the end-goal, then working backwards.

 

[heretiq]

Remarkable how many people here don’t know about the meta quest 3. It does pretty much everything the AVP does. Does some of it better. Some worse. But one seventh the price.

Remarkable how many people here refuse to believe that most people interested in AVP are aware of meta quest 3 but find mq3 uninteresting and not compelling -- even at one seventh the price of AVP.

 

[Col4bin]

“We see things not as they are, but as we are” by Anais Nin

Your perception is your reality.

 

[Col4bin]

Hmm .. this comment and much of this thread reminds me of a very instructive quote: “Belief is the death of intelligence” by Robert Anton Wilson.

Belief in AVP you mean.

 

[Col4bin]

I'm 40. Assuming I see 80... I don't expect this level of technology in simple glasses or contacts. My daughter is 6, maybe she'll be a very old lady when it happens, but it could also be her great grandkid that sees it around 2100.

Oh well. I’m in the same boat.

 

[Ctrlos]

In the era of mobile computing, where "device" is synonymous with "computer that fits in your shirt pocket", VR goggles are a big step backward in terms of usability. That's where we are now, and VR needs to catch up. For those of us who can afford these (myself included) reality is still more convenient.

My biggest worry with VR is it will catch on.

I have nothing against the hardware; I use them at enterprise level and they're brilliant industrial devices.

But from a sociological perspective I see how addictive large phones have made some people of their surroundings, each other and worse of all their children. VR users won't be outside but what happens when a young child that is looking for the attention of its parent sees them isolated in a headset? Its one thing to put Tears of the Kingdom on for half an hour whilst your kid plays on the floor; you always have a pause button and they might even want to sit next to you and share the experience. You might even hand them a controller. Its another to be immersed in a VR environment whilst they're in the room.

People will say that we should leave it to individuals to decide for themselves but these same individuals are calling for smartphone bans in schools rather than asking to be properly educated on the extensive parental controls they can use to do it themselves.

I hope VR stays as an expensive industrial practice and crashes and burns as a social one promoted by tech bros who don't have enough self awareness to realise that Ready Player One and Snow Crash were dystopian warnings and not aspirational futurism.