Waning interest?

[spiderman0616]

You bash the owners for bashing the haters and not accepting "criticism". And then you throw in the "sad" nonsense simply to irritate and inflame us. And you lose the very credibility you claim to have and to seek. Go to any front page thread about the VP (or almost any other topic). Over 75% of the posts are childish mean spirited nonsense. This is why I have stopped reading *all* front page discussions. Thankfully we have the ignore file.

Yep--it seems like people forget how "progress" works when it comes to new Apple products. A $3500 device that has only been out for 2 months is not going to have enough install base to create pages and pages and pages of discussion in this nightmare forum, and the people who do have one have given up trying to discuss it because of all the nimrods trying to rain on everyone's parade instead of just letting them have their discussion.

Besides, if I were supposed to use this forum as my evidence of whether or not an Apple product was a success, the iPhone, iPod, iPad, Apple Watch, AirPods, and AirTags have all been colossal failures.

 

[Polinsky]

Yep--it seems like people forget how "progress" works when it comes to new Apple products. A $3500 device that has only been out for 2 months is not going to have enough install base to create pages and pages and pages of discussion in this nightmare forum, and the people who do have one have given up trying to discuss it because of all the nimrods trying to rain on everyone's parade instead of just letting them have their discussion.

Besides, if I were supposed to use this forum as my evidence of whether or not an Apple product was a success, the iPhone, iPod, iPad, Apple Watch, AirPods, and AirTags have all been colossal failures.

I completely agree. As the level of intelligent discussion here declines daily, I've begun to look at 9to5Mac.com. One of the missing apps for AVP is a native app for Netflix. Netflix will not produce an AVP native app. So someone just released Supercut, a native AVP viewer of Netflix and Amazon prime that supports 4K and Dolby Atmos and Dolby Vision. I just read about it on 9to5. This is a big deal for me. I'll try it later today. Why hasn't MacRumors written about this? 9to5 has now become my go to site for Apple products and information.

No longer will I have to scroll through 6 different front page stories for every mac product whenever a new public or dev beta is released. Why doesn't MacRumors just put out one story that indicates new betas for all the products?

 

[Roller]

What ”evidence” do you need?

It seems you missed my point about why posting something negative about a product without providing any rationale, even if it's only to say you agree with someone else's stance, comes across as mean-spirited. So, too, does your post asking what "evidence" I need, as if the reason for criticizing the AVP should be self-evident to those in the know.

@MazingerZND graciously responded to my comment, for which I'm grateful.

 

[Mr_Ed]

Sure - but the phones are where most of the people are looking. EVERYONE has to have a phone. Not everyone has to have anything else. And yes, there are VPs out for display. You can't use them, put them on, etc. But people are looking at it asking questions. The time of everyone interested needing a demo to see what it's all about are over. Not seeing people getting a demo is not indicative of sales.

Not to say no one is doing this, but what I observed in a pretty busy store was no one was curious about it at all. No one stepping up to the AVP table. No one looking at it. No one asking questions.

Also, sounds like you are suggesting demo activity is not indicative of sales because by now people will just buy this $3500+ (>$4000 with sales tax, AppleCare, lens inserts, etc.) device in an entirely new (to Apple) product category without a demo. Do some drop large amounts of money on such “toys” (to them, anyway) sight unseen? Sure. I just doubt that applies to the majority of consumers.

 

[OriginalAppleGuy]

Not to say no one is doing this, but what I observed in a pretty busy store was no one was curious about it at all. No one stepping up to the AVP table. No one looking at it. No one asking questions.

Also, sounds like you are suggesting demo activity is not indicative of sales because by now people will just buy this $3500+ (>$4000 with sales tax, AppleCare, lens inserts, etc.) device in an entirely new (to Apple) product category without a demo. Do some drop large amounts of money on such “toys” (to them, anyway) sight unseen? Sure. I just doubt that applies to the majority of consumers.

Okay - so you didn’t see anyone come in and express interest.

But I can tell you this thing is not a toy. Unless you are saying an iPad and a MacBook Pro, Apple TV, etc. are all Toys, the VP is not a toy.

I’m also not saying people buy it sight unseen. Many people fought to get demos. Some bought then. Others could have saved the configurations, chose to wait until they had their tax money back or otherwise saved, or decided to wait a little longer until more apps, content, etc. became available. You imply no one has done any of that.

 

[Polinsky]

Not to say no one is doing this, but what I observed in a pretty busy store was no one was curious about it at all. No one stepping up to the AVP table. No one looking at it. No one asking questions.

So what. It proves absolutely nothing.
I was in an Apple store a few days ago and I noted 5 people in the AVP sitting area for demos. That proves that the AVP is doing exceptionally well, especially for such a high end device.

 

[Mr_Ed]

Okay - so you didn’t see anyone come in and express interest.

But I can tell you this thing is not a toy. Unless you are saying an iPad and a MacBook Pro, Apple TV, etc. are all Toys, the VP is not a toy.

I’m also not saying people buy it sight unseen. Many people fought to get demos. Some bought then. Others could have saved the configurations, chose to wait until they had their tax money back or otherwise saved, or decided to wait a little longer until more apps, content, etc. became available. You imply no one has done any of that.

Or done the demo and decided not to buy it at all. You left that one out of your list.

Re: “toys”, re-read my comment. To someone with the resources to decide to buy this device, or the devices you mentioned for that matter, on a whim, they are “toys” even if they are not to us. That amusing old line applies to them: “Whoever dies with the most toys, wins!”

 

[Mr_Ed]

So what. It proves absolutely nothing.
I was in an Apple store a few days ago and I noted 5 people in the AVP sitting area for demos. That proves that the AVP is doing exceptionally well, especially for such a high end device.

Unlike you, I never said it was proof of anything. Just an observation that seems to corroborate the subject of this thread. Let’s hope the 5 you saw actually bought it.

 

[Macaholic868]

I completely agree. As the level of intelligent discussion here declines daily, I've begun to look at 9to5Mac.com. One of the missing apps for AVP is a native app for Netflix. Netflix will not produce an AVP native app. So someone just released Supercut, a native AVP viewer of Netflix and Amazon prime that supports 4K and Dolby Atmos and Dolby Vision. I just read about it on 9to5. This is a big deal for me. I'll try it later today. Why hasn't MacRumors written about this? 9to5 has now become my go to site for Apple products and information.

It’s become my go to site as well. After reading this I went ahead and bought the app and am happy to report that for Netflix anyway, I haven’t tested it yet with Prime Video, it works perfectly and is exactly what I was hoping the Netflix app would be. So between that and Juno both Netflix and YouTube have apps that work well. As for Prime, if it works well in the app that’s great, but I haven’t had any issues running the iPad version of the Prime Video app on the Vision Pro. I rarely use it so maybe there are a lot of quirks and bugs there I’m not aware of but I just tried it again and it is still working OK for me.

 

[Polinsky]

Unlike you, I never said it was proof of anything. Just an observation that seems to corroborate the subject of this thread. Let’s hope the 5 you saw actually bought it.

Oh please. I know exactly what you were implying. And you do also.

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

9to5 is dead to me. Too political, too little tech. Vapid site. If it works for you, more power to you.

 

[Jonnod III]

Not to say no one is doing this, but what I observed in a pretty busy store was no one was curious about it at all. No one stepping up to the AVP table. No one looking at it. No one asking questions.

I’ve been in 6 different stores these last few weeks and they’ve had demos going on, people being interested in the AVP, and a real buzz.

I got a demo, had a single time slot that I could make. I took it, and was really impressed.

 

[Exponent]

I’ve been in 6 different stores these last few weeks and they’ve had demos going on, people being interested in the AVP, and a real buzz.

I got a demo, had a single t8me slot that I could make. I took it, and was really impressed.

Here's my review of both the AVP demo experience, and on the AVP in general:

• I live in the middle of the Silicon Valley. This Saturday at 11AM I decided to schedule a VP demo. The only store without a time slot for that day was the Apple Visitor Center in Cupertino. Everything else was wide, wide open.
• I scheduled for Stanford Shopping Mall Apple Store at 2:30. There was one person getting a demo before me, so I had to wait a few minutes for my demo.
• Activity around the two AVP "static" display tables in the front room of the store was nil. People walk up, try to pick up the AVP off the stand, to find it is anchored down. That's all there is to the tables. Nothing to try to sell them on the device, no description, no listing/display of what it can do.
• My demo experience:
  • I started out with the "over the head" strap because I know how important positioning and "stability on the face" is for my Sony PSVR2 goggles. (I use them exclusively for Gran Turismo 7.);
  • I found that eye tracking could be frustrating and could fail at times. I had a hard time "picking out" the top-left preview photo in the Photos app;
  • Apple's decades-long abhorrence of intuitive GUIs, ditching in favor of "sleek, stylish, minimalistic" GUIs is on full display with VisionOS:
    • You close a window by activating a small white dot that turns into a little "x" circle when you look at it;
    • You move a window by looking and grabbing at a white bar that looks like a scrollbar that fell out of its scroller container.
    • You only know what you're focusing at when that object gets slightly whitened (in the case of photos).
    • None of these things are particularly intuitive.
    • Apple's UI group needs to go back and read "The Design of Everyday Things" by Don Norman.
    • I wouldn't recommend AVP for my Mom.
  • Nice: 3D picts and movies of family
  • Nice: "Classic Discovery Channel" type 3D footage of baby rhino and zebra petting zoo in Africa;
  • However, these "Nice" experiences, were they to happen at home, I would want to share by immediately handing over the device to family and/or friend so *they* could see it - like you do with a phone or iPad or laptop. You can't do that with AVP - it's locked by size and setup to just one head!
  • None of these "Nice" experiences are worth having an $4000, oversized, heavy, hot, and opaque ski goggle glued to my head for;
  • OK: Watching a commercial 3D movie snippet. Sure, 3D effect was good, but I just don't like having to switch eyeball focus when watching a story.
  • OK: Watching a normal movie snippet. Anything longer, and I'd watch my TV.
  • Boring: being in one of their virtual environments. They're ultimately all bland, by design.
  • Missing in demo: any kind of interactive game / 3D graphics. No dinosaur, no butterfly;
  • Missing in demo: any kind of non-bland, interesting VR photography, or way of playing back VR in Safari. What the hell Apple, YOU INVENTED THE FIELD WITH QUICKTIME VR. I've been shooting VR for 28 years now - lots of fascinating, educational, entertaining VR panos are out there! You didn't even work with current VR platforms like KRPano to make sure those engines work in VisionOS Safari!
  • Missing in demo: Anything that makes the AVP stand out - SIGNIFICANTLY - compared to the competition. All the emotional-impacting stuff - 3D family movies, 3D Discovery channel - are also available in the competition;
  • Missing in demo: any kind of "spatial computing". No mixed real-world / computer world applications were shown;
  • After 30 minutes, I started to feel pressure and heat from the AVP, and it was demo was over, anyways.
• Summary of AVP demo experience:
  • As with all VR Goggles, AVP is socially weird to put on - especially in a public venue like an Apple Store;
  • AVP is uncomfortably heavy and hot after 30 minutes;
  • Compared to other VR goggles: the pass-through is better, the resolution is better, the GUI is, well, sleeker, but not more instantly intuitive. (Not like a mouse and menu bar and "grippy looking window title bar" was back in the 80s, compared to DOS.)
  • Nothing was shown that would compel *me* to spend over $1000 on AVP.
    • I'm a technonerd, with a 30 year background in VR panoramas,
    • I have an Meta Quest, and a Sony PSVR2, so for the right use, I am willing to buy VR hardware.
    • For panoramas the resolution would be nice - but all I have to do is wait for a next-gen ~$500 Meta Quest to catch up. Besides, META ACTUALLY CARES ABOUT MAKING VR PANOS WORK ON QUEST. And Meta Quest has games, the one sales driver of VR. (But it is from the privacy-breaking Zuckerfreak.)
  • Most importantly, the demo person didn't really know how to sell the AVP. No excitement was present from Apple staffers. Just "here's the demo, there you go" - not negative, but their hearts just don't seem to be in it.

Overall summary:

- VR goggles that block the eyes from the real-world are:​

+ good for gaming, especially in a controlled space (like racing games in a racing seat);​

+ good for short-duration specialized commercial apps;​

+ good for short-form educational and travel films and panoramas;​

+ good for 3D family photos, as rare as those are;
+ horrible for mid-term or long-term use;
​

- VR goggles are the Mattel Viewmaster of the 21st century, and need to be​

+ priced as such;​

+ used as such (hey, every elementary school library had one!);​

+ and be made sharable as such;​

​

- Apple has no idea what they want to do with this platform;​

​

Frankly, if I was Apple, I'd try to make an iPad with a good 3D screen, and move the emotionally powerful 3D features of the AVP over to *that* platform.

 

[Mr_Ed]

Oh please. I know exactly what you were implying. And you do also.

The thread is titled “Waning Interest?”
No implication necessary.

 

[DMG35]

You bash the owners for bashing the haters and not accepting "criticism". And then you throw in the "sad" nonsense simply to irritate and inflame us. And you lose the very credibility you claim to have and to seek. Go to any front page thread about the VP (or almost any other topic). Over 75% of the posts are childish mean spirited nonsense. This is why I have stopped reading *all* front page discussions. Thankfully we have the ignore file.

LOL dude I bought the AVP. I'm not bashing anyone or anything. You are just overly sensitive about an electronics device you purchased for some reason.

 

[Mr_Ed]

Here's my review of both the AVP demo experience, and on the AVP in general:

• I live in the middle of the Silicon Valley. This Saturday at 11AM I decided to schedule a VP demo. The only store without a time slot for that day was the Apple Visitor Center in Cupertino. Everything else was wide, wide open.
• I scheduled for Stanford Shopping Mall Apple Store at 2:30. There was one person getting a demo before me, so I had to wait a few minutes for my demo.
• Activity around the two AVP "static" display tables in the front room of the store was nil. People walk up, try to pick up the AVP off the stand, to find it is anchored down. That's all there is to the tables. Nothing to try to sell them on the device, no description, no listing/display of what it can do.
• My demo experience:
  • I started out with the "over the head" strap because I know how important positioning and "stability on the face" is for my Sony PSVR2 goggles. (I use them exclusively for Gran Turismo 7.);
  • I found that eye tracking could be frustrating and could fail at times. I had a hard time "picking out" the top-left preview photo in the Photos app;
  • Apple's decades-long abhorrence of intuitive GUIs, ditching in favor of "sleek, stylish, minimalistic" GUIs is on full display with VisionOS:
    • You close a window by activating a small white dot that turns into a little "x" circle when you look at it;
    • You move a window by looking and grabbing at a white bar that looks like a scrollbar that fell out of its scroller container.
    • You only know what you're focusing at when that object gets slightly whitened (in the case of photos).
    • None of these things are particularly intuitive.
    • Apple's UI group needs to go back and read "The Design of Everyday Things" by Don Norman.
    • I wouldn't recommend AVP for my Mom.
  • Nice: 3D picts and movies of family
  • Nice: "Classic Discovery Channel" type 3D footage of baby rhino and zebra petting zoo in Africa;
  • However, these "Nice" experiences, were they to happen at home, I would want to share by immediately handing over the device to family and/or friend so *they* could see it - like you do with a phone or iPad or laptop. You can't do that with AVP - it's locked by size and setup to just one head!
  • None of these "Nice" experiences are worth having an $4000, oversized, heavy, hot, and opaque ski goggle glued to my head for;
  • OK: Watching a commercial 3D movie snippet. Sure, 3D effect was good, but I just don't like having to switch eyeball focus when watching a story.
  • OK: Watching a normal movie snippet. Anything longer, and I'd watch my TV.
  • Boring: being in one of their virtual environments. They're ultimately all bland, by design.
  • Missing in demo: any kind of interactive game / 3D graphics. No dinosaur, no butterfly;
  • Missing in demo: any kind of non-bland, interesting VR photography, or way of playing back VR in Safari. What the hell Apple, YOU INVENTED THE FIELD WITH QUICKTIME VR. I've been shooting VR for 28 years now - lots of fascinating, educational, entertaining VR panos are out there! You didn't even work with current VR platforms like KRPano to make sure those engines work in VisionOS Safari!
  • Missing in demo: Anything that makes the AVP stand out - SIGNIFICANTLY - compared to the competition. All the emotional-impacting stuff - 3D family movies, 3D Discovery channel - are also available in the competition;
  • Missing in demo: any kind of "spatial computing". No mixed real-world / computer world applications were shown;
  • After 30 minutes, I started to feel pressure and heat from the AVP, and it was demo was over, anyways.
• Summary of AVP demo experience:
  • As with all VR Goggles, AVP is socially weird to put on - especially in a public venue like an Apple Store;
  • AVP is uncomfortably heavy and hot after 30 minutes;
  • Compared to other VR goggles: the pass-through is better, the resolution is better, the GUI is, well, sleeker, but not more instantly intuitive. (Not like a mouse and menu bar and "grippy looking window title bar" was back in the 80s, compared to DOS.)
  • Nothing was shown that would compel *me* to spend over $1000 on AVP.
    • I'm a technonerd, with a 30 year background in VR panoramas,
    • I have an Meta Quest, and a Sony PSVR2, so for the right use, I am willing to buy VR hardware.
    • For panoramas the resolution would be nice - but all I have to do is wait for a next-gen ~$500 Meta Quest to catch up. Besides, META ACTUALLY CARES ABOUT MAKING VR PANOS WORK ON QUEST. And Meta Quest has games, the one sales driver of VR. (But it is from the privacy-breaking Zuckerfreak.)
  • Most importantly, the demo person didn't really know how to sell the AVP. No excitement was present from Apple staffers. Just "here's the demo, there you go" - not negative, but their hearts just don't seem to be in it.

Overall summary:

- VR goggles that block the eyes from the real-world are:​

+ good for gaming, especially in a controlled space (like racing games in a racing seat);​

+ good for short-duration specialized commercial apps;​

+ good for short-form educational and travel films and panoramas;​

+ good for 3D family photos, as rare as those are;​

+ horrible for mid-term or long-term use;​

​

- VR goggles are the Mattel Viewmaster of the 21st century, and need to be​

+ priced as such;​

+ used as such (hey, every elementary school library had one!);​

+ and be made sharable as such;​

​

- Apple has no idea what they want to do with this platform;​

​

Frankly, if I was Apple, I'd try to make an iPad with a good 3D screen, and move the emotionally powerful 3D features of the AVP over to *that* platform.

Thanks for the review of your experience. You’ve summarized several elements about the device that many of us have been pointing out as flaws since well before launch. The usual replies included things like “how do you know? It’s not out yet.” You didn’t need to see the device to understand experiences are not easily shared, or comfort may be an issue and many don’t want something strapped to their faces anyway. On “spatial computing”, I’m still waiting for Apple to demonstrate how this device improves productivity at all, let alone enough to justify the price.

 

[fatTribble]

Gauging interest in a product by walking into a store to see how many people are looking at it probably isn’t a very accurate gauge.

Vision Pro is the only Apple product I can think of that requires a set up and demo to explore. So it’s at least a 30 minute commitment even if they have immediate openings. Not everyone can spontaneously add that amount of time to their visit.

Personally I have a Vision Pro and still love it. I hope it’s successful because it gives people another option that might fit their individual use cases. That doesn’t seem like a controversial statement, but on this forum it seems to be.

 

[spiderman0616]

Gauging interest in a product by walking into a store to see how many people are looking at it probably isn’t a very accurate gauge.

Vision Pro is the only Apple product I can think of that requires a set up and demo to explore. So it’s at least a 30 minute commitment even if they have immediate openings. Not everyone can spontaneously add that amount of time to their visit.

Personally I have a Vision Pro and still love it. I hope it’s successful because it gives people another option that might fit their individual use cases. That doesn’t seem like a controversial statement, but on this forum it seems to be.

You’re not allowed to like things here unless everyone else thinks it’s ok first.

 

[DukeSilver79]

How much cheaper? Sure, $4k+ is a lot of money, but people were paying that much for flat panel TVs in the mid 2000s, and they could only be used for entertainment.

I also hope Apple releases lower cost AVPs, but I don’t expect them in less than a year, if then.

As for the killer app, it’s already there. Immersive video, like what Apple shows in its demos, can’t be duplicated in any other way. And more content will come.

Tv's are for the entire family at once, though.

 

[OriginalAppleGuy]

Tv's are for the entire family at once, though.

When I lived by myself it was just for me . And even though I have a great system, the VP allows me to carry another great system wherever on the property, or world, I choose to go.

The first XR experience I ever had was at Microsoft with the first Halo. Thought it was really cool and wanted to buy one. It was then, and continues to be today, limited in capabilities. It's also about the same price as the VP. Then, while I was considering the VP, looked for what other options were out there. Came across the Varjo line. What I walked away with was good quality headsets cost money. And the VP is priced right for what it offers. It a lot more than a movie/video watching machine. If you bought it for that, I'll guarantee you will find that out and use it for many other things.

 

[G5isAlive]

I never said it was proof of anything. Just an observation that seems to corroborate the subject of this thread.

what is the difference between proof and corroboration? a matter of degree? shrugs. seems flimsy to me to argue you aren't doing one while doing the other. although anecdotal evidence for what I assume is the relatively few times you are in an Apple Store is flimsy evidence to start with. And there could be any number of reasons why you might see more people poking about lower costs iPads more than relatively expensive AVPs.. besides the intimidation of cost, there is the time requirement, the involvement of a stranger (apple employee), the accessibility, and the do I really want to put on my head a device someone else has been wearing? I would imagine time is the major hindrance but who knows, it's all speculation. Nothing to get too excited about one way or the other.

Sure there may have been pent up demand so out of the gate was more wild, but the question is not if interest is waning, but if it's sustainable. Time will tell.

 

[Roller]

Tv's are for the entire family at once, though.

True, sometimes. But when we had kids in the house, there were many programs that were watched by only one of us, partly because of interest and partly because we weren't all available at the same time. For those who aren't old enough to have experienced TV viewing in the 50s through the early 80s, the advent of VCRs and then digital recorders made a huge difference. On-demand streaming has extended that further. Before then, everyone had to be in front of the TV simultaneously. As well, I know many contemporary families who own several TVs, sometimes one for each person.

I'm not saying the AVP is inexpensive or is a mass-market device, and I hope cheaper models follow. But my point is the cost of the AVP isn't massively greater than many families are willing to shell out just for in-home entertainment, and that doesn't count its other use cases.

 

[G5isAlive]

Tv's are for the entire family at once, though.

I suspect your kids are still young. What until they are teenagers LOL

 

[G5isAlive]

Frankly, if I was Apple, I'd try to make an iPad with a good 3D screen, and move the emotionally powerful 3D features of the AVP over to *that* platform.

So I was almost impressed by just how many words you could squeeze out of a relatively short experience, though as an AVP owner I know it takes more than 30 minutes to really learn how to use it well, and think you walked out of there with the same preconceived notions you walked in with, but still a lot of words, congrats. But then you totally blew it on your last comment.

First of all, just what IS an iPad with a good 3D screen? Do you know how 3D works? Different perspectives of the same scene are given to your two eyes. That's why they all require special glasses, to separate out the overlapped perspectives. And why the AVP is so good at it, it IS two screens. Second of all, are you saying Apple should ask people to wear special glasses to watch an iPad? You do realize the television industry tried this and failed right?

So many many words.

 

[Mr_Ed]

what is the difference between proof and corroboration? a matter of degree? shrugs. seems flimsy to me to argue you aren't doing one while doing the other. although anecdotal evidence for what I assume is the relatively few times you are in an Apple Store is flimsy evidence to start with. And there could be any number of reasons why you might see more people poking about lower costs iPads more than relatively expensive AVPs.. besides the intimidation of cost, there is the time requirement, the involvement of a stranger (apple employee), the accessibility, and the do I really want to put on my head a device someone else has been wearing? I would imagine time is the major hindrance but who knows, it's all speculation. Nothing to get too excited about one way or the other.

Sure there may have been pent up demand so out of the gate was more wild, but the question is not if interest is waning, but if it's sustainable. Time will tell.

From American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language:

• proof - “The evidence or argument that compels the mind to accept an assertion as true.”
• corroboration - “The act of corroborating, strengthening, or confirming; addition of strength; confirmation.”
• corroborate - “To strengthen or support with other evidence; make more certain.”

What I reported is an anecdote, as you point out. Not compelling, hence not “proof”.

You refer to it as flimsy, and as far as conclusively establishing a general lack of interest in AVP, it is. But apparently strong enough for you (and others) to put effort into listing excuses/reasons to explain what I saw 😉

Note that I have not taken issue with anecdotes on this thread of people showing interest at Apple stores or lining up for demos. At the end of the day they saw what they saw, and I saw what I saw while at an Apple Store. All anecdotes.