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Apple Has Given Up on the Vision Pro After M5 Refresh Flop

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11–20 of 72 posts

Re: Apple Has Given Up on the Vision Pro After M5 Refresh Flop

#11
The AVP is an incredible device, but it's too restrictive and the 3D spectacle doesn't offset the myriad of issues that I've run into:

- If I want to watch movies, I'll typically do so with my wife, on my 4K smart TV. The AVP is not a shared experience unless you purchase an additional unit.

- The virtual display can't be used with arbitrary devices (e.g. PS5, PC, Raspberry PI) via direct HDMI, only over network streaming, which has latency/quality constraints.

- The passthrough quality is not good enough to do anything non-trivial.

- The native Vision Pro apps tend to be neutered compared to the MacOS equivalent.

- When flying, it's a bit too bulky to take as carry-on, unless you dedicate your entire backpack to it or carry by hand.

From a development standpoint, I found that the SDK was quite shallow and didn't provide as much hardware access as I would have liked– particularly the raw camera feed. Apparently there's now an enterprise program that unlocks access, but you have to jump through some hoops and get manually approved, which is too much friction. Additionally, the market is quite weak. I had my app get featured in the App Store a year ago and hardly made enough profit to justify further time investment.

If there was a Linux equivalent to the Vision Pro that didn't require a social media account, I'd be more receptive. The biggest issue across modern AR/VR devices is the tendency towards closed ecosystems and lack of integration with external devices. For now, my AVP is largely collecting dust on the shelf until I get bored on a random Sunday afternoon and decide to see what's new.

Re: Apple Has Given Up on the Vision Pro After M5 Refresh Flop

#12
post #11

The AVP is an incredible device, but it's too restrictive and the 3D spectacle doesn't offset the myriad of issues that I've run into: - If I want to watch movies, I'll typically do so with my wife, on my 4K smart TV. The AVP is not a shared experience unless you purchase an additional unit. - The virtual display can't be used with arbitrary devices (e.g. PS5, PC, Raspberry PI) via direct HDMI, only over network stre…

> When flying, it's a bit too bulky to take as carry-on, unless you dedicate your entire backpack to it or carry by hand.

Just wear it. I bet the cabin crew will love it!

Re: Apple Has Given Up on the Vision Pro After M5 Refresh Flop

#14

Most companies don’t have the attention span for the sustained burn needed to develop a new hardware and software platform. These days Apple is just another company. Valve will show them how it’s done.

They plower a ton of resources into this for years. And it was breaking into an existing market with established competitors. There was just never a market for this product at all no matter how good it was or how good it could have been. 99% of people just aren't wearing headsets and the value prop is just way too small to convince them.

Re: Apple Has Given Up on the Vision Pro After M5 Refresh Flop

#15
I feel pretty vindicated saying this product had zero chance of success. AR headsets have very little utility beyond some tiny niches. It's never going to produce a consumer product. VR hasn't really gotten past gaming and arguably hasn't gotten past Beat Saber. It's been decades at this point and the market just isn't expanding past enthusiasts and a handful of industrial niches.

Re: Apple Has Given Up on the Vision Pro After M5 Refresh Flop

#18
post #13

Apple has really dropped the ball recently, as someone who was a die-hard apple fan 10 years ago now I've started moving off the ecosystem.

This product was incredibly ambitious but the real miss was the market fit for what they were targeting.

They still continue to make the highest quality consumer hardware on the market, by far. My macbooks and phones are expected to last (and have lasted) nearly a decade and for that reason alone it’s worth staying in the ecosystem for me.

Re: Apple Has Given Up on the Vision Pro After M5 Refresh Flop

#19
post #6

This article is an opinion piece. It doesn’t have any substantive claims, even from insiders that this is the case. It’s most credible claim is that people are moving about to new projects which is not irregular in the least.

It matches my lived experience. None of my friends use AVP. It is gathering dust. Do you have data on the contrary that AVP is growing gangbusters (like say, Macbook Neo?)

Re: Apple Has Given Up on the Vision Pro After M5 Refresh Flop

#20
post #10

surprisingly, the people I saw getting the most use out the Apple Vision Pro has been healthcare workers (even though that's already incredibly rare to see). There was a doctor I used to talk to at my old job that swore by it. He would pin EPIC app windows in individual patient rooms and would use the built-in microphones for doing speech dictation on patient charts. I thought it sounded a little goofy when he was ex…

It is not very different from the Microsoft thing, that found its only place in maintenance crews of complex equipment in factory floors and hangars.
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