I love Apple swung for the fences. I bought one, but ended up returning it within the window.
The technology is amazing, with a few caveats, but they shot themselves in the foot with the launch.
They had no 3rd party software at launch. Developers couldn’t get the device ahead of time, at most you could get two short hands on labs if you flew to one of a handful of cities in the world.
Apple didn’t have anything amazing themselves to keep people coming back. Personas are interesting but not enough. Mac Virtual Display is neat but not going to sell 2 million units.
But that’s OK. That’s what third parties are for. But basically no one was there. Between the issue above and knowing how few would sell it didn’t make sense. Apple should have been paying companies to seed the launch with cool/useful apps. Enhanced ports from other systems, wild ideas, anything. Apple’s secrecy probably meant they weren’t going to do this.
Hopefully they show some great stuff at WWDC. Apple has the money to keep it going for quite a while while they fix the price and get some killer apps. But developer sentiment towards Apple in general isn’t good and some cool possibilities for apps would likely require more room data than I think Apple gives apps for privacy reasons.
I do want to see where it goes. The Apple Watch took a while to find its real place, but it was cheaper and had a more obvious initial value proposition.
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Meanwhile, Meta is losing $1B a month on AR/VR. “Why would I want a Vision Pro? A Quest 3 is the same for $3000 less.” isn’t doing them enough favors it seems.
I feel like Meta's basic problem is the exact reverse of Apple's: literally the only thing the Quest platform is good at is specific, isolated pieces of immersive content, with nothing to connect them or make them "Meta-y", to the point that there's no reason to even stick with the Quest OS over casting from Steam on a PC.
I agree. I had a Quest 2. It was fine, could’ve used some hardware improvements that I’m sure the 3 fixed.
But it’s just an overcomplicated game launcher. The environment between VR apps isn’t important or memorable in any way. And once you’re in the game it could be any piece of VR hardware. It’s just a commodity. I think the main reason it’s popular is it just doesn’t seem to have much direct competition (stand alone VR headsets).
Apple chose a few differentiators like ultra-high resolution, entirely hands free (no controller) operation, and a ton of processing power relative to a Quest. That means they’re capable of doing things no one else could, if they can find compelling things to do.
I had one. Yeah you could watch movies. Ok. But can do that on my phone or iPad or computer or TV. It may be a different experience, but it’s not something only the VP can do.
I was referring to compelling things that existing devices can’t do well. There don’t seem to be many/any now, let alone at launch.
The technology is amazing, with a few caveats, but they shot themselves in the foot with the launch.
They had no 3rd party software at launch. Developers couldn’t get the device ahead of time, at most you could get two short hands on labs if you flew to one of a handful of cities in the world.
Apple didn’t have anything amazing themselves to keep people coming back. Personas are interesting but not enough. Mac Virtual Display is neat but not going to sell 2 million units.
But that’s OK. That’s what third parties are for. But basically no one was there. Between the issue above and knowing how few would sell it didn’t make sense. Apple should have been paying companies to seed the launch with cool/useful apps. Enhanced ports from other systems, wild ideas, anything. Apple’s secrecy probably meant they weren’t going to do this.
Hopefully they show some great stuff at WWDC. Apple has the money to keep it going for quite a while while they fix the price and get some killer apps. But developer sentiment towards Apple in general isn’t good and some cool possibilities for apps would likely require more room data than I think Apple gives apps for privacy reasons.
I do want to see where it goes. The Apple Watch took a while to find its real place, but it was cheaper and had a more obvious initial value proposition.
—-
Meanwhile, Meta is losing $1B a month on AR/VR. “Why would I want a Vision Pro? A Quest 3 is the same for $3000 less.” isn’t doing them enough favors it seems.
https://www.gamesindustry.biz/meta-loses-another-38-billion-...