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The Vision Pro is a solution looking for a problem. This is the same problem plaguing Apple Home. It just feels very - so what? Tech nerds like it because it's

The Vision Pro is a solution looking for a problem. This is the same problem plaguing Apple Home. It just feels very - so what? Tech nerds like it because it's "cool", but everybody else is wondering why would I ever need this thing? Personally, I think they need to be thinking of a more Apple Watch type device wearable in normal glasses frames. Something more akin to Google Glass, and yes, I'm familiar with the term "glasshole." But maybe it was a product too far ahead of it's time? Or maybe these are just products we don't need?

ubercore 2y ago
You mean HomeKit? I'm a big fan, despite the warts. I think that's really useful.
kevinventullo 2y ago
I contend that almost every problem solvable by a wearable can be solved “well enough” by a smartphone, to the point where an additional device is not worth the trouble for the marginal benefit (unless you’re a person who likes gadgets). For exercise specifically I do see the value of a watch form factor since people don’t want to carry a phone in their exercise gear. But, that’s pretty niche.
- fullshark 2y ago
  Yeah we might end up just circling back to VR over AR and prioritizing immersive gaming, the only thing you can't do on a smartphone / desktop.
  - AlexandrB 2y ago
    The problem with VR gaming is that movement that doesn't match real world movement tends to make people barf. The types of games you can build in VR is just so much more limited as a result. For example, it's very cool to imagine a VR MMO but it would be hell to actually play it.
- danans 2y ago
  > I contend that almost every problem solvable by a wearable can be solved “well enough” by a smartphone, to the point where an additional device is not worth the trouble for the marginal benefit I've found glanceable notifications on my smartwatch to be really useful. Dismissing or answering calls without taking out my phone (or without my phone at all since the watch has mobile connectivity), quickly seeing text messages (especially 2 factor auth codes). The remote viewfinder for my camera lets me actually be in family photos. And of course exercise tracking (reminders to get a few thousand more steps today are helpful). AR/VR goggles would be useless for any of those, and make the last two worse.
  - jemmyw 2y ago
    But as the parent poster said, most of those things are adequate without the watch. I have a watch but it's a nice to have rather than essential.
    - danans 2y ago
      A mobile connected tablet could do everything a smartphone can well enough (and more), but I still prefer to carry a phone over that. I definitely wouldn't get a smartwatch instead of a phone (except for a kid), but there are definitely some small set of things it does better.
  - nox101 2y ago
    I've found notifications period to be a net negative to my life. I have almost all of them off. > Dismissing or answering calls without taking out my phone (or without my phone at all since the watch has mobile connectivity), quickly seeing text messages (especially 2 factor auth codes). The distraction of even looking breaks me out of the zone. So no, don't need a watch for notifications.
    - theshackleford 2y ago
      > I've found notifications period to be a net negative to my life. I have almost all of them off. I’ve found the complete opposite. Funny how that works. Notifications have been one of the most significant and beneficial additions to my life. Especially on the watch, it is in fact really the only reason I own a watch. To be fair, I only let calendaring /medical apps do notifications, but equally, that’s the reason I own it in the first place.
NameError 2y ago
I think something with the "wow" factor of the Vision Pro but the form factor of a pair of glasses would be the holy grail of AR/VR. I wonder if there are fundamental tradeoffs which would make that impossible in the near term? I think it would remain very niche indefinitely in that case.
- makestuff 2y ago
  I wonder if in the next 5 years there could be a device where the compute is your smartphone but it streams to a display on your AR/VR glasses. I guess the main issue would be where do you put the battery.
- jayd16 2y ago
  The display technology is simply not there at the moment.
pocketarc 2y ago
> Or maybe these are just products we don't need? That's exactly it, they're products we don't -need-. If you already have a smartphone, that's good enough. This is the same problem that plagues the AI assistant devices - it doesn't matter what they can do, they won't replace your smartphone. Which means you're asking someone to carry (and pay for) a smartphone + an extra device. That's a big ask. It's also the reason why you see these stories of people living smartphone-only lives, doing everything on their smartphones without needing or even having a desktop/laptop. Smartphones are good enough for everything, for a lot of people. For the record: I -love- the Vision Pro. Tried it out, loved it. But I fall into the `Tech nerds like it because it's "cool"` part. I recognize that that's not going to be the popular opinion. Not now, not ever. There's just not enough value in VR/AR to really change societal norms to the point that everyone's going to want to wear these devices. Ultimately: Just because a product is a cool idea, doesn't mean it's society-altering. Some products just aren't that valuable.
- sroussey 2y ago
  > they're products we don't -need-. If you already have a smartphone, that's good enough. I disagree. If LinkedIn made AR glasses that told me who the person is I’m looking at (that I’m connected to on LinkedIn) and why/how we were connected, I’d buy that in a heartbeat.
  - ffgjgf1 2y ago
    > If LinkedIn made AR glasses that told me who the person is I’m looking I could only hope that the EU would ban it ASAP if such a product existed making it unviable anywhere else. Except maybe China and such, should be pretty useful for the CCP enforcement agencies.
    - sroussey 2y ago
      Why? It would only search the people I am connected to, not the whole planet.
    - toyg 2y ago
bsimpson 2y ago
Google Home was kind of magical when it launched, but as its reliability has degraded over time, its appeal has worn off. It is still nice to be able to ask it to play music or set an alarm or whatever without engaging with a screen. I haven't used a HomePod, but I suspect it's Apple's version of that experience.
- jauntywundrkind 2y ago
  The Sonos patent wars sucked. Things are somewhat back to ok, but man, it's just absurd & sad seeing basic networked av get ravaged by lawyers like so. I'm super glum about audio casting at the moment. It feels like less and less speakers have audio casting builtin. For a while there was a spare of speakers, some even battery powered, but it's turned into a trickle. There's also incredibly few options for amplifiers with builtin audio casting; what the NexusQ originally did! So frustrating. This is an ecosystem I am super bought into, and it feels like it's fading and there's not a replacement (especially with Sonos's recent enshittification seppuku).
  - hughesjj 2y ago
    I ended up just getting normal speakers and attaching a dedicated box to them. I hate how it looks though, so many more wires, and you better hope your speakers are close enough to route a long USB cable for power to a wall outlet
- hhh 2y ago
  I don't know if it's similar, only because I don't really use Google products. You can ask the HomePod to turn on the Apple TV and play something, or to read out your messages (depending on your settings and whatnot). I don't really have an issue with it doing anything but playing music. I use it for HomeKit controls constantly, and love my HomePod mini's.
1propionyl 2y ago
Apple Home (as an integrated Matter/Thread client) is far more useful than the Vision Pro. It's easy to fixate on things like colorful lights, but consider instead automations based on how much energy is used when. For example, if I have a box fan or a portable AC unit on a smart plug, I can automate it running while I'm gone only if the temperature gets to a excess (for the benefit of pets, fruit on the counter, running computers, etc) or only when electricity is cheaper and/or cleaner. The most useful IoT devices, I think, aren't purpose devices that have a microcontroller integrated into them... so much as ones whose primary and only purpose bridge digital and physical by allowing you to actuate something remotely, be it the flow of electrify (smart plug), or physically flipping a switch (switchbot type).
makestuff 2y ago
Yeah I frequently look at the vision pro reviews and think it would be cool to try, but I know after about a month I would get bored with it. $3500 is alot of money to spend on what is essentially the perfect device for watching movies on an airplane. It is an insanely impressive technology; however, like the iPadOS I think it is going to take a decade or so to have enough functionality to even consider being useful for professional tasks. I don't want to have to buy a macbook just to stream it to the vision pro to do any coding tasks.
jordanb 2y ago
> Or maybe these are just products we don't need? Silicon valley needs a product that will make us spend even more time online than our phones, in order to sell more ad inventory and make the line go up. This is pretty much what's driving all of this, especially the AR stuff. It's not a solution in search of a problem. The problem is they need to sell more ads. The only issue is that it's a solution to their problem, not ours.
- FL33TW00D 2y ago
  Or, on the other hand, AR could BLOCK all ads that you ever see. Sanitise your entire visual input, replace all ads with a grey square!
  - CatWChainsaw 2y ago
    Why do you think the manufacturers would allow that? Sure, you can effectively block ads in a web browser, on a desktop. Everything on mobile is in an app which explicitly does not allow you to tailor your experience, erm, nuke the ads from orbit. And every platform that's followed smartphones, from tablets to headsets, has followed the phone model of pushing software: closed-down OS, software through app stores or gtfo. It's incredibly naive to think ads will get better and not a hell of a lot worse.
    - FL33TW00D 2y ago
      Because you can just build things yourself. You don't need permission from anyone else.
      - CatWChainsaw 2y ago
        A suggestion to build a computer or headset from scratch, having to factor in all the compatibility hoops the big players throw at you before they nuke you anyway for having unsanctioned hardware, is proof of your unseriousness.
SoftTalker 2y ago
There are very few situations where I'd want to wear a bulky headset for any length of time. Although I don't play video games, I could see that people who are into it might find them pretty cool. The TV ads showing people at business meetings all wearing headsets and manipulating a shoe protoype in mid-air are just ridiculous. Or the one where a guy is trying to assemble a furniture kit and wearing a headset. Come on, you'll do better with a YouTube video and unobstructed eyes.
psunavy03 2y ago
There was a time when you didn't "need" a PC, either, and they were seen as just nerd toys and things yuppies used to balance their checkbooks, back when "balancing your checkbook" was a thing you had to do. This changed with the advent of the Web, and held until desktops gave way to smartphones. If you could time-travel back to the 80s and 90s, plenty of folks would have scoffed that anyone would ever "need" a computer, let alone a computer in their pocket. But a lot of that is because "a computer" was a bulky beige thing with a CRT monitor, and maybe if you were really into it a 2400 baud modem. But then you'd have to splurge for a second phone line or pick which device to use, the modem or the phone. So I'd be wary of writing off AR/MR/XR as a dead end, as opposed to a technology that still needs more innovation to reach the mainstream. Glasses themselves are mainstream, and have been for centuries. What's holding AR devices back is the ability to miniaturize the necessary holographic technology, as well as the batteries and processing power. This will eventually be solved, just like an iPhone now has more processing power than the supercomputers of decades before. The problem with VR will always remain the same. You can't interact with other people while you have a big thing on your face that's designed to supplant your entire field of view, which limits desirable use cases.
- tqi 2y ago
  > If you could time-travel back to the 80s and 90s, plenty of folks would have scoffed that anyone would ever "need" a computer, let alone a computer in their pocket. Is that true? I feel like people have imagined portable communication / computing devices forever[1]. People maybe couldn't imagine that they could ever be small enough to be practical, but the utility of such a device was pretty obvious. Similarly, I think "VR" as a concept has obvious value and applications. However current implementations fall far short of what is necessary to unlock that value for most people / scenarios. [1] https://www.geeksandbeats.com/2016/02/star-trek-technology-today/ https://www.geeksandbeats.com/2016/02/star-trek-technology-t...
  - Terr_ 2y ago
    > I feel like people have imagined portable communication / computing devices forever Another example would be fictional comic-book detective Dick Tracy's wristwatch, which started as two-way audio in 1946 and got upgraded to video in 1964.
tootie 2y ago
I'm pretty convinced that AR and specifically headset AR is just a dead end. No amount of sensors or pixels are going to make it viable for anything besides some tiny niches. VR is fun and has some uses. Everything else just needs a tactile keyboard or touchscreen.
- theshackleford 2y ago
  Not everyone is capable of using a keyboard or touch screen even today. For this reason I hope to see continued advancement in voice capabilities. I have it better than most but have to rely on dictation a lot due to issues in my hands/arms following an incomplete spinal cord injury.
PaulHoule 2y ago
(1) Price matters. If Detroit was selling $25k reasonably sized EVs they'd be selling like hotcakes, even if they had limited range. There are a few people who will pay $75k+ for a luxury EV but they bought a Tesla 10 years ago. If Detroit wanted to sell XXXL EV SUVs at crazy high prices they should have done it ten years ago. Now it's too late and they have to make the kind of cars BYD does or pass legislation to keep BYD out of our market. The Meta Quest consumer has proven they'd rather save a few bucks and buy an MQ2 instead of a better MQ3. It's a big problem for Meta because they're never going to move towards making better games that need an MQ3 to run. (2) VR > AR Apple's just plain wrong about the focus on AR. The Apple Vision Pro has the hardware to provide far superior immersive world application story than the MQ3 but the software (and maybe controller) story isn't there. Apple acts as if there was something morally wrong with VR, like it is putting your hands in their toilet with all the conviction they have that it is OK to take 30% of all the revenue of the app economy. Sorry, visiting VR worlds is half the value you could get out of a product and throwing out half the value is like doubling the price. A cheap set of XReal glasses can say "this is just good for watching the HDMI output of a game console" but at Apple Vision Pro prices product that expensive really has to "do it all" with no excuses. People really do subscribe to VR fitness apps, they really do have fun playing games like Asgard's Wrath 2 or games like Riven. Have you ever heard anyone say that they were engaged with an app for the Vision Pro?
- salzig 2y ago
  In regards to VR, I think Valve could really move the hole situation by building/providing SteamLink VR on AVP, as they do on Meta Quest. Buy any Bluetooth (VR) Controller and enjoy games streamed. And maybe in some future I will be able to stream from Linux hosts via SteamLink.
  - PaulHoule 2y ago
    Exactly, a device that expensive has to deliver as much value as possible. Trying to sell a lifestyle accessory for people who have to own every Apple product that there is the beginning of the end for Apple that they’ll be talking about in business school the way we talk about DEC, Tandem and Commodore today.
spacemadness 2y ago
I feel like Apple missed the ZIRP window to release this to a larger quantity of tech nerds who weren’t continually worried about being laid off.
pzo 2y ago
If they wouldn't be too greedy they could make a device that combines: Apple TV, HomePod, Apple Router, Time Machine - that would be an ultimate smart home device... but they want to sell both Apple TV, HomePod and iCloud for storage.

ubercore 2y ago

You mean HomeKit? I'm a big fan, despite the warts. I think that's really useful.

kevinventullo 2y ago

I contend that almost every problem solvable by a wearable can be solved “well enough” by a smartphone, to the point where an additional device is not worth the trouble for the marginal benefit (unless you’re a person who likes gadgets). For exercise specifically I do see the value of a watch form factor since people don’t want to carry a phone in their exercise gear. But, that’s pretty niche.

fullshark 2y ago
Yeah we might end up just circling back to VR over AR and prioritizing immersive gaming, the only thing you can't do on a smartphone / desktop.
- AlexandrB 2y ago
  The problem with VR gaming is that movement that doesn't match real world movement tends to make people barf. The types of games you can build in VR is just so much more limited as a result. For example, it's very cool to imagine a VR MMO but it would be hell to actually play it.
danans 2y ago
> I contend that almost every problem solvable by a wearable can be solved “well enough” by a smartphone, to the point where an additional device is not worth the trouble for the marginal benefit I've found glanceable notifications on my smartwatch to be really useful. Dismissing or answering calls without taking out my phone (or without my phone at all since the watch has mobile connectivity), quickly seeing text messages (especially 2 factor auth codes). The remote viewfinder for my camera lets me actually be in family photos. And of course exercise tracking (reminders to get a few thousand more steps today are helpful). AR/VR goggles would be useless for any of those, and make the last two worse.
- jemmyw 2y ago
  But as the parent poster said, most of those things are adequate without the watch. I have a watch but it's a nice to have rather than essential.
  - danans 2y ago
    A mobile connected tablet could do everything a smartphone can well enough (and more), but I still prefer to carry a phone over that. I definitely wouldn't get a smartwatch instead of a phone (except for a kid), but there are definitely some small set of things it does better.
- nox101 2y ago
  I've found notifications period to be a net negative to my life. I have almost all of them off. > Dismissing or answering calls without taking out my phone (or without my phone at all since the watch has mobile connectivity), quickly seeing text messages (especially 2 factor auth codes). The distraction of even looking breaks me out of the zone. So no, don't need a watch for notifications.
  - theshackleford 2y ago
    > I've found notifications period to be a net negative to my life. I have almost all of them off. I’ve found the complete opposite. Funny how that works. Notifications have been one of the most significant and beneficial additions to my life. Especially on the watch, it is in fact really the only reason I own a watch. To be fair, I only let calendaring /medical apps do notifications, but equally, that’s the reason I own it in the first place.

NameError 2y ago

I think something with the "wow" factor of the Vision Pro but the form factor of a pair of glasses would be the holy grail of AR/VR. I wonder if there are fundamental tradeoffs which would make that impossible in the near term? I think it would remain very niche indefinitely in that case.

makestuff 2y ago
I wonder if in the next 5 years there could be a device where the compute is your smartphone but it streams to a display on your AR/VR glasses. I guess the main issue would be where do you put the battery.
jayd16 2y ago
The display technology is simply not there at the moment.

pocketarc 2y ago

> Or maybe these are just products we don't need? That's exactly it, they're products we don't -need-. If you already have a smartphone, that's good enough. This is the same problem that plagues the AI assistant devices - it doesn't matter what they can do, they won't replace your smartphone. Which means you're asking someone to carry (and pay for) a smartphone + an extra device. That's a big ask. It's also the reason why you see these stories of people living smartphone-only lives, doing everything on their smartphones without needing or even having a desktop/laptop. Smartphones are good enough for everything, for a lot of people. For the record: I -love- the Vision Pro. Tried it out, loved it. But I fall into the `Tech nerds like it because it's "cool"` part. I recognize that that's not going to be the popular opinion. Not now, not ever. There's just not enough value in VR/AR to really change societal norms to the point that everyone's going to want to wear these devices. Ultimately: Just because a product is a cool idea, doesn't mean it's society-altering. Some products just aren't that valuable.

sroussey 2y ago
> they're products we don't -need-. If you already have a smartphone, that's good enough. I disagree. If LinkedIn made AR glasses that told me who the person is I’m looking at (that I’m connected to on LinkedIn) and why/how we were connected, I’d buy that in a heartbeat.
- ffgjgf1 2y ago
  > If LinkedIn made AR glasses that told me who the person is I’m looking I could only hope that the EU would ban it ASAP if such a product existed making it unviable anywhere else. Except maybe China and such, should be pretty useful for the CCP enforcement agencies.
  - sroussey 2y ago
    Why? It would only search the people I am connected to, not the whole planet.
  - toyg 2y ago

bsimpson 2y ago

Google Home was kind of magical when it launched, but as its reliability has degraded over time, its appeal has worn off. It is still nice to be able to ask it to play music or set an alarm or whatever without engaging with a screen. I haven't used a HomePod, but I suspect it's Apple's version of that experience.

jauntywundrkind 2y ago
The Sonos patent wars sucked. Things are somewhat back to ok, but man, it's just absurd & sad seeing basic networked av get ravaged by lawyers like so. I'm super glum about audio casting at the moment. It feels like less and less speakers have audio casting builtin. For a while there was a spare of speakers, some even battery powered, but it's turned into a trickle. There's also incredibly few options for amplifiers with builtin audio casting; what the NexusQ originally did! So frustrating. This is an ecosystem I am super bought into, and it feels like it's fading and there's not a replacement (especially with Sonos's recent enshittification seppuku).
- hughesjj 2y ago
  I ended up just getting normal speakers and attaching a dedicated box to them. I hate how it looks though, so many more wires, and you better hope your speakers are close enough to route a long USB cable for power to a wall outlet
hhh 2y ago
I don't know if it's similar, only because I don't really use Google products. You can ask the HomePod to turn on the Apple TV and play something, or to read out your messages (depending on your settings and whatnot). I don't really have an issue with it doing anything but playing music. I use it for HomeKit controls constantly, and love my HomePod mini's.

1propionyl 2y ago

Apple Home (as an integrated Matter/Thread client) is far more useful than the Vision Pro. It's easy to fixate on things like colorful lights, but consider instead automations based on how much energy is used when. For example, if I have a box fan or a portable AC unit on a smart plug, I can automate it running while I'm gone only if the temperature gets to a excess (for the benefit of pets, fruit on the counter, running computers, etc) or only when electricity is cheaper and/or cleaner. The most useful IoT devices, I think, aren't purpose devices that have a microcontroller integrated into them... so much as ones whose primary and only purpose bridge digital and physical by allowing you to actuate something remotely, be it the flow of electrify (smart plug), or physically flipping a switch (switchbot type).

makestuff 2y ago

Yeah I frequently look at the vision pro reviews and think it would be cool to try, but I know after about a month I would get bored with it. $3500 is alot of money to spend on what is essentially the perfect device for watching movies on an airplane. It is an insanely impressive technology; however, like the iPadOS I think it is going to take a decade or so to have enough functionality to even consider being useful for professional tasks. I don't want to have to buy a macbook just to stream it to the vision pro to do any coding tasks.

jordanb 2y ago

> Or maybe these are just products we don't need? Silicon valley needs a product that will make us spend even more time online than our phones, in order to sell more ad inventory and make the line go up. This is pretty much what's driving all of this, especially the AR stuff. It's not a solution in search of a problem. The problem is they need to sell more ads. The only issue is that it's a solution to their problem, not ours.

FL33TW00D 2y ago
Or, on the other hand, AR could BLOCK all ads that you ever see. Sanitise your entire visual input, replace all ads with a grey square!
- CatWChainsaw 2y ago
  Why do you think the manufacturers would allow that? Sure, you can effectively block ads in a web browser, on a desktop. Everything on mobile is in an app which explicitly does not allow you to tailor your experience, erm, nuke the ads from orbit. And every platform that's followed smartphones, from tablets to headsets, has followed the phone model of pushing software: closed-down OS, software through app stores or gtfo. It's incredibly naive to think ads will get better and not a hell of a lot worse.
  - FL33TW00D 2y ago
    Because you can just build things yourself. You don't need permission from anyone else.
    - CatWChainsaw 2y ago
      A suggestion to build a computer or headset from scratch, having to factor in all the compatibility hoops the big players throw at you before they nuke you anyway for having unsanctioned hardware, is proof of your unseriousness.

SoftTalker 2y ago

There are very few situations where I'd want to wear a bulky headset for any length of time. Although I don't play video games, I could see that people who are into it might find them pretty cool. The TV ads showing people at business meetings all wearing headsets and manipulating a shoe protoype in mid-air are just ridiculous. Or the one where a guy is trying to assemble a furniture kit and wearing a headset. Come on, you'll do better with a YouTube video and unobstructed eyes.

psunavy03 2y ago

There was a time when you didn't "need" a PC, either, and they were seen as just nerd toys and things yuppies used to balance their checkbooks, back when "balancing your checkbook" was a thing you had to do. This changed with the advent of the Web, and held until desktops gave way to smartphones. If you could time-travel back to the 80s and 90s, plenty of folks would have scoffed that anyone would ever "need" a computer, let alone a computer in their pocket. But a lot of that is because "a computer" was a bulky beige thing with a CRT monitor, and maybe if you were really into it a 2400 baud modem. But then you'd have to splurge for a second phone line or pick which device to use, the modem or the phone. So I'd be wary of writing off AR/MR/XR as a dead end, as opposed to a technology that still needs more innovation to reach the mainstream. Glasses themselves are mainstream, and have been for centuries. What's holding AR devices back is the ability to miniaturize the necessary holographic technology, as well as the batteries and processing power. This will eventually be solved, just like an iPhone now has more processing power than the supercomputers of decades before. The problem with VR will always remain the same. You can't interact with other people while you have a big thing on your face that's designed to supplant your entire field of view, which limits desirable use cases.

tqi 2y ago
> If you could time-travel back to the 80s and 90s, plenty of folks would have scoffed that anyone would ever "need" a computer, let alone a computer in their pocket. Is that true? I feel like people have imagined portable communication / computing devices forever[1]. People maybe couldn't imagine that they could ever be small enough to be practical, but the utility of such a device was pretty obvious. Similarly, I think "VR" as a concept has obvious value and applications. However current implementations fall far short of what is necessary to unlock that value for most people / scenarios. [1] https://www.geeksandbeats.com/2016/02/star-trek-technology-today/ https://www.geeksandbeats.com/2016/02/star-trek-technology-t...
- Terr_ 2y ago
  > I feel like people have imagined portable communication / computing devices forever Another example would be fictional comic-book detective Dick Tracy's wristwatch, which started as two-way audio in 1946 and got upgraded to video in 1964.

tootie 2y ago

I'm pretty convinced that AR and specifically headset AR is just a dead end. No amount of sensors or pixels are going to make it viable for anything besides some tiny niches. VR is fun and has some uses. Everything else just needs a tactile keyboard or touchscreen.

theshackleford 2y ago
Not everyone is capable of using a keyboard or touch screen even today. For this reason I hope to see continued advancement in voice capabilities. I have it better than most but have to rely on dictation a lot due to issues in my hands/arms following an incomplete spinal cord injury.

PaulHoule 2y ago

(1) Price matters. If Detroit was selling $25k reasonably sized EVs they'd be selling like hotcakes, even if they had limited range. There are a few people who will pay $75k+ for a luxury EV but they bought a Tesla 10 years ago. If Detroit wanted to sell XXXL EV SUVs at crazy high prices they should have done it ten years ago. Now it's too late and they have to make the kind of cars BYD does or pass legislation to keep BYD out of our market. The Meta Quest consumer has proven they'd rather save a few bucks and buy an MQ2 instead of a better MQ3. It's a big problem for Meta because they're never going to move towards making better games that need an MQ3 to run. (2) VR > AR Apple's just plain wrong about the focus on AR. The Apple Vision Pro has the hardware to provide far superior immersive world application story than the MQ3 but the software (and maybe controller) story isn't there. Apple acts as if there was something morally wrong with VR, like it is putting your hands in their toilet with all the conviction they have that it is OK to take 30% of all the revenue of the app economy. Sorry, visiting VR worlds is half the value you could get out of a product and throwing out half the value is like doubling the price. A cheap set of XReal glasses can say "this is just good for watching the HDMI output of a game console" but at Apple Vision Pro prices product that expensive really has to "do it all" with no excuses. People really do subscribe to VR fitness apps, they really do have fun playing games like Asgard's Wrath 2 or games like Riven. Have you ever heard anyone say that they were engaged with an app for the Vision Pro?

salzig 2y ago
In regards to VR, I think Valve could really move the hole situation by building/providing SteamLink VR on AVP, as they do on Meta Quest. Buy any Bluetooth (VR) Controller and enjoy games streamed. And maybe in some future I will be able to stream from Linux hosts via SteamLink.
- PaulHoule 2y ago
  Exactly, a device that expensive has to deliver as much value as possible. Trying to sell a lifestyle accessory for people who have to own every Apple product that there is the beginning of the end for Apple that they’ll be talking about in business school the way we talk about DEC, Tandem and Commodore today.

spacemadness 2y ago

I feel like Apple missed the ZIRP window to release this to a larger quantity of tech nerds who weren’t continually worried about being laid off.

pzo 2y ago

If they wouldn't be too greedy they could make a device that combines: Apple TV, HomePod, Apple Router, Time Machine - that would be an ultimate smart home device... but they want to sell both Apple TV, HomePod and iCloud for storage.