The Apple Vision Pro’s missing apps
stratechery.com
stratechery.com
Given the volume of VP sales, it feels more like a production-ready dev kit and tool for enthusiasts. It's really the version that people will use to build apps on, so that v2, v3, etc., which will be lighter/cheaper/whatever else is needed to make them more mass-market, won't have the same problem when they launch.
If you're Netflix et al, why support the VP now? Even if it's just checking a box, it still means you'll get some support load. You'll also have to make some design and implementation decisions that will be less-informed than if you wait a while and see what other apps are doing on there.
At the end of the day, is having Netflix on the VP going to generate any incremental revenue? Tough to imagine that everybody buying it doesn't already have a Netflix subscription.
Building for it right now is zero upside and some downside. We'll see a Netflix app eventually, though.
Having a better than average phone browser wasn’t such a big deal, having a browser you could use without thinking about it was huge.
The iPhone was (as far as I know) the first device that really and truly let you have real websites on your phone (even if it was just a tiny version of it)
I had been waiting for such a device for a long time, and this was the thing that got me over to Apple in any real sense.
This right here. People forget things like roaming and data charges. $500+ phone bills were not uncommon for business travelers. Data charges made smartphones almost a non-starter for the average person. Apple broke that logjam.
In its spec it offered a full color multi-touch gesture display —instead of a 132x65 pixel black and white screen.
Like Steve Jobs said, products are a series of choices.
It also launched without cut and paste available in the UI, which again, was silly given how it was otherwise an impressive mobile computer.
First available March 2007, three months before the iPhone was introduced. * Memory - 160MB, versus iPhone: 128MB.
* CPU - Dual CPU, 332 MHz Texas Instruments OMAP 2420 (ARM11-based), versus Samsung 32-bit RISC ARM 1176JZ(F)-S v1.0 412 MHz
* Display - iPhone: 320x480 18-bit 3.5", versus N95: 240x320 24-bit, 2.6"
* Network ability: HSDPA 3.5G, versus iPhone: GSM/EDGE
* Camera: 5MP, versus iPhone 2MP
Yes I remember this. But he must have known their plans and basically lied about it.
E.g. if I recall correctly, in the early days of the App Store, the guidelines were that if your app could easily be a web app, it should be, and you could have your app submission rejected for that reason.
The problem was developers just wanted to write native apps, presumably believing that the only secure apple platform would be converted to the Mac-like experience, complete with malware, etc.
So with no one making actual web apps, in part because the web standards of 15+ years ago were not as powerful, and in part because developers all thought web apps were bad, and ongoing "we want real apps" noise, you got the initial UIKit APIs, which lacked _a lot_ of functionality, and made a lot of things very hard.
Or you can just go all conspiracy theory and say "they would never change their plans in response to market pressure, who would do such a thing?"
Apple has historically been very comfortable shipping devices without "table stakes" functionality - waiting until they have an implementation they like.
Or sometimes never shipping it, and leaving it to third parties. My iPads still don't have a calculator app.
Absolutely! I also remember those chain of events exactly that way. They are also documented in Steve Jobs biography as well.
The day the iPhone was introduced, the CEO of Google was on stage.
One of the major use cases for the Vision Pro is video and there ars no native apps for the two most popular video sites.
The day that the iPad was introduced. The CEO of Netflix was on stage.
I think part of the focus on apps is because while portable connectivity is an easier feature for most people to understand and appreciate (though I appreciate this may not have been quite as clear in 2007), wearability is less so, especially where the form factor is socially and ergonomically awkward. Working in AR/VR I know my team is constantly asking variations of "how can we convince someone to put this on their face?" My interpretation of pieces like this is often that they echo underlying concerns over the efficacy of use-cases, and decisions by players like Netflix to port their apps is some (albeit noisy and incomplete) data around it.
Also, a touchscreen iPod! That was another massive killer app.
I used to carry around a phone, PDA, and an iPod. Day 1, Apple allowed me to carry one device.
And then add in a great Web browser, and you can see why it was great even before 3rd party apps.
I am not convinced Apple has come up with any killer 1st party apps for the Vision Pro, and that's concerning.
The Vision Pro isn't in a new hardware category. It's actually entering a somewhat crowded field of companies offering headsets of various kinds. The VP is different in a few ways of course, but it's not clear exactly what prevented previous offerings to get wide adoption. If this product is going to be "successful" (whatever that ends up meaning) you would expect something about the VP to diverge from the trajectory of previous offerings. So far, at least as far as apps go, it seems like it's doing worse.
> v2, v3, etc., which will be lighter/cheaper/whatever else
I understand what you're gesturing at here, but this isn't v1 at all. This would be the equivalent of entering the smart phone market in 2015. If Apple isn't able to offer a noticeably more compelling experience with this realease, it does not speak well for their overall vision.
Apple is going to have to prove to Netflix to support them (or build the app for them). If Apple sells several million of these and watching video is big on it, Netflix will change their tune.
Netflix is clearly saying "We don't want to be a 3D/VR movie service". Perhaps Apple will pay for 3D licenses and serve them as part of your AppleTV subscription, which would suck, because it would mean no 3D movie support on any other headset.
Is there a market for 3d movies? I'm intrigued...
Despite all its initial shortcomings, the iPhone still raised the bar for the entire market, set a new standard that every other manufacturer/developer would be chasing for years.
The Vision Pro is being watched by the mass market and it will be competing against Meta for better or worse. Apple has put in zero effort into removing that appearance. They are not selling a devkit, they are advertising a mass market device at an absurdly high price.
That and dev teams are running leaner these days, so it makes sense to wait-and-see for companies with content leverage like YouTube and Netflix.
Netflix sells plans for higher resolutions for example
If some just have say a laptop screen and a phone you consume content on there is little need for higher resolution plans.
However let's say you buy VP then it is possible you would consider upgrading to higher resolution.
It’s a nice beachhead they’re exposing. There might be a niche for someone to build an AI that converts flat video into immersive content, and then plant a bunch of patent land mines around it.
…they don’t. They should. Which is why I’m calling it a beachhead.
I get not building a new one, but reusing the existing one makes more sense imho.
E.g. maybe it will only display video on an emulated "iPad screen" whereas the website uses Safari's video player that might have many more VR-friendly playback features.
Support costs? Bad PR when it doesn't work well? There are a lot of reasons they may not want it to be used yet.
I wouldn't expect a Vision Pro app delivering a 2D content experience to be dramatically more expensive to build and maintain than their vast array of apps for set-top boxes, hotels, streaming sticks, or the Meta Quest they've already supported but not charged extra for. Why would they draw the line here?
I think Google Maps was the only one, sort-of. It shipped with the OS, but used Google’s data, and, I expect, needed Apple to negotiate with Google.
If Autodesk and Blender don't have a whole team pointed at this, I would be highly disappointment.
https://www.reuters.com/legal/transactional/meta-platforms-s...
Disclosure: I own APPL / META stock.
It isn't meant to be useful. Rather, it gives them bragging rights for being first to market (in AR) and they now control the narrative around it.
Magic Leap says hello.
Nobody outside of a very small, niche bubble has any idea what that is. I'm in the bubble and had to look it up.
I may be an outlier but in our house the only time we watch shows or movies is a social context--usually Friday or Saturday nights as a family. I'm struggling to see how the headset could replace what is in my experience a mostly social activity.
Will it ever be comfortable enough for the binge watcher to watch it all day? I have my doubts.
I think it will be a coexistence and replacement of flat screens will be a very long time away.
As for comfort wearing this for extended periods of time, we'll have to see. I think that will be the key deciding factor. There was a lot of marketing speak in the original announcement suggesting that they did work quite hard on this issue and made some progress. A light enough device that can provide the experience of having a ginormous screen in front of your nose without inducing headaches, motion sickness, etc. could be a nice thing to have. If somebody delivers such a thing, people will be reluctant to turn them off possibly.
As for replacing existing things, there's a long history of people thinking about new products in terms of how the old one worked. The more interesting question to ask is what new content will emerge for this thing.
Is this great? It's a market, maybe, but it is it one we want to incentivize and grow?
Increasingly I feel like we, as an industry, lean too hard into providing lesser-resistance substitutes for mentally and socially healthier lifestyles, and that "we are not making the choice for them, the root problem has to be solved somewhere else" is a cop-out.
The massive amount of effort we spend on boyfriend/girlfriend replacement tech, meet-up-with-friends replacement tech, experience-interesting-places replacement tech is starting to worry me.
Why on earth not? Reading books is solitary. Programming is usually solitary. A lot of hobbies are solitary.
But you can watch a show on your own and then talk about it the next day with your friends.
It can certainly be done at an unhealthy level but you can say that about a lot of things.
If it is bad, then you'd have to discourage things like reading books. And I guess, depending on what you think is wrong with it, maybe discourage other mainly solitary pursuits.
I think it's very simple. If this thing works more or less as advertised, lots of people might buy it. I don't think it's a given Apple has another winner here but I wouldn't exclude the possibility. And I was kind of impressed with what they announced last year.
I also see the appeal for people who travel a lot for work. This is probably an amazing way to watch movies on a plane or in your hotel room at night.
I have a wife and two small kids, so I will not be buying this to watch movies at home.
I feel like this entire thread has a blind spot to the fact that this device is very much a luxury item. A 55-inch TV is ~$300. A high-end laptop is ~$1000. High-end noise-cancelling headphones are ~$250. You could buy all of those and still not reach half of the cost of this device.
The only people I can see buying the device are rich people looking for another toy, not as a serious competitor to other entertainment tech.
I'm surprised at how consistently people think that a technology that is so expensive and serving such a niche will end up having adoption asides from a few wealthy enthusiasts. iPhone 2 suggested retail price was $300 (~$425 in todays dollars) and provided "smart" replacement for your cell phone matching its features 1-to-1 while also providing more than what was available.
If someone imagines themselves buying this to watch movies "on the go" or at hotels or something, they're part of an extremely exclusive club.
Nobody is buying the Pro version of the headset just for watching movies other than the early adopters, YouTubers etc we have today.
The idea is that when a normal version launches for $999 it will be a far more compelling proposition.
Even if you have a lot of space in your apartment, it's hard to justify much of a home theater setup, as you will be really limited by sound issues.
It seems like you need to live alone and be rich enough to afford it such that you likely already have a great home theater anyway and still be interested in the Vision Pro. Or you actually don't want a TV at all for some reason but still want a home theater experience.
That seems like a quite small market?
Most people who rent also move at least every few years, so having that large of a thing to move is a bit annoying. Not even mentioning people who travel for work and obviously cannot bring such a system with them.
It isn’t just all about the money when it comes to device purchases.
Seems quite a few folks are opting to randomly binge-stream on their laptop as vegging out on the TV is a thing of the past for them, so no need to have their living space dominated by these types of electronics.
If I was into media enough to spend $3,500 to have a great experience, it would be a bummer if I couldn't watch a movie with someone else occasionally.
Or if you're both into the big screen VR experience, you can both wear headsets. Watching movies in a shared virtual movie theater is already a thing and works great. Even better is that you can be in your home and your romantic partner can be in their home (or traveling) and you can still watch together.
There's one use case that I do think I would actually use once it's good enough though. It's using glasses as replacement for computer monitors when doing work. But I'd prefer the Nreal/Xreal Air form factor and price point.
My inner VR enthusiast thinks the Apple Vision is cool but my inner realist wonders if anyone is really going to use anything beyond smart glasses.
For that price you can get 3 of your friends a nice 1080p short throw projector and studio monitors which will outlive the vision pro and won't cause neck/head pain after an hour.
The AVP is vastly overpriced and overspecced for basic media consumption.
Still my wife watches her stuff on a phone.
People actually don't care about quality more often than not.
But the quest 3 should be cheap enough already for this and good enough and still is not the mass market
We'll have to see how people handle 1.5lbs of headgear for long periods. Maybe it'll be fine, but the Quest is already heavy enough.
I'm a bit like you. I don't watch TV by myself, and the idea of plugging into a VR device to do so seems weird.
But I carry my AirPods everywhere and mostly listen to music solo. It's not unreasonable to think that the same happens with TV/movies.
I still get Dolby Atmos and Dolby Vision on both devices and with iPad being much closer than TV screen size is alright.
People that watch movies on their phones and smaller ipads are wild. I tried watching movies on Quest 2 - too bulky.
(Particularly for kids, of course, which isn't a market that works well with the $4k price of the current Vision Pro. But a hypothetical cheaper future generation...)
I'll admit that some of my perspective here comes from being extremely not a TV-watcher, so "the social joy of watching a show" mostly fails to motivate me. :D
It's also the lets-play-a-2-player-game-on-the-couch console!
For me a killer app needs to make use of the AR capabilities of the headset to justify the cost.
But a lot of people watch a lot of TV solo.
And headsets are actually extremely comfortable for binge-watching because you can lie back in your reclining chair or lie totally flat on your bed or long couch. You just drag the virtual screen up to your ceiling. You can also loosen the headband in these cases.
There's no reason to sit upright for viewing unless you want to.
But I was specifically responding to the article which opens with this quote by Om Malik:
>With that caveat, I think both, the big (TV) and biggest (movie theater) screens are going to go the way of the DVD. We could replace those with a singular, more personal screen — that will sit on our face. Yes, virtual reality headsets are essentially the television and theaters of the future.
And the rest of the article lays out a mostly supporting case with the missing apps argument.
I suspect there will be a larger portion of people who have both a Vision Pro and a television, and use the Vision Pro for some portion of their viewing.
The "replaces TV" is likely a mental connection between the cost of a higher end TV and the cost of a higher end AR headset being in a similar range where media consumption is a major feature of both. One could maybe justify the price of a 85" OLED or justify the price of a Vision Pro, but not both.
The phrase I kept hearing from film studio/director types was that they didn't know how to tell a story with VR that could only be told with VR (profitably). Note that didn't stop them from trying and there wasn't a shortage of ideas. The point was that they hadn't figured out what would actually resonate with audiences (and make more money than doing what they already knew).
But things are different now. Back then, the problem was that VR in your home was a dead-end. What seemed promising was using it for theme park rides and people at Universal/Disney were super excited about it. So the "story" they were trying to design was something that was mass marketable with IP tie-ins, short enough not to tire the average American and maximize throughput while also minimizing floor space in the places they'd install. That's a very different kind of experience than a film or video game.
I think with cheaper/lighter hardware the profit model could be different and the kind of content you consume with it would become different. I don't think people have figured it out yet, but with hardware changes there's a different kind of story that can work and it just needs the right storyteller to figure it out.
All that said, the problem all these tech bro led companies forget is that content is king in this space and you can't just make some cool gizmo and expect people to buy it when no one knows how to create for it. For all their flaws, Magic Leap was actually smarter about that than their competition.
I see that kind of thing having a window of opportunity between when it is possible and when everybody has an XR headset and there is nothing special about it. The slower XR is to catch on, the wider the window.
This was my exact same complaint within my group creating VR content around the same time. Gaming is a no-brainer. It was the live action that was the blocker. Directors want to control the narrative with various techniques like blocking, depth of field, framing, etc. Within VR, all of that control is lost. Within VR means that it is possible the viewer isn't even looking in the right direction as the director intended. Putting the camera in motion is weird for the viewer since the viewer did not initiate it (unless it was something obvious like being in a car/roller coaster/etc).
It might not be as good as sharing real popcorn, but it can be a surprisingly convincing imitation.
[1] https://store.steampowered.com/app/457550/Bigscreen_Beta/
We played a few flat (not VR) games, on a super large screen in a cozy virtual room, with directional audio that is always on. With your attention being taken on what is happening within the game, it's -almost- as convincing as sitting together and playing the same game.
I can already say that this is my favourite way of playing couch co-op remotely. Haven't tried movies, yet I wouldn't expect the experience to be any different.
Going out to eat at restaurants used to be a social activity, now people just sit together but stare at their phones.
Just using it for consumption is also very unimaginative.
I look forward to seeing developers explore the potential of spacial interactions that are different than just strapping a 2d display on your head.
There's a very clear cultural divide here. You missed a very important point in TFA:
> If you live in Asia, like you live in Taiwan, people don’t have big homes, they don’t have 85-inch screen televisions. Plus, you have six, seven, eight people living in the same house, they don’t get screen time to watch things so they watch everything on their phone.
(Emphasis mine.)
Basically, the point is that watching TV in VR will probably be very popular in Asian markets.
But: the iPhone did replace the rotatry phone! /s
I'm glad that Ben mentioned this. I discussed it at length in my own blog post "App Store is neither console nor retail but jukebox": https://lapcatsoftware.com/articles/jukebox.html
The App Store was a carbon copy of the iTunes Music Store, thrown together very quickly, as shown in evidence and testimony from the Epic trial, but a store for selling 99 cent songs is an extremely bad fit for selling computer software. A lot of the problems with the App Store today stem from its origins in the iTunes Music Store, and unfortunately Apple has done very little to reshape the App Store to be more suitable for software.
As a software developer myself, I have very little interest in Vision Pro right now. One major problem, especially for indie developers of paid apps, is that customers have come to expect free support for new platforms. Last month I finally gave in and made my Mac and iOS apps a universal purchase instead of separate purchases, but to me it's ridiculous to give away a new version for free on Vision Pro when consumers are giving $3500+ to Apple for a new device. Consumers are resentful if they have to give third-party developers any extra money. The level of consumer entitlement for free software is over the top. Apple gets to make all the money from expensive hardware, and we're supposed to be indentured servants supporting any and all new Apple hardware for no profit.
This is an interesting aspect indeed. Not just the increased customer expectation but also the resulting increased dev-cost.
It looks alot like Apple aims to repeat what they did on the iPhone: Deliver a solid barebone experience, watch and observe what the dev-community does, build your app/service feature-backlog / adjust your revenue-share model based on the 3rd party apps that succeed.
But now the ramp-up complexity to make a good app is much higher than it was back then for the $1 Flashlight App, the $2.99 iBeer App or Fruit Ninja.
The question is whether there are again enough devs who are eager to do all the upfront invest to "throw stuff against the wall and see what sticks" on behalf of Apple...
Same creators as Jetpack Joyride.
Depends on your model.
If you are charging individually for new features, it wouldn't make sense to have an entirely new platform as a free thing.
If you are rolling features into incremental paid version upgrades, it could make sense to have AVP support be one of the features of a new version. Product v1 has an iOS app, v2 is a universal app with iOS and Mac support, v3 includes iOS, Mac and AVP.
If you are charging for ongoing maintenance which includes new features, it makes sense to give your entire user base an ever-increasing value. AVP support may just gets rolled in as a feature their subscription gives them.
To do it the other way and require two product purchases or split subscriptions for AVP is a tiered model. Tiered models IMHO are more something that comes from necessity, when the price to support development with a single tier increases the base price to the point where you are pricing out too much of your market. You justify customers paying more by giving them more features, which in turn gives you more revenue to support development for all users.
Tiering is often more of a large development team problem than an indie problem, but for workplace-oriented apps (where you may have personal or corporate buyers who are willing to pay different amounts) it still winds up being a pricing consideration for indies.
I suspect tiered pricing to be a thing for AVP for a while for this reason - developers deciding an AVP owner will have extra spending capacity. I'd recommend pricing though to recognize that the platform success will be defined by it managing to cannibalize some iPad sales, and that on a five-year timeline you may again be pricing out sales by requiring a "Pro" AVP purchase. Plan the pivot.
Yes, Apple users are willing to pay for software... once. But then they want that one payment to apply to every Apple device: iPhone, iPad, Mac, Watch, Vision Pro, etc. They don't want to pay separately for each Apple platform.
(2) If you're thinking about buying an AVP and not thinking about buying an MQ3 at 1/7 the price you're not thinking or at least you're not an technology enthusiast you're an Apple enthusiast.
(3) So far all the video apps (not to mention remote desktop apps like Immersed) I've seen have a poor user interface for situating and controlling the virtual screens. It doesn't seem like an insurmountable problem but it's somewhat startling that it hasn't been addressed. Maybe AVP will point the way to something better.
(4) I tried the "VR camera" view of NBA games on Xtadium. I've lately taken a shine to sitting in the front row at college games (Newman Auditorium is rarely full so usually I can sit courtside with a $8 ticket) so the "courtside view" was appealing to me but: (a) my 20Mbps DSL connection is not slow enough to support it (though every normal streaming service works fine) and (b) the perception of space around the camera is really strange. I just can't say it is really any better than watching an NBA game on an ordinary TV.
Once you get your AVP (or if you "think different" and get an MQ3) you will realize there are some troubles when you try to synthesize views out of multiple cameras in different spots and even a camera like
https://us.kandaovr.com/products/obsidian-pro
that shoots great pano video will get strange results when people get close. The problems I am having w/ it have to do with the network and camera so I don't see it being better on AVP.
I have a Quest 3, and I suspect a lot of the people who are thinking AVP and not Quest 3 haven't liked Meta's pitch. A lot of the metaverse stuff is silly. It was a poor pitch, and it wasn't remotely ready.
Beyond that, the Meta Quest 3 doesn't have the best screens, so things like watching video aren't actually very good. The passthrough is comically bad, so any AR stuff is really a no go.
The only things the Meta Quest 3 does well is video games and video game fitness experiences. The reason to consider the Quest 3 is almost 100%, "do you want to play VR video games without breaking the bank?" That's it.
The Vision Pro is not making that pitch at all, and doesn't even support motion controllers.
I don't think there is a lot of cross shopping between the two, and I don't think people looking at the Vision Pro are just Apple enthusiasts. They simply aren't that interested in video games, but are interested in the other experiences Apple is touting.
> Beyond that, the Meta Quest 3 doesn't have the best screens, so things like watching video aren't actually very good.
Is it as good as a 4k OLED TV? Obviously no, but it is the by far the best screen watching experience I had away from a TV. So if you want to chill in bed or a travelling for work and spend a lot of times alone in hotels it is by far the best media consumption device.
Another point are immersive 3D VR videos which is a completely new dimension and let me tell you there are a few really great things to watch, which you cannot replicate on a TV.
> The reason to consider the Quest 3 is almost 100%, "do you want to play VR video games without breaking the bank?" That's it.
see above about watching stuff. Another point are social experiences like VR chat, which I would not consider games.
I don't think this follows. I haven't used an AVP myself but apparently they are much nicer to use than an MQ3. If $3.5k is not a significant expense for you then you might as well get the premium product.
The Q3 is a 100x better device for market entry than the avp.
It has also very good resolution.
For just watching movies etc it would be a game changer for a lot of people and still it's not a thing everyone just owns
I'd assume people with this kind of purchasing habits are just buying both and some more anyway.
Yep, its a bit of an elephant in the room in both this and the linked blogpost that the authors seem completely unaware that this is an already well-established medium use case that Apple is very late to.
I’m not sure what Netflix is thinking when they are releasing a video game that no one wants instead fixing their meta client
I bought the Quest 1 when it was an Occulus product and stopped using it the moment they started enforcing Meta anything within the device. I could not care less if it is a 1:1 hardware equivalent as long as it has anything to do with the Meta empire. The last I checked, my Quest 1 refuses to function on my home network because of the filtering I enforce on my router...
The "technology enthusiast" crowd is highly heterogeneous
It's not trivial.
It depends on the use-case. For productivity, Quest 3 doesn't have the pixels per degree so it is "almost usable" as a desktop replacement, but not quite there.
A better comparison is a Varjo headset for $4k - $12k which has similar capabilities.
At the low production volume they have right now they're clearly targeting the super premium market and developers who want to get in early, so they have good apps ready when the AVP hits the mass market.
It's not like the first revision of iPod or iPhone was a global phenomenon over night either. They were also full of compromises and flaws. I know maybe one or two people who got the first iPhone. I'm the only one I know who got the second gen iPod. But with the third gen of each of those I know dozens who got into it.
I think in the next two generations, the Meta's headsets will go up in price and functionality to be closer to AVP in both. Apple's will stay stable (letting inflation "reduce" the price) or come down a bit. By the third generation AVP will still have a hefty premium, but maybe more in the 2-3x range, and it's not like that has been a problem for Apple in other market segments.
Except for the fact the iPhone users spend 7x more on apps than Android users[1]. And it would be safe to assume Vision Pro users are on the higher end of having extra money to spend.
Apple has made a clear definition for "Rich AF" iOS users and app makers are trying to look the other way? Their loss. Hell, even having a list of iPhone users that pre-ordered the Vision Pro is worth targeting $$$$
Here's the crucial question, though: are Vision Pro owners actually going to spend extra money on third-party software, or are they just going to demand that their current iPhone/iPad apps be supported by the developers for free on Vision Pro?
Apple will see extra revenue from Vision Pro, but will third-party developers?
Neither iPad nor Watch (or Apple TV) have been big revenue generators for most developers.
> Neither iPad nor Watch (or Apple TV) have been big revenue generators for most developers.
I think the answer is "it depends", but for many apps having a separate iPhone and iPad version has been something their user base has disliked. An iPhone app which is separate from an iPad app but otherwise identical is subtractive - I get less value being limited to my phone. Its not subtractive enough for them to say "lets pay double my original purchase price to get the iPad version".
Likewise, having the iPhone app work on iPad is additional value - I have selected and paid more for an app for having good ecosystem support.
Chances are your Apple TV or Apple Watch app has greatly limited functionality due to the interactivity limitations of those platforms, so you simply cannot charge much for these incrementally. Again, providing proper support (depending on your app) is instead a differentiating factor.
I don't have a first-party app that I can port to AVP. However, I would not be doing so to get some of those exclusive AVP dollars based on them buying something equivalent to a mid-tier pro laptop. Instead, I'd be there as a differentiating feature and for the potential promotional aspects of being present.
Some of this comes from personally being more subscription/services oriented in thinking; I really dislike the idea of selling someone software with dubious unpaid support, fueled by a decreasing amount of new sales as I reach saturation for my software.
With what leverage? You can't just "demand" something of a developer that you've already paid.
It doesn't make sense that you would spend $3500 on a device and then buy no apps for it.
Sure, but rich people with frivolous spending habits are a finite resource. After a while you run out of rich people you can monetize so your growth slows to a crawl.
Who is richer? Toyota or Porsche?
I think Apple is *very* happy to be Porsche in this story
Neat trick: create an ecosystem that genuinely helps your users live well & prosper, increasing their wealth so they can spend more money. It’s a circle of something!
Also, even if Vision Pro owners spend 70x more than Android users, with 500k VP users vs 2.5 billion Android users, there's still not that much reason to invest in VP.
If Apple scraps the idea, it'll be because the second and third gen were huge failures, and that's probably at least five years away.
When I travel I'm usually in an airbnb, hotel room or temporary rented apartment for months at a time.
Usually I may not even have a desk or a tiny one in the corner.
Having the ability to increase my area of productivity via this device from a 14"/16" laptop. Intrigues me quite a bit.
However, the current weight factor and fov (rumoured 100deg) puts me off right now.
Should apple do something similar (or another competitor) like the big screen beyond and 210 deg (starvr) with a much later iteration. The value proposition for me would make it an instant purchase.
I'm more than happy to sit this round out. But the new product segment is something that I and probably many people are interested in. I know Apple will innovate and more importantly push the whole industry forward. I'm watching and waiting with interest!
I'm not saying your own use-case is invalid. But it doesn't sound like a good strategy for Apple.
For ordinary travellers, sure.
But there is a lot of business travel where people are flying just for a day or two for sales meetings etc. And given they power frequent flyer programs clearly there are a lot of them.
Having done many such flights I would much rather a Vision Pro than a cheap LCD hotel room TV.
All these tons of app developers on the market that can do JS/Java UI code will not start writing 3d or even 3d enhanced graphics apps anytime soon. So the VR is just inconvenient screen that you can only see yourself and gives you headaches, with nothing that a normal screen couldn't do.
On top of it no one has any motive to start supporting Vission Pro - either as a big tech competitor of Apple, or just independent developer to get rekt by 30% fees for a handful of users.
I have two Quest devices and even kids don't ever use them because they suck in their very nature. Terrible hassle for everyone involved, can't use it for all that long and so on. And if the kids don't use some tech it has no future, because an old geezers like me are even less likely to do it.
However, it also costs those company nothing for development because it's already there. Even converting the iPad app would take development, testing, and adding extra QA cycles to every release thereafter.
This way those companies can get great data on which customers actually have a headset and how many and how much they pay now (because everyone will probably try it at least once).
Then they can make a data driven decision on if there are enough customers to justify the expense of dev and maintenance. The consensus estimate is that they sold 200,000 units. That is nothing in terms of customers, even if every one of them has a Netflix subscription.
Apple had such low sales expectations that they opened up Vision Pro for employee discount before the launch. Usually employees don't get a discount until 4-5 months after launch after interest has died down.
This decision does not signal that those companies don't believe in Vision Pro -- it signals that they want to wait until there are enough users to justify it since everyone already has access to their product on Vision Pro.
Once Apple starts selling millions of these, and the demand is there from users, we will see companies change their tune.
Spotify, in particular, doesn't make that much sense. Even amongst Apple Vision Pro users, I would be surprised if music listening is a big use case for this device. All of these users will already have their phones and other devices to listen on. There is nothing about the Vision Pro that is particularly good for music.
Video, however, may be something the Vision Pro does exceedingly well.
The main application would be to listen to music alongside whatever else you're already doing, similar to using Spotify on any other kind of computer. I'll begrudgingly use the website, but I'd prefer to have a native app.
> There is nothing about the Vision Pro that is particularly good for music.
I am curious about the spatial audio solution, especially as it's integrated with all of the other environmental sensing (i.e. the audio can "bounce" around your room). I have a quadraphonic mix of Dark Side of the Moon that I'm looking forward to listening to :-)
Just sayin' in case you want to document your experience for those of us who are curious. :)
The Quest Pro is one of the most comfortable headsets that I’ve ever used and it weighs 100g more than the Apple Vision Pro
I needed multiple monitors when we had 1024x768 and smaller. I now code on a dqhd that could fit 10 of those old monitors. I still use 2 other displays. Why? Reference. Nothing will be faster than the flick of your eyes to the alternate display. When constructing optimal copy pasta it’s impossible to beat.
Generally there's 1-2 apps that are native MacOS apps that I require when developing, and the rest could easily be independent windows of safari, slack, teams, whatever to supplement the main screen.
Also, like the sibling comment says, I plan on seeing if I can pull some of the apps I run out of the virtual display and use the iPad apps instead. Copy/Paste/Drag support will make or break that for me though as I don't plan on accepting anything but exactly what I can do on my computer. But maybe iMessage, Slack, and Discord (and definitely Home Assistant) can run their iPad native apps instead of needing to be on my virtual display. Heck, maybe I just fall back to the desktop if I need to. I'm also not sure yet what the story is on using a wireless keyboard/mouse/trackpad with your laptop, as in can I use it in AVP or is it only for use on my virtual monitor? Maybe continuity comes into play there? It should if it doesn't already.
Apparently the main use case Om sees this is replacing the family TV in the living room?
To me it seems to be pushing people to retreat further into isolation.
Jobs wanted, and presumably thought a lot about, "headphones for video".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WO0OGmNDKVg
> "You know, the fundamental problem here is that headphones are a miraculous thing. You put on a pair of headphones, and you get the same experience you get with a great pair of speakers, right?
> "There's no such thing as headphones for video, right?There's not something I can carry with me that I can put on, and it gives me the same experience I get when I'm watching my 50-inch plasma display at home."
Maybe the flopped iPod HiFi was a reaction to Jobs' feelings about the iPod isolating people. Who knows?
I think he mostly cared about selling a lot of products.
They may find enough of a market to prove out and further-develop the tech. I'm pessimistic about AR in general until/unless the hardware develops a lot further, but it's possible they'll carve out enough of a market with this to use it as a testbed and proving ground for later, lower-priced (and/or far more capable) versions.
Decent PCs used to cost this much or more, inflation adjusted.
So he absolutely knew that the project was being worked on.
And not sure why you think Apple isn't going to allow multiple AVP headsets to watch movies together.
They already have the technology with SharePlay etc to do it.
[1] https://9to5mac.com/2023/08/23/working-on-vision-pro-since-2...
“You’ve got to start with the customer experience and work backward to the technology. You can’t start with the technology then try to figure out where to sell it.”
Given that, I don't think having a large screen strapped to the front of your face is a great customer experience.
There were also some pretty easy jailbreaks after not too long, which allowed for 3rd party apps before Apple had an official store.
I think the only things holding back the original iPhone were the price and production volume. As I remember, it sold out quickly. And everywhere I went people were every interested in it. The guys selling cell phones at the mall were trying to stop me to see it, a girl at the bar said having that was better than a puppy. Pulling it out to use it was like being a celebrity, everyone started paying attention and trying to get close to it; it was a very strange time. I don’t recall anyone saying they didn’t want it due to a lack of features, other than people online looking for clicks or who had a history of Apple criticism.
But I'm talking more like culturally / philosophically, I don't think Steve Jobs would have marketed it this way or wanted it framed this way. To that point I'm not sure he'd have green lighted the product at all. It can be very dystopian. The silly eyes thing seems like someone along the way realized that and is trying to mitigate it poorly.
Apple is at its worst when acting like a predatory conglomerate itself, shoving crappy payola recommendations in Music, and squeezing the app store as a revenue-maximizing monster.
Netflix would be crazy to spend a penny supporting Apple in any kind of new-media venture.
I'd love to see an anti-trust breakup of the media side of Apple from the systems + hardware side.
The use case I like is working by myself in VR—being able to take a fast computer and large display with me on the road. As a remote worker, I can theoretically work from anywhere, but in practice I miss my 35" monitor, and can't effectively change my workflow to swap in a 13" laptop screen instead. But with the Vision, I could have everything, for one high price, and it's appealing enough that I've at least thought about trying it.
My friend wants to buy one and use his Xbox controller. Just stupid.
I have 3 VR systems. Vive, Q2, Q3.. I have Skyrim installs with 300-500 mods, Assetto Corso with my racing sim wheel/seat. How am I doing any of that with this? How do I swing a sword? My Q3 supports hand gestures. They're nice when using virtual desktop sort of things, but in a game? no way. No tactical feedback sucks.
And while many games are better with controllers on iPhone/iPad, most games work without them. And I’m sure that’s what Apple has in mind for gaming on AVP. Based on my experience with VR so far I’d actually be more excited for controller-less games. I think there’s a lot of potential for innovation there. Half-Life Alyx was amazing experience. But it was a one and done thing for me. Beat saber I could keep playing for a long time and if you have good hand tracking - and it seems AVP’s is excellent - you could just hold a stick or nothing at all.
I’m sure there will be third party controllers for AVP down the line. But like anything gaming related, it’s not Apples first or even second priority.
I need to see this in person before I pass judgement. Maybe they'll knock it out of the park. I haven't seen much at all of it in actual use.
I love gaming and would like Apple to support it more, but it's not the reason I'm interested in the AVP. They're looking into it [0], but it's just not that relevant to them right now, and that's OK.
[0]: https://www.roadtovr.com/apple-vision-pro-xr-controller-pate...
I'm sure it'll be great for AR stuff like training people in surgery and things of that nature. AR in education will be amazing, being able to walk through Rome, etc in History classes.
You may not remember(or been alive), but in the 90's there was a whole slew of these Life Alert type devices that would call 911 for you if you were an old person that fell and hurt themselves. The Apple Watch is basically the ultimate replacement for that, along with exercise/health features AND it happens to tell the time.
The first version you had to call 911 yourself, but they quickly figured out how to let the device just do it for you, which is where it sits today.
I don't know anything about the HomePod, so I won't comment on that, but Amazon seems to sell a bunch of those speaker devices, so someone must be using it for something?
* People for over 100 years, wore mechanical watches to tell time.
* This solves that same customer need + (digital enhancements).
---
HomePod:
* people want to play their music for others (not just for themselves), for parties/events/hanging out.
---
EDIT: replaced "hundreds of years" with "over 100 years"
The need people had is, wanting a phone you can carry with you anywhere (not tethered to a wall).
While the original iPhone might have had limited functionality (no 3G), it still solved the fundamental need people had - which was a phone they can carry anywhere.
What fundamental problem/need is Apple Vision Pro solving on Day 1?
(I'm not being a hater, I'm genuine curious to know/understand)
B: Are you ignoring having unlimited data and a useful browser that you can use anywhere? I bought the first iphone the day it came out because I had been looking for a product like that for ages but all the browsers were kinda clunky and/or they were limited to wifi/extremely terrible data prices.
Modern TVs are thin and easily wall mounted.
Doesn't sound like a big market to me.
The AVP has a much stronger OS and software ecosystem play; you can just download and use your regular iOS apps, and multitask with ease in a variety of scenarios.
I want the Quest 3 to be able to compete with that, but it's not there yet. Perhaps Google and Samsung will be able to pull it together for their take?
We are literally discussing big companies not checking a checkbox that allows their existing apps on AVP
And let's face it, the way people consume "TV" is quite different from what the ad suggests. Most video is consumed in short format, rapidly, whilst messaging someone. I'm sure watching some epic movie using this device is incredible, but that doesn't mean this device has a use case for lengthy daily usage.
Consuming media on a larger screen is also not really a game changer. I upgraded my TV by 20" in size, and you get used to it in a single day. At home I have giant monitors but I don't mind working with the smaller screens at work. I have the time/money to watch lots of movies in a cinema but can't be bothered as my home screen is good enough.
Note also how most people that have an iPhone, also have an iPad, but the iPad is only marginally used as the tiny iPhone screen is just so much more practical and flexible.
Bigger screen doesn't cut it. You need top notch VR content that is spatial. Problem with that is 99.99% of app developers cannot deliver it. It is extremely difficult and costly to produce.
In general, I don't believe anything that is heavy and worn and still largely isolates you from your surroundings will work. And I'll admit that I hope it fails. We need less screen time and less isolation, not more.
"Apple can’t convince streaming video companies to check the “allow iPad app” box."
If you saw what happened to the music companies and you are big enough you can get around all of the nonsense that Apple can leverage against you why do what apple wants?
I think it's just that simple. It's a low-volume device for now that doesn't justify native apps. Even enabling the iPad app requires testing and, likely, modifications. It's quite possible the Netflix web experience is better than the Netflix iPad app.
Apps are probably not going to come out until Apple releases a lower-cost Vision for the masses.
All 3 of these companies could have had hardware well ahead of launch.
You could try the Wooorld or Wander apps, though, as alternatives, which are on the Quest store.
Good example, though.
https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/m2020-zcam-bettys-rock-sol-4...
which I am about to publish in an A-Frame world.
They could perhaps warn that the app isn't tested for the device but otherwise allow all iPad apps on Vision Pro and Mac's.
Its not going to happen. Strapping something to your face is fun for a little while but its not going to become the primary means of doing _anything_. It's just damn uncomfortable, no matter how light and expensive you make it.
I enjoy VR but I feel really done with headsets. I find them more irritating to wear than covid masks and look how folk feel about those. Itchy sweaty forehead, dig into your cheeks, head straps messing your hair, can't lie down on your side, scuba face when you take it off. Once the genuinely awesome experiences get old and passe, it becomes pretty tiresome.
Really no reason for Netflix to implement a native app. But yes if Apple treated their developers better we would likely see a Netflix app.
This VR stuff is completely anti-social. It is a dystopian vision of the future where your sensory system is sealed off from the world, controlled entirely by corporate entities. There is a reason that it has not taken off yet-- nobody other than the tech executives want it to succeed.
2. VR’s higher immersion makes #1 more appealing. I regularly play ping pong with relatives who live thousands of miles away. Mini golf and bowling are also popular options. The immersion also makes it easier to interact with multiple people at the same time compared to a phone.
3. We’re already transitioning to mixed reality
You really need to at least try a modern VR headset for yourself before coming to a strong conclusion.
The Big Screen Beyond is really the only affordable choice for PCVR that isn’t out of date and isn’t Meta.
[0] https://store.steampowered.com/app/348250/Google_Earth_VR/
the big screen beyond Is a device. It seems fantastic. Like, great. Way better than Apple Vision Pro
Consuming traditional 2D content is like using a PS2 to watch DVDs, sure it’s possible, but is that really the target market?
So, yes(?), however I certainly don't like watching movies at my desk. I may or may not feel the same way about the Vision Pro. Time will tell!
Now it would be great if I could sit in a "theatre" with others, let's say my family, thousands of miles away. We could shadow cast, Rocky Horror style, in real-time.
If Vision Pro provides this experience - seamless displays of all devices on a single headset - then that is the point where I immediately invest.
I'm too old for 3D games, they make me puke. But if I can sit comfortably in a lounge chair with this thing strapped to my noggin and access all the machines in my house, for work (code), then I'm sold.
YouTube and Spotify not having an app at launch is really surprising to me, more surprising than Netflix. Could well be a case of "we'll wait and see before we sink money into a native app," and I don't think YouTube, Spotify, and Netflix are the killer apps that will sell the Vision, but a surprise nonetheless.
I think the vision of the Vision is what's going to sell the Vision. First to really wealthy people, and then, if and only if the price comes down _dramatically_, to those wealthy people's friends who see it and think it's cool/useful.
The part in the beginning of the article...
> If you live in Asia, like you live in Taiwan, people don’t have big homes, they don’t have 85-inch screen televisions. Plus, you have six, seven, eight people living in the same house, they don’t get screen time to watch things so they watch everything on their phone. I think you see that behavior and you see this is going to be the iPod.
...isn't very compelling to me, because, at this price point, someone who has to live in a house with 8 people isn't going to be able to afford the Vision. Maybe the Vision will prove the use case and create an industry of knockoff competitors, but I don't know. Personally, I'd rather watch a movie on my phone than have a headset on for 2 hours at a time, completely blocking out the outside world.
Later in the article...
> with a VR camera at every game it televises would, in my estimation, make the Vision Pro an essential purchase for every sports fan.
... That's a bold prediction. Are sports fans bullish enough on VR, or primed to be primed to become bullish on VR, to want to watch games on a headset? The 8 people in the house, with users already watching on their phones, situation doesn't seem to apply here, and "watching the game" is itself often a social experience, which would preclude shutting yourself away in a headset.
All of the discussion of streaming service buy-in is muddled somewhat by the state of flux the streaming industry is in right there. There's been a lot of consolidation in the last few years and the business models of streaming are changing. Building a device on the current landscape of streaming seems like a risky idea to me at the moment. They should really put a DVD player in the Vision just to be safe /s.
All of this kind of assumes what the primary use case for the Vision will be. We don't know yet exactly what consumer adoption and acceptance is going to look like, whether it be a media consumption platform, a productivity platform, a gaming platform, or a combination of the three and more.
I still have low expectations for the Vision, but if anyone can sell and normalize a new technology it's Apple. We'll see.
I'm sure Apple is in a much better position than in the mid 90s so they can probably absorb bad sales and these headsets will shrink down soon enough and get killer apps and get cheaper so the real question is who's going to build the Android of VR and take the non-walled garden market?
As much as the media has been obsessed with the train wreck that is Horizon Worlds, it's a well kept secret that Meta Quest has an app store that works like the app store on a game console. You can even sideload phone, tablet and TV apps and they "just work" most of the time.
There is no working "metaverse" and even meaningful multiplayer games are thin on the ground, but no shortage of good single-player games and what I'd call game-adjacent apps.
It's little recognized that XR apps are highly portable because they are almost always based on portable frameworks like Unity. In fact, just about every XR headset supports WebXR which makes it outright easy to make web-based virtual worlds
these work with desktop, phones and tablets as well as most of the AR and VR headsets. All it takes is that you "think different" and choose to live life outside the app store.
When was the last time Apple’s success depended on business bulk purchase? Apple didn’t become the highest market cap company in the world selling expensive phones to businesses in bulk orders.