It's invasive, heavy and more anti social than smartphones. Battery life is too short. Low volumes make software development for it unattractive. Companies keep pouring into ar/vr billions and no sigle killer use case to show.
Beat Saber did pretty well but then Apple made a headset that can't even play Beat Saber.
The only way to get around that in gaming is to have 1st/2nd party developers (like Nintendo/Sony tend to do), but making games has never been in Apple’s culture. Movies/TV shows are a bit closer to their DNA, and they’ve started producing those with mixed results - games would be a much taller order.
It's much too late in this stage of the industry to just look attractive for exclusives; the industry standardized (compared to a PS1 disc vs a N64 cartridge) and no one's throwing enough money to carry that plan long enough to pay off Like Microsoft kind of did. Not even FAANGs. But it's never too late to just make good games and foster series your platform is known for, like Nintendo.
But then again, Meta just shuttered that studio despite a hit game series from them, so who knows what's going on anymore?
It is always a symbiotic relationship, what is missing, is that Apple doesn't play their part of exclusives like Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft do (and SEGA in the past).
that cycle came back last year when they used AAA games to showcase the power of the iPhone 15 and for devs, talk more about their porting toolkit. The last cycle was showcasing the M1 chip and Apple Arcade.
Yet these came after they actively fought against Vulkan support (and now they are using some form of MoltenVK to help with their porting tech) and hard blocked several cloud gaming platforms. Things that could have made their job a lot easier (and maybe cheaper).
so I suppose in 2-3 years we'll see Beat Saber working when they get serious with VR.
Other than that their only attempt was the failed Pippin, so yet another reason to hate games, other than those on iDevices, bringing money home.
Which is a huge downside for something that users are literally forced to stare at.
Would be nice if it was better, I don’t see it as a “huge downside” as you do though.
It's not hard to see how this product could continue to be streamlined and made more accessible in the future.
edit: typos, clarity
> being to able to interface with it by simply gesturing with your hands
eg: Theremoose - the Theremin Controlled Computer Mouse https://www.instructables.com/Theremoose-the-Theremin-Contro...
In the disability domain voice operations have a history.
* Was it?
* Remember when the mouse was a niche invention at PARC?
Statement: "You know perfectly well that you can't use any computer without touching a controller of some kind."
Fact: touchless controls exist.
Speculation: They may become commonplace.
Crude, but it's technically possible.
"The Xbox Kinect: Your Body is the Controller"
"The iPad was mocked" is irrelevant. Many or most products are mocked by some people, even iPhone. Regardless of mocking, iPad was an immediate success. Vision Pro is not. I fully admit that the price of Vision Pro is the biggest problem. But you can't pretend that the first iteration of Vision Pro is just like the first iteration of iPad.
Now, sure, you can say the Vision Pro was not as big a success as the iPad even if you account for that difference in markets, scale, price ranges, etc. But that doesn't mean it's a total failure either, or that there is no future for the product.
Most people who have a Vision Pro, seem to like it. It's unsurprising that it's not flying off the shelves because at the moment it's little else than an expensive toy, and once the novelty wears off it's not like there is that much to do with it at the moment, it's also seemingly uncomfortable to wear for prolonged periods of time. But like I said, it's not hard to see how it could be getting better with future iterations.
So even if there is no perfect correlation between the shortcomings of the first iPad and the larger shortcomings of the first Vision Pro, there is a correlation.
I don't see it.
These are diverse markets, but far from the general market. I think VR/AR will end up the same.
What do you mean by the general market?
iPad has more unit sales than Mac. It's a massive market. The last time Apple reported unit sales, back in 2018, iPad was selling over 43 million units per year.
not being able to see how this is different is very disingenuous. when the ipad was released, nobody had a device like that. apple's headset was not the first. even those the came before did not gain a lot of traction. so apple is not blazing new trails here that people just don't understand yet. this is an accepted as niche product line for certain personalities.
They are now, and that's exactly the point. And people don't look ridiculous now because they became adopted, but even the first versions of mobile phones made people look ridiculous.
Have some perspective, try to think beyond a lapse of more than two years back and forwards.
I cannot see this with a VR headset. It's a very geeky limited market, no matter the price point. But ESPECIALLY at Apple's price point.
Even their “misses” have just been devices that were too niche or bad value propositions for the average consumer, rather than being technically immature (thinking of HomePod here). It’s rare for Apple to launch a device that’s just far too early to be useful even to its target audience.
Pretty much anyone who had used an iPhone or iPod touch was like, "Oh hell yeah, big iPhone."
Pointing out that the device sucks to actually use in important physical and social ways is the opposite.
VR headsets are at their 6th or 7th iteration in the last decade.
They laughed at the iPad.
However they also laughed at the Newton.