Apple Hosts Special Vision Pro Event for Developers

[doobydoooby]

Why would an app developer go to all the effort to make a "killer app" for a product with no user base... ? The only way this is going to happen is if Apple pay the developers handsomely for making a product with (most probably) zero return on investment

 

[sw1tcher]

The Vision Pro gets more love from Apple than the AirPods Max, Mac Pro, and all HomePods combined.

If that were true, then why won't Apple accept 1st gen Vision Pro's as trade-in for credit?

Apple Confirms Vision Pro is Not Eligible for Trade-In

Apple today confirmed it will not be allowing customers to trade in the original Vision Pro toward the purchase of the new model or any other device....

www.macrumors.com

 

[Roller]

Seems like another step for Apple to try and brainwash the weak minded that this product is good. Owning the first gen and seeing there is no trade in it at Apple told us how much they don’t believe in this product. It’s trash.

I’m glad that we have people like you to let those of us who use the Vision Pro daily for entertainment and work that we’re weak-minded and have been brainwashed into buying a product that’s trash.

 

[SAIRUS]

If Steve was alive, he'd make a killer feature for the Vision Pro, and show you how it would change your life. If there was no killer feature, it probably wouldn't be released. The killer feature would have to justify the price.

Tim releases the product with a wonderful ecosystem and platform, and says "You do it", meanwhile developers have to entice people to the platform, and deal with whatever corporate shenanigans that lead to such a high barrier of entry for the platform. So the responsibility of a killer feature is on the developer, and it has to justify being so killer, to overcome the price point, and ease of use.


Great setup Tim Apple.

 

[switz]

I would guess Apple has made less than 50,000 VP headsets. How many new Apple laptops were made last year? Perhaps several million?

Which target market has the potential for the most sales?

Why would a potential developer spend time, effort and money for perhaps a few thousand sales in the VP market when the same resources could generate a product with potentially hundreds of thousands possible customers?

That is why the Apple VP was sort of stillborn. Apple does not have enough faith in the Gen one VP product to even accept them back as a trade in on the new model.

Apple gives the middle finger to the first generation VP buyers.

Reminds me of the Ford Edsel that was called an Oldsmobile sucking a lemon.... Not a lot of sales and dropped from the product line up quickly despite the millions spent on design and creating a production line.

 

[urtules]

the AVP is not a product, it's an insurance policy.
Apple all terrified that their precious iPhone could be replaced by something (AR, VR, MR, ambient computing, whatever magical pendant Ive is cooking up with OpenAI).
I'm pretty sure they're jumping at shadows though. Smartphones will remain our main computing devices into the foreseeable future.

I think it can replace iPad. It will get only lighter and more affordable, battery live will improve. I have no desire to own iPad while Vision Pro is so much more capable.

 

[citysnaps]

I’m glad that we have people like you to let those of us who use the Vision Pro daily for entertainment and work that we’re weak-minded and have been brainwashed into buying a product that’s trash.

Yeah... the grade school slams regarding AVP fall into three general categories: it's trash, the four people who own them blah blah blah, and the 2 AVP developers making apps blah blah blah.

It's a shame that people who are genuinely interested in AVP and its potential going forward have to wade through all of that.

 

[zacware]

The comments on here are insane. Imagine if the first cell phone was shelved by Motorola because it was "too expensive" or "too heavy". Several years immediately before AND after the wright bothers make their first flight, "experts" were saying that manned flight would never amount to anything. Wow. The first Mac was also "too expensive" and "had no apps". The work being done now on Vision OS is going to eventually wind up being the OS for some sort of augmented reality device that will be the beginning of the end of the phone.

 

[Jumpthesnark]

Yeah... the grade school slams regarding AVP fall into three general categories: it's trash, the four people who own them blah blah blah, and the 2 AVP developers making apps blah blah blah.

It's a shame that people who are genuinely interested in AVP and its potential going forward have to wade through all of that.

Threads like these do serve a purpose, though. Sadly, it's related to the "ignore" button when it comes to the people who post the tired cliché jabs at a device they don't own, and have no other interest in. I wish MR had a better way to filter a thread like this, but that's the tool we have.

 

[hoorayberet00]

Spatial computing is the future. Hell, I’m writing this as a passenger in a car while wearing VP.

I’m very happy with visionOS but I encourage everyone to vent your feedback directly to Apple.

 

[richinaus]

The comments on here are insane. Imagine if the first cell phone was shelved by Motorola because it was "too expensive" or "too heavy". Several years immediately before AND after the wright bothers make their first flight, "experts" were saying that manned flight would never amount to anything. Wow. The first Mac was also "too expensive" and "had no apps". The work being done now on Vision OS is going to eventually wind up being the OS for some sort of augmented reality device that will be the beginning of the end of the phone.

I dont understand why people cannot imagine beyond the now.

I remember seeing someone's dad at school with a briefcase phone in the 80's. It was huge, heavy, and my dad couldn't afford one, and didnt want one because of the size and weight.

Now the homeless on the streets have smart phones.

So in a 40 year span, we have moved from from large heavy boxes to the Iphone Air.
Why on earth can we not move from large, heavy headset to lightweight glasses / some wearable device? Seems extremely plausible to me.

 

[CWallace]

Why would an app developer go to all the effort to make a "killer app" for a product with no user base... ? The only way this is going to happen is if Apple pay the developers handsomely for making a product with (most probably) zero return on investment

Immersive, spatial video will likely be one of those "killer apps". When AVP dropped, the only way to do it was to bodge together multiple super-expensive cameras that really were not designed to create that kind of video. In the intervening two years, filmmakers are starting to embrace the format and more and more video/camera hardware and software companies are developing dedicated and polished products to create this kind of content and soon enough it will start to flood the market.

Samsung (and by extension, Google), are seeing this and that is why they are now entering the market with the Galaxy XR and Android AR. I expect YouTube to start supporting spatial video soon (if it already doesn't) and I expect they will then release a dedicated YouTube app for the AVP.

 

[Rychiar]

for me, the best use is watching high-quality films. For some reason, the HBO Max app has dropped the immersive environments. Granted they only had one, but it was still a nice way to watch a movie. Also, it would be nice if there were other film watching apps that had the ability to use the Apple immersive environment of being in a movie theater.

And for the haters and trolls that are gonna post the negative comments, yes, it’s expensive so what. The latest MacBook Pro is also quite expensive.

They have 2 now…

 

[Rychiar]

Because it doesn’t fundamentally solve the “killer app” problem with Vision Pro, nor does it improve social acceptance. Apple isn’t in the market for making a huge monitor. Most people don’t need one and it’s such a small market. The market is clearly leaning towards glasses, which don’t have that social isolation problem.

Samsung’s XR device retails for $1,799 and has a much higher resolution than Vision Pro. But still, the core problem remains.

Gurman doesn’t believe Apple sees a future either with VP.

“I wasn’t surprised that Apple chose not to cut the Vision Pro’s price when it released the M5 model, but doing so probably would have helped the device. The problem is, Apple doesn’t really believe in this category in the long term.”

“Much higher resolution” so not true. I think it’s even practically less in some scenarios

 

[avro707]

I’ve seen multiple comments on here about how the best use for VP is as a Mac display/entertainment. If that’s the case why doesn’t apple just lean it to that and make a VP lite that’s stripped of all unnecessary components, make it plastic and sell it for around 600 bucks. I’m sure it would sell

Perhaps the killer combination would be iPhone type device with combined MacOS and iOS with power by the hour cloud computing connection (no more desktop or laptop macs), and this mobile device would connect to a VR headset?

The power by the hour cloud compute would require users to subscribe for that, providing a great profit stream for Apple.

Existing M powered computers would receive no OS updates going forward to encourage users to move to the new platform. Plus on social media an army of people would be posting there to encourage people to change over, kind of like what happened during the transition from Intel power.

 

[Corpuscle]

The Vision Pro gets more love from Apple than the AirPods Max, Mac Pro, and all HomePods combined.

Do you have any proof of that?

 

[hexcalibur]

It seems to me the AVP issue is reflected in VR headsets as a whole. I've owned a Quest 2 and Quest 3 and, while the tech is impressive, it remains a novelty for me more than something I feel a need to use (contrast with my iPhone, which has become all but indispensable for my daily life). At this point I can't see VR ever going mainstream due mostly to the practical limitations of the hardware (weight, battery life). It feels like Apple is subsidizing the software side hugely while waiting for the hardware breakthroughs needed to make VR/AR glasses a viable consumer product. But then, so's everybody else....

 

[Levithescienceguy]

Really wish the Vision Pro had a Netflix app...loading it from the browser is just not the same.

 

[philfloyduk]

Seems like another step for Apple to try and brainwash the weak minded that this product is good. Owning the first gen and seeing there is no trade in it at Apple told us how much they don’t believe in this product. It’s trash.

“It’s trash” ? 😂

 

[Happy_John]

Why would an app developer go to all the effort to make a "killer app" for a product with no user base... ? The only way this is going to happen is if Apple pay the developers handsomely for making a product with (most probably) zero return on investment

Well, that’s how Apple finally got ports of AAA games like Cyberpunk and the Resident Evil remakes onto their platforms (or so the rumours go).

The Vision Pro really does need more apps and big name games.

 

[Selena Agna]

I dont understand why people cannot imagine beyond the now.

I remember seeing someone's dad at school with a briefcase phone in the 80's. It was huge, heavy, and my dad couldn't afford one, and didnt want one because of the size and weight.

Now the homeless on the streets have smart phones.

So in a 40 year span, we have moved from from large heavy boxes to the Iphone Air.
Why on earth can we not move from large, heavy headset to lightweight glasses / some wearable device? Seems extremely plausible to me.

Ah, it's been a while since I heard the "on an infinite timescale ..." argument.

Still, tell me this then: How can you be so sure that strapping a VR headset to your face is going to be "the future"?

Like, in which way, in a hypothetical future, would that have preferable usability beyond a phone or tablet form factor?


Like, how do you know this isn't just techbros trying to justify to themselves spending 3500 bucks on a hobby?

 

[citysnaps]

I dont understand why people cannot imagine beyond the now.

I remember seeing someone's dad at school with a briefcase phone in the 80's. It was huge, heavy, and my dad couldn't afford one, and didnt want one because of the size and weight.

Now the homeless on the streets have smart phones.

So in a 40 year span, we have moved from from large heavy boxes to the Iphone Air.
Why on earth can we not move from large, heavy headset to lightweight glasses / some wearable device? Seems extremely plausible to me.

I think a lot of people are so wrapped up into making a case for disliking Apple every single day of the year, they're not able to think outside the box with respect to AVP's potential. Which would be in conflict with their negative views about Apple in general. And thus have little motivation or curiosity to do a bit of research to understand what VR and AR are about, and how AVP can be used in that space.

 

[Hajj.david]

If that were true, then why won't Apple accept 1st gen Vision Pro's as trade-in for credit?

Apple Confirms Vision Pro is Not Eligible for Trade-In

Apple today confirmed it will not be allowing customers to trade in the original Vision Pro toward the purchase of the new model or any other device....

www.macrumors.com

Since when has apple EVER accepted trade ins for intimate items like headphones or airpods?

I would guess Apple has made less than 50,000 VP headsets. How many new Apple laptops were made last year? Perhaps several million?

Which target market has the potential for the most sales?

Why would a potential developer spend time, effort and money for perhaps a few thousand sales in the VP market when the same resources could generate a product with potentially hundreds of thousands possible customers?

That is why the Apple VP was sort of stillborn. Apple does not have enough faith in the Gen one VP product to even accept them back as a trade in on the new model.

Apple gives the middle finger to the first generation VP buyers.

Reminds me of the Ford Edsel that was called an Oldsmobile sucking a lemon.... Not a lot of sales and dropped from the product line up quickly despite the millions spent on design and creating a production line.

They made and sold around 500k units.

Ah, it's been a while since I heard the "on an infinite timescale ..." argument.

Still, tell me this then: How can you be so sure that strapping a VR headset to your face is going to be "the future"?

Like, in which way, in a hypothetical future, would that have preferable usability beyond a phone or tablet form factor?


Like, how do you know this isn't just techbros trying to justify to themselves spending 3500 bucks on a hobby?

This form factor maybe niche, personally me I find it to be the best productivity and entertainment device, but its a building block to either glasses or thinner, lighter, and easier to deal it.

 

[threesixty360]

Since when has apple EVER accepted trade ins for intimate items like headphones or airpods?

They made and sold around 500k units.

This form factor maybe niche, personally me I find it to be the best productivity and entertainment device, but its a building block to either glasses or thinner, lighter, and easier to deal it.

And I bet that Apple doesn’t sell a lot more than 500k units of anything over $3.5k!
High end mac pro’s and even MacBooks with 2 or 4tb don’t sell millions of units.
People have “iPhoneitus” when it comes to Apple. If it’s not doing iPhone numbers it’s not viable. There are people who think the iPad is a failure because it does not have “pro apps”. Yet I think it must sell far more units than MacBooks do (with an average selling price of $300 you’d expect that) given the revenues for the mac and iPad business are pretty similar.

It’s all about perspectives and who’s telling the story. For some reason there are people who always get mad at whoever is at the top. Mentally anyone at the top needs to be brought down a peg. It’s just odd. Just enjoy the tech. Expensive tech deserves to exist just as much as affordable tech.

Also, the idea that you need millions of units sold for a dev to make money is silly. It’s probably easier to make money on the VP because the audience is smaller and focused. They really want software and anything good is going to get promoted pretty well in the community. Also you can sell software for a higher price if the customer base is smaller. It’s not like VP users that spent that much on a product then won’t spend a few bucks more on an app they like.

The reality is VP is hard to develop for. It takes a mind shift. You can’t just port 2d apps over like devs love to do cos it’s cheap and easy. I think Apple knew they just had to get the product out there to see if enthusiasts would make new and original things for the platform that take advantage of everything that’s there. I think that’s the biggest obstacle.

It’s interesting how there are millions of Android users but all the best audio apps for mobile started on iPhone. Mainly because enthusiasts saw potential in the platform rather than just how many units they could sell. That’s the target. Emthusism. Let it live or die on that hill.

 

[citysnaps]

And I bet that Apple doesn’t sell a lot more than 500k units of anything over $3.5k!
High end mac pro’s and even MacBooks with 2 or 4tb don’t sell millions of units.
People have “iPhoneitus” when it comes to Apple. If it’s not doing iPhone numbers it’s not viable. There are people who think the iPad is a failure because it does not have “pro apps”. Yet I think it must sell far more units than MacBooks do (with an average selling price of $300 you’d expect that) given the revenues for the mac and iPad business are pretty similar.

It’s all about perspectives and who’s telling the story. For some reason there are people who always get mad at whoever is at the top. Mentally anyone at the top needs to be brought down a peg. It’s just odd. Just enjoy the tech. Expensive tech deserves to exist just as much as affordable tech.

Also, the idea that you need millions of units sold for a dev to make money is silly. It’s probably easier to make money on the VP because the audience is smaller and focused. They really want software and anything good is going to get promoted pretty well in the community. Also you can sell software for a higher price if the customer base is smaller. It’s not like VP users that spent that much on a product then won’t spend a few bucks more on an app they like.

The reality is VP is hard to develop for. It takes a mind shift. You can’t just port 2d apps over like devs love to do cos it’s cheap and easy. I think Apple knew they just had to get the product out there to see if enthusiasts would make new and original things for the platform that take advantage of everything that’s there. I think that’s the biggest obstacle.

It’s interesting how there are millions of Android users but all the best audio apps for mobile started on iPhone. Mainly because enthusiasts saw potential in the platform rather than just how many units they could sell. That’s the target. Emthusism. Let it live or die on that hill.

Very well reasoned - thank you!