Apple's Vision Pro Developer Labs Not Drawing Many Attendees

[prime17569]

There are three reasons I see why this is happening:

1. Vision Pro is only launching in the US initially, so there may only be limited developer interest internationally.
2. The only US labs are in Cupertino. If they offered labs on the East Coast (e.g. New York, Philadelphia) then more developers would be inclined to sign up.
3. Many developers appear to be focused on bringing their existing iPhone and iPad apps to Vision Pro. These apps probably don't need the unique capabilities of the headset, so the simulator is enough for them.

 

[MajorFubar]

I wish I was employed as an Apple advisor. Ever since the launch of the original iPod (and assuming my prediction ends up being true that this thing will not be as successful as Apple expect) I will have been 100% successful in predicting whether new devices Apple have introduced will be a hit or miss. You can call that pure luck or you can call it being more in tune to reality on account of the fact I'm not a billionaire living in a bubble.

 

[timborama]

The product will be DOA.

 

[klasma]

People seem to forget that Apple hasn’t had a successful new product in a long, long time.

The iPhone is 16 years old. Arguably the iPad and Apple Watch were successful products after that, but even the Apple Watch is 8 years old (and, worth remembering, largely developed under Steve Jobs as the iPod Touch Nano - none of Apple’s successes actually stem from Tim Cook as CEO.)

The last really successful new product type were the AirPods (2016). And that’s because they provide a significant, easy to understand, and universally applicable practical benefit, the basic function is simple and “just works”, while also still being relatively affordable.

A clunky, expensive pie-in-the-sky high-concept product like the Vision Pro is bound to have a much, much harder time to find a sustainable audience.

 

[nt5672]

There are far more uses than that. Do a wee bit of research.

Why, most potential users won't do that research and without potential users it is a flop.

 

[Sevendaymelee]

I sure hope this isn't the new Newton. I'm ready for quality VR, and we're never going to get there if developers keep thinking short-term.

 

[klasma]

2. The only US labs are in Cupertino. If they offered labs on the East Coast (e.g. New York, Philadelphia) then more developers would be inclined to sign up.

That wouldn’t change anything about the Cupertino lab being under-filled, though. If anything, it would become even less visited.

Of course, it’s still early and summer.

 

[nt5672]

There's many applications of mixed reality headsets because just those two

Engineers use HMDs for making CAD models, as they can shape the model in a 3D environment and simulate any errors in real time

The US military uses VR for training pilots

Museums use headsets for exhibit tours. The Louvre in Paris is especially notable for this

There's even recently been 3D artists who use VR to create their works.

So there's reasons for the headsets. The problem ultimately is the price of the device, and Apple being Apple. The VR industry is known for being very open, and here comes Apple with a $3500 headset that closed as hell, limited to an app store that only allows apps Apple approves. Meta openly supports sideloading, to the point they implemented a system called App Lab where developers can launch their apps and games on the Quest before they get store approval, and endorsing the third party sideloading app store SideQuest.

Limiting the Vision Pro to just the Apple App Store is honestly a massive mistake and turning VR developers away.

Apple abandoned the business and engineering markets years ago. Not sure they were ever in the military markets. All of these that you mention now use PCs, not Apple hardware. That was not always the case.

 

[LIVEFRMNYC]

No I think the OP was right; if Apple can't crack the market, I don't think investors will be willing to give money out to anyone else to try, either.

The market is already growing without Apple as it is. If the Vision Pro fails, the market just won't get that big push that's expected.

 

[SSDGUY]

The aspect of the device costing $3500 may be off-putting in itself.

For anyone serious about developing for this technology, price is not a hurdle. Heck, in 1984 the first Macintosh was $2,495.

 

[Realityck]

Is this not the sci-fi holy grail of personal computing people have been imagining for decades (albeit with some first-gen limitations)? Apple fans, have we not seen Apple tackle things like battery life, size, price, nascent app ecosystems, and social skepticism a dozen times in the past 25 years?

Its doesn't even approach Alan Kays 1988 knowledge navigator concept at all. It's still an interesting product along with VisionOS, but does it do enough to eclipse/obsolete all the current products lines that Apples sells, not at all. Society is more interested in tools that make discovering and using/working with knowledge easier. At this time what is there about Vision Pro that does that? I think most of us see this as a start of a progression of technology away from a computer screen, but is it terribly useful outside a solo usage?

 

[rjjacobson]

I really want to develop for it but I can’t think of anything cool. Maybe a few kids apps but who is going to give a $3,500 headset to a kid?

I am playing with SDK simulator and trying to make something that way. Fun to play with but not sure what will transpire from my attempts

 

[nfl46]

If there actually was a high developer interest, one would expect the numbers to be high for that single location, because it’s the only one available in the US.

Yeah, you missed the part where it says, "Any developer can apply to attend a developer lab, but Apple is not reimbursing for travel, and developers located on the east coast of the United States will have to fund cross-country travel to get to the lab."

Maybe money is tight even for developers. They're paying out of pocket for flights, hotels, etc. When Apple could just set these locations up in different major cities and make it more convenient for others to show up.

 

[Spaceboi Scaphandre]

Apple abandoned the business and engineering markets years ago.

If that were true they wouldn't not have opened the Apple Business Essentials and doing all the Underdogs skit ads.

Not sure they were ever in the military markets.

They actually are. The US Military and Federal government are part of the Enterprise Program. At my job we recently just got a lot of iPhones that were surplus from the orders the US Navy made.

All of these that you mention now use PCs, not Apple hardware. That was not always the case.

Actually in terms of the Louvre they use standalone HMDs.

 

[klasma]

For anyone serious about developing for this technology, price is not a hurdle.

The price is a hurdle for the developers’ target audience.

 

[klasma]

Yeah, you missed the part where it says, "Any developer can apply to attend a developer lab, but Apple is not reimbursing for travel, and developers located on the east coast of the United States will have to fund cross-country travel to get to the lab."

I didn’t miss that. My point is that if the Cupertino lab is under-booked, adding more developer labs elsewhere won’t change the fact that it is under-booked. If anything, it would become even more under-booked.

 

[dcingie]

You mean people don’t want to travel to California just to attend this? Color me shocked.

 

[hugogogo2003]

Very disappointed with the small-minded responses on this thread - they seem more like standard YouTube trolls than people who have followed Apple and the tech industry.

Vision has no use case? It displays *anything anywhere* without needing a PC/console and without completely disconnecting you from others, has spatial audio without covering your ears, and the interface doesn’t require hardware controllers. Even just using windowed apps in an immersive environment looks amazing. People at WWDC were moved to tears by the 3D camera (“Dystopia!” Or how about you detach the straps and film holding it in your hands? 🤷🏻‍♂️). The potential for integration with AppleTV+, Apple Films, Apple Music, NextVR (sports), and Disney is huge.

Is this not the sci-fi holy grail of personal computing people have been imagining for decades (albeit with some first-gen limitations)? Apple fans, have we not seen Apple tackle things like battery life, size, price, nascent app ecosystems, and social skepticism a dozen times in the past 25 years?

iMac: looks fruity and unprofessional! Doesn’t even have a floppy drive!
iPod: expensive, over-engineered museum piece
Mac OS X: all eye candy, missing features
iTunes: nobody will buy digital music! People have CDs & Napster
iPhone: 3x as expensive as a Blackberry, no keyboard, 3G, or third party apps
iPad: nobody wants a giant iPhone with a silly feminine hygiene name
MacBook Air: form over function, nobody wants a computer missing a CD drive
Apple Watch: clearly just for nerds and tech fashionistas; FitBit beat them to the punch!
AirPods: OMG it looks like you have cotton swabs in your ears.

Time after time, the short-sighted people make their digs. And 2-4 years later everyone and their mom wants one, and they’ve moved on to hating the next thing.

Btw it doesn’t need to sell 200 million units like the iPhone to be successful. How many Studio and XDR displays, or Mac Pros, or Mac Studios does Apple sell at $2K-$6K? Hell, even the most successful Macs sell something like 1/50th the unit sales as iPhone.

I disagree with the comparisons. Some cynical bloggers and journalists liked to criticised these products, but the public was usually interested right away. Also all these products categories were already popular before Apple came in:

iMac: most homes were already equipped with a computer when it came out. Also it was around the same price as other computers.
iPod: tons of people had cd, minidisc, tape players, and a healthy start on MP3 players. All being small-ish portable devices to listen to music. Not a niche behaviour/category by any means. iPods looked super cool and stylish. Similarly priced to high-end devices on the market but miles ahead.
iTunes: indispensable platform for iPods which became the most popular mp3 players.
iPhone: everyone had a mobile phone in their pocket or purse, and NO ONE had ever produced a touchscreen experience like Apple's. It was magical from day one even without 3G. It was a true revolution in touch experience and overall UI, so so much faster than any competitor. Same price category as high-end Nokia or LG phones.
iPad: always been a giant iPhone and that's why people loved it. iPhone was already established as a king by the time iPad came in. Apart from niche usage, and despite how Apple is trying to market it, to most people it's just a giant iPhone, great to watch TV series, YT videos, browse the web or send emails. A good babysitter too. Affordable too, much cheaper than expected.
MacBook Air: laptops were already an established category. Getting thinner and lighter would have been beneficial to most people. At the time netbooks were already popular. The first MacBook Air was too expensive and underpowered, and only the 2011 revamped model became a success as it worked much better for almost half the price.
Apple Watch: most people had watches, not niche. Ended up being successful as a fitness device mainly. It's small and comes in cheap versions. It's a more advanced Fitbit which people were already using more and more.
AirPods: everyone had headphones/earphones. Wireless ones becoming super popular. AirPods has magical setup and were so easy to use, with great autonomy, great sound quality. They were instantly successful and were sold out when launched. Also affordable compared to tons of headphones.

None of these products compare to AR/VR headsets. This is still an extremely niche category despite all the buzz around VR back in 2014. A decade of pure niche. They're big and bulky and and only be used in certain cases compared to other portable devices on that list. They're the most antisocial device Apple has made, regardless of how you can see through and how your eyes are displayed. You look like a dork wearing them, wayyyy more than any existing wearable devices. And finally Apple's version costs a fortune. Super niche market, super niche behaviour with no prior equivalent, and extremely high price. You can't compare to any of the products on that list. As an Apple fan and new product enthusiast, I cannot get excited or see an actual future for this and none of my Apple-loving friends can. If it was a super advanced version of the Snapchat spectacles, maybe, because it would be just like wearing sunglasses (popular behaviour), but definitely not this.

 

[MuppetGate]

If there actually was a high developer interest, one would expect the numbers to be high for that single location, because it’s the only one available in the US.

Not if you have to travel. I’d be more interested to know how many dev kits they’ve shifted.

 

[Waxhead138]

If word got out that Apple needed to pay their expenses to get a product off the ground there would be no end of jokes. It has to be far enough along in establishing a marketplace so it attracts developers, at this point what do we think the initial sales will be like at $3500 for Vision Pro, say maybe 20,000 units? It reminds one of the 8K marketplace, no media, no sales. So a better thing would be for Apple to partner with a limited number of more experienced developers for accelerating development of what considered the most important VisioOS apps to start out with.

Well....admittedly I don't know....how often (if ever) has Apple paid travel expenses to developers in similar situations?

My first thought: Apple not supporting devs in a case where a product already has a very questionable future, well before launch, says to me Apple isn't exactly supporting the product very well internally. That doesn't bode well imo for the future of this device.

Edit: And I truly would love to see it succeed.

 

[anthogag]

Developers are crazy not to get help from Vision labs at Apple. A flight to Cupertino is a business expense and development cost for your app is probably reduced because you're getting help from Apple engineers and designers.
Help Apple help you.

Who knows how many commenters are trolling this site, perhaps paid trolls with a mission to poo-poo Vision Pro.

 

[nt5672]

If that were true they wouldn't not have opened the Apple Business Essentials and doing all the Underdogs skit ads.

Just because they opened a program does not mean that they serve the market. Apple likely realizes they should not have abandoned the business market. Many times over the years Apple has waffled back and forth about the business market. Any business that commits anything to Apple other than iPhones is going to be seriously disappointed, because Apple will eventually change its mind.

They actually are. The US Military and Federal government are part of the Enterprise Program. At my job we recently just got a lot of iPhones that were surplus from the orders the US Navy made.

Just because they buy iPhones, does not mean that serve the military market. You're not going to seen Apple AR/VR headsets in military use. The military, outside of iPhones, is strictly PC.

Actually in terms of the Louvre they use standalone HMDs.

I have no idea what this means?

 

[johncarync]

I really want to develop for it but I can’t think of anything cool. Maybe a few kids apps but who is going to give a $3,500 headset to a kid?

I too was trying to come up with something to develop for it. The problem I had was it either would just be something on a virtual screen (nothing groundbreaking and you could view the same thing on a computer) or it would require building an entire world which would take a big staff and millions in development.

The only thing I could come up with that would be unique to the Vision without breaking the development bank was a fun "virtual conscience." There would be an angel version of you sitting on one of your shoulders and a devil version of you on the other. It could use the avatar Vision creates of you for the faces. The idea is that you could say "Hey, conscience..." and then ask for advice. An AI chatbot would feed the avatars answers/advice with an angelic and devilish slant.

Definitely not a money maker, but it would be a relatively low effort way to learn the ropes of developing for it. Most folks would install it, have a couple of laughs, and turn it off.

 

[jclardy]

I feel the labs make little sense, other than to try out the device. As someone on the east coast I have to fly 5 hours to the nearest lab. And it has only been two months since the headset was even announced - nobody building anything significant for the platform will have a major product ready for testing, at this point it'll only be in the design/ideation phase.

And one more thing, the tooling was just released one month ago (VisionOS SDK didn't come out in the first xcode beta this year.)

 

[User 6502]

How can you be so sure? Have you tried Apple Vision Pro? If not, then your opinion holds no meaning.

Interestingly, the same people who predicted the failure of iPhone, Apple Watch, and AirPods are now saying the same about Vision Pro.

Did you ask them one by one? I was confident in iPhone’s future and got the gen 0 Apple Watch. I doubt vision whatever is going to be a success.