This is like saying you need a hifi system or expensive headphones and high res lossless encoding to enjoy music…
Plenty of people are fine listening to music with airpods, and with watching movies on a Quest
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Meta Cancels High-End Mixed Reality Headset After Apple Vision Pro Struggles
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Plenty of people are fine listening to music with airpods, and with watching movies on a Quest
No but the official Apple and family approved story is that it’s a privilege for devs to be on the App Store and that Apple doesn’t need them 😅😅
Most people who had the money lying around for a $1k gimmick headset went for the Vision Pro which made the $1k headset no longer feasible. It's pretty easy to understand.
For casual use, it's a cumbersome solution looking for a problem but for the things it's good at (gaming, arch-viz...) it's a game changer:
The problem is that where it shines (in my opinion) is when attached to a PC, and that can make it very expensive very quickly. A "Camry" VR setup is currently as follows:
- $500 for a Quest 3.
- About $100 for accessories (cables, batteries, etc)
- $600 for a mid-high end GPU at a minimum (and another $800 for the rest of the PC).
Add to that the usual accessories that are normally used for the type of applications VR is good for (steering wheel, yoke, HOTAS, etc) which can be another $300 easily and can run into the thousands.
It's expensive, but it doesn't suck.
Listen, everyone—I know the truth can be hard to hear, but it needs to be said: VR is a flop. Only a small number of people will buy it, while the majority will pass. VR is heading the same way as 3D TVs, which also failed. Apple will eventually pull it from stores. Even if the price drops, people still won't buy it.
But that's also highlights why general purpose VR isn't going to work. The general public aren't getting VR despite the fact that good games exists. It's the overall act of having to put on the VR headset that's causing resistance.
That’s true for some as far as the headset form factor: In the spectrum of spatial computing, a headset is the desktop of spatial computing while more mainstream forms of spatial computing with way more mainstream appeal (but much more limited horsepower and other trade-offs) such as glasses and contacts are the laptop/phones of spatial computing.
The average person has rudimentary/modest needs and skill with computers and can get buy with XR glasses, but people with far more involved need for computers cannot be accommodated well by such devices.
For those who have been well versed in tech and have continually chased more optimal and convenient use, versatility, immersiveness, and accessibility of digital technology, XR tech was always the continual holy grail of leveraging technology.
This is similar to ray-tracing being the holy grail of graphics for 3D professionals/enthusiasts since ancient times.
Spatial computing also maximizes the spatial intelligence of a meaningful amount of people to use tech more effectively.
It also has great accessibility and ergonomic implications (especially in the AR space).
That said it caters to those in the spectrum of embracing tech that is more exclusionary such as fundamentally more expensive than traditional computing and other ways of being less able to be used by all.
Accordingly there is thinly veiled fear and resentment of the technology taking off—especially by those who subjectively thing it’s “dystopian” that people can have a screen directly on their face and paranoia about surveillance.
No, that’s disingenuous. Standards change over time and it’s much like listening to content in mono instead of stereo with the state of technology today to follow your train of thought.
HDR is very much expected in premium home content being more noticeable than most resolution quality tiers.
So much so; great lengths are taken to carefully limit the highest end HDR version of content in places/platforms piracy is rampant.
Regardless, paying much more for a platform that’s supposed to take interactive entertainment to the next level only to play worser titles and consume non-VR content worser than most consumer devices is a tough sell and the main point.
Let’s not deviate and trail away from that.
Last edited:
Some developers would agree with that assertion but not enough. This is only about money and not principals on either side so Apple can fix this by simply greasing a few numbers.
Too obvious, people dont need it and that's it. This is why Apple Vision Pro is a failure and even Apple confirmed that they are struggling with its sale. Since Apple failed to convince people why we need to use AR/VR devices, it will NEVER be successful.
This. One big problem is that the best VR gaming experiences require more GPU firepower than any stand alone HMD can come close to delivering. Without gaming you are left with 3D videos (also cool, but niche and basically very few available) and productivity apps that are only useful for about 0.0001% of the population.
some people dont like the new standards. i turn off HDR myself (^-^; the bright areas get too bright for me. i also dont listen with spacial audio or dolby atmos. to each their own
i think my analogy is fine, some people watch movies for the stories and the characters, not the visuals, just like some people listen to music for the songwriting and emotion and dont care about audio fidelity
Good decision by Meta. Not available here in Mexico yet, but got a chance to try a Vision Pro set and I thought I was going to be mind blown... and I hate to say it, but I wasn't. They are not that awkward and heavy, and never experienced any sort of pain anywhere the whole hour and a half I used them, so it wasn't discomfort. Like most people, I couldn't really find any sort of useful task to perform with them other than watching regular videos by myself. Not even as an extension of a Macbook desktop or as a floating screen like many wish to use them. Was not impressed by 3D pics and videos, either. The quality most people are used to for hi res images and videos is not in those. At no time I was tricked into thinking I was watching a déjà-vu scene of what I shot with them. They are definitely better than Meta's Quest 2 and 3 sets regarding tracking and passthrough video, but still have a lot of quirks with hand gestures and eye tracking for tasks like selections and swipes. Dedicated 3D CGI content like the dinosaurs demo and the virtual nature environments look nice, though... but that's the only kinda cool thing about them. Piqued my interest on the PSVR2 for use with Gran Turismo 7 and the force feedback wheel at home.
Love Apple's stuff, but this product isn't up there with Macs and iPhones yet. I hope it does improve in later iterations and finds its niche.
Love Apple's stuff, but this product isn't up there with Macs and iPhones yet. I hope it does improve in later iterations and finds its niche.
Agree to all, but haven't used VR2. My problem is the device is rather useless without a keyboard, and then it begs the question.
And putting my laptop in there is great, but then I have to drag both it and the cumbersome headset in a bag.
The Apple official bag is not for everyday commuting and etc. It’s a conventional travel (rugged) case vs. something far more smaller and practical for your use case such as Westfield’s bag.
This very site reviewed it: https://www.macrumors.com/2024/02/08/waterfield-new-vision-pro-shield-case/
Prosumers understand this distinction but an everyday consumer or novice probably won’t.
Last edited:
Not going to repeat my self especially after being very clear about what I said. I'm out.
Yes.
iLife was the suite of killer apps that came with every Mac after Steve returned.
The original iPhone came with the Music + Safari + Camera + Photos + YouTube + Maps + Visual Voice Mail.
The iPad's killer apps were the Bookstore + Safari + Maps... and did it also coincide with iLife coming to iOS? I don't recall.
The Apple Watch -1 (the last of the iPod Nanos, before Cook rebranded it to Apple Watch) had Fitness.
I'd say the Apple TV's killer app was AirPlay. It's a bit minor in comparison, but it moved units.
And then... HomePod and Vision Pro both just shipped without a reason to buy them, and it seems like Apple is clueless about why sales have been so low for them.
iLife and iWork were paid bundles sold separately until well into the Cook era before Apple made them free downloads on the App Store. In any case, the Mac was already a well established (albeit declining) platforms with a lot of compatible software before the second Jobs era, and Mac OS 9 softwares were all available through classic mode on OS X.
None of which, arguably, was the catalyst for the insane success it became if it wasn’t for the introduction of multitouch and later on the app store. All of those features already existed in one form or another on earlier PDAs and smartphones.
iLife and iWork only came to the iPad after iPad 2, again as paid apps at the time. No one was buying the iPad purely for the bookstore either since Kindles were well established by then. The iPad’s success relied heavily on the existing developer community of the iPhone developing touch friendly apps that took advantage of the large screen instead of just enlarging smartphones apps like what happened for years on android.
Yes it had fitness, but so did a lot of other watches before it. Apple didn’t start focusing heavily on health and fitness features until after series 2 and 3. Arguably a lot of its success has to do with how much it piggybacks off of iPhones and other Apple devices with Apple Pay/notifications/device unlock/Apple TV remote/ etc.
Apple TV was one of the first (if not the first) set-top boxes that let users stream content over the internet to their TVs. AirPlay was not introduced until years after the first gen launched.
So, I stand by my argument that all of the successful first gen Apple product did not ship with a “killer app” that drove sales by itself. They provided interaction paradigms and platforms for later features and apps, both by Apple themselves or (more importantly) by third-party devs.
Last edited:
I put the Apple Vision Pro in a bellroy camera bag. No one has made an even remotely good carrying device for it, so I gave up looking about the same time I gave up using the Vision Pro. I have since sold it at extreme loss. Waste of money.
…The Waterfield bag referenced is absolutely seen as a good bag for it.
Sorry you couldn’t justify the product for your computing needs towards being not a good investment for you.
Would it kill them to have a should sling strap? I had to sew one into the Apple case, but it ripped easily and I gave up and just bought a camera bag from my favorite. When I did use it everyday, those bags are cumbersome and I am always moving around. I don't take a backpack with me sometimes and the camera bag has a sling and room for an iPad mini and my phone.