Report: Apple Vision Pro Is Still Failing to Catch On

[Kidseeghost]

Pro is too expensive. Maybe release an Air or standard version?

Apple never did Pro first. Pro is just a marketing term for more expensive. See iPhone. Nothing about a phone is Pro. They just put it there to justify the price.

They developed the Vision headset and then the marketing team realized its too expensive so they slapped the Pro name on it to warrant the higher price. It works on iPhones so it will work with headsets too right right?

 

[citysnaps]

While true, that doesn't explain why the people that have bought it end up letting it gather dust. Other than a big screen, there is nothing to do on them.

How do you know that?

 

[Kidseeghost]

I have the Meta 3 headset. It's really cool and different, but a pain the ass to use beyond the initial excitement. The software works really well and the display is really good, but I don't think I've even charged it in six months. I just don't have a use-case that makes it better than picking up a phone, Ipad or PC.

I regret buying it.

Apple should have learned by observing what other companies did first. For a decade now Sony, Meta, Google, MS, etc all learned it the hard way. VR is a dead end and people reject it because it’s uncomfortable, too many hurdles too put on, and isolating.

 

[nt5672]

Its a dead product. Move on. I still don’t know why nobody at the C suit level stopped this. The moment it was unveiled I knew its going to flop. So people who get millions should know that too. And the marketing was bad.

They presented it as every day device walking around the house, cooking, playing with children, taking it outside. Also it looked like a dev kit and the gimmicky eyes made it look creepy. It was too isolating especially after covid where people wanted to socialize more and get rid of screens.

I knew that nobody was willing to walk around with screens and see the world through cameras and history showed VR headsets always flop and are a dead end. Also a retail nightmare because it was to complex to demo. Not only for employees but also for costumers. There was a barrier unlike every other product in the store.

Jony was right when he said they should wait for the glasses. If they wanted to test the software for the glasses why not release a headset that can be used as a Mac display that is lighters and cheaper because it needs the Mac and without the outside display, at the same price as the Studio Display.

Because Cook has no idea about technology and its marketing. He is essentially a cost accountant.

That is why the car failed and why the vision pro will fail.

There was no strategy other than "Build it and maybe they will come". It is going to take Apple decades to overcome Cook's lack of vision. Of course he will retire with great praise and then the other poor SOBs that come after him will get the blame.

 

[citysnaps]

If 390,000 units is correct and assuming that all of those are the base model at $3499 for simplicity…

That’s at least $1,364,610,000 Vision Pro revenue in 2024.

Conclusion: Apple is doomed!

Similar numbers in previous years, as well.

Many people just love ragging on Apple. Every day of the year.

 

[WarmWinterHat]

How do you know that?

People on here, podcast hosts (thinking of AVP, specifically), couple developer friends that bought one, and both ended up selling it from lack of use.

My local Apple Store doesn't even have an AVP out for display anymore.

 

[Kidseeghost]

I also note increasing resistance to watches and devices that are constantly alerting us to some state of doom with our health or fitness. Yet another product that will partially continue this is not something I would adopt.

A new trend is going around right now. Reduce screens in life. Be it phone, watch, refrigerator. People are sick of ads and be constantly available. Most young people even want to go back to flip phones because they grew up with screens everywhere and it wasn’t good for their mental health and these companies what to sell them screens on their face. I predict less tech/screens in your life will be the new I eat healthy and have a good diet. Especially after all the AI slop takes over.

 

[sw1tcher]

How do you know that?

https://www.wsj.com/tech/they-paid-3-500-for-apples-vision-pro-a-year-later-it-still-hurts-496de341

They Paid $3,500 for Apple’s Vision Pro. A Year Later, It Still Hurts.

May 15, 2025

Early adopters of Apple’s Vision Pro headsets have one thing to show for the year they’ve spent with their pricey purchases: regret.

“It’s just collecting dust,” Dustin Fox said about his mixed-reality headset, which looks like futuristic ski goggles. “I think I’ve probably used it four times in the last year.”

The $3,500 device sits in a bin with other gadgets he no longer picks up.


[ . . . ]


Tovia Goldstein was excited to wear his set to watch movies and TV shows. But he ended up needing breaks. “After 60 minutes, you can’t, you just have to throw it down,” he said. He hasn’t touched it in about four months.

 

[citysnaps]

People on here, podcast hosts (thinking of AVP, specifically), couple developer friends that bought one, and both ended up selling it from lack of use.

My local Apple Store doesn't even have an AVP out for display anymore.

That tiny sample is hardly relevant to project onto the number of AVP owners (390,000 purchase for 2024 - with similar numbers in previous years).

Every Apple Store I've been to in the San Francisco Bay Area has AVP on display

 

[Kidseeghost]

Sports is a social experience that brings people together (e.g. tailgates, backyard BBQs) . Marketing the AVP to sports fans would be trying to encourage the complete opposite of that.

Imagine everyone needing to buy a VP just so you can watch sports together. A big TV is cheaper than ever. What was Apple thinking here.

 

[JOLoughlin]

“At $3,500, it’s not a mass-market product” - Tim Cook

“Right now, it’s an early-adopter product. People who want to have tomorrow's technology today—that's who it's for. Fortunately, there's enough people who are in that camp that it's exciting.” - Tim Cook

“We’re perfectly fine with not being first. As it turns out, it takes a while to get it really great. It takes a lot of iteration. It takes worrying about every detail. Sometimes, it takes a little longer to do that. We would rather come out with that kind of product and that kind of contribution to people versus running to get something out first. If we can do both, that's fantastic. But if we can only do one, there's no doubt around here. If you talk to 100 people, 100 of them would tell you: It's about being the best.” - Tim Cook

They know what they’re doing. Playing the long game and they can afford to. But even when Apple was on the verge of bankruptcy they still aimed at quality over market share.

Having said all this, they need to do more for visionOS and the Vision product line.

 

[Kidseeghost]

tbh I love to see this. Apple shipped this product with such arrogance and assumed that developers would jump on board (even charging us $300 for an adapter to allow for wired debugging).

Why did they expect it? After all the App Store drama they should have made it as easy as possible for devs. Because now they know Apple locks them in.

 

[WarmWinterHat]

That tiny sample is hardly relevant to project onto the number of AVP owners (390,000 purchase for 2024 - with similar numbers in previous years).

Every Apple Store I've been to in the San Francisco Bay Area has AVP on display

Sales =/= use.

I live in the northern Midwest. Of course the Bay Area stores will have it.

 

[citysnaps]

https://www.wsj.com/tech/they-paid-3-500-for-apples-vision-pro-a-year-later-it-still-hurts-496de341

They Paid $3,500 for Apple’s Vision Pro. A Year Later, It Still Hurts.

May 15, 2025

Early adopters of Apple’s Vision Pro headsets have one thing to show for the year they’ve spent with their pricey purchases: regret.

“It’s just collecting dust,” Dustin Fox said about his mixed-reality headset, which looks like futuristic ski goggles. “I think I’ve probably used it four times in the last year.”

The $3,500 device sits in a bin with other gadgets he no longer picks up.


[ . . . ]


Tovia Goldstein was excited to wear his set to watch movies and TV shows. But he ended up needing breaks. “After 60 minutes, you can’t, you just have to throw it down,” he said. He hasn’t touched it in about four months.

Out of the 390,000 AVPs sold in 2024 (with similar numbers in previous years), how many owners of AVP did the WSJ talk to in order to render that conclusion?

 

[tuckerjj]

Data from IDC claims that Apple shipped 390,000 Vision Pro units in 2024.

Umm, bearing in mind all the stories flying around at launch that Sony could only make displays in the high hundreds of thousands, meaning pairs for headsets would only be available in the low hundreds of thousands, 390,000 sounds like they sold every headset they could make.

Not saying that’s correct, but comparing that number to the number of headsets they were actually able to make makes more sense than comparing it to the number of iPhones, iPads and MacBooks sold.

A more interesting comparison would be to another “taste of the future” device, the original Apple Macintosh, which looks to have sold roughly the same number, or less according to some sources, in its first year.

 

[axantas]

How do you know that?

He read about it. It is not his own experience, but there were reports about it...

 

[Kidseeghost]

I guess Apple should not have dumped the gaming market decades ago.

Still hoping for a Apple TV Pro/Apple Arcade console. They can even under cut Playstation in price. Now that Microsoft is leaving the gaming hardware market its the perfect time for Apple to enter.

 

[citysnaps]

Sales =/= use.

I live in the northern Midwest.

But that doesn't address how many AVP owners were sampled (ie interviewed) to render the conclusion AVPs are gathering dust?

 

[WarmWinterHat]

Still hoping for a Apple TV Pro/Apple Arcade console. They can even under cut Playstation in price. Now that Microsoft is leaving the gaming hardware market its the perfect time for Apple to enter.

Apple doesn't need to drop another flusher.

The Switch has already been undercutting the Playstation price for years.

 

[contacos]

It was pretty dumb of them not to launch it with some exclusive content available upon launch. No one cares about some emoji about yourself when you can just do a FaceTime call with your actual face from the device you have always been using (iPhone). Should have pushed it with something like "Taylor Swift - The Eras tour" only available on Vision Pro

 

[Corefile]

They did what they were meant to do which is to suck income from early adopters. Apple have pretty much wrung every dollar from that category of buyer now so mission accomplished.

 

[cateye]

This "flop" brought in $157 million dollars in a single quarter.

We should all be so lucky with our "flops"

For a company Apple's size it is a flop, even at that number. It's a distraction from more important, more profitable, more practical, more consumer-facing products that need Apple's all-hands-on-deck attention right now.

The usual self-inflating crowd around here who pretends to represent the will and wishes of Lord Holy Christ Almighty Jobs himself are always calling for Apple to find its focus again, to produce products that are great and dismiss the ones that are not. Cutting this albatross loose would be a fine first step.

 

[SanderEvers]

And this was meant to replace the iPhone... Apple should either just abandon it, or reduce the price to max $1000. Because like this, it's just an expensive gimmick nobody wants.

 

[chrono1081]

Spatial Computer is marking fluff. Most people use it to watch movies, if they use it at all.

No it's not. The use case is irrelevant, the capability is.

A lot of people use it as a spacial computer, that's one of its biggest draws.

 

[nfl46]

I have a sneaking suspicion this is because it is $3,499

Bingo! Lol.

The device itself is reallllllly good at what it does but that damn near $4K with taxes would have a person thinking wtf. Lol.