sure the Vision Pro got a chip refresh, and will probably get software updates for a couple/few years, but further Vision Pro hardware development has been abandoned in favour of glasses
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Report: Cheaper Apple Vision Pro Display Work Winds Down at Samsung
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lilkwarrior
macrumors 6502a
Again, let's not state rumors and speculation as fact. You conveniently skip that people were denying the M5 Vision Pro was a possibility.
JPack
macrumors P6
It’s classic cognitive dissonance.
Apple put Vision Pro on Vanity Fair and Good Morning America, but somehow it was a “dev preview” and Apple didn’t market it, or intend to sell many units. Apple priced it at $3,499 (“too expensive”) but somehow, Mac Studio and MacBook Pro sells fine at the same price.
Thankfully, this appears to be a legacy project by Tim Cook and the new leadership team recognizes this and canned further development of Vision Pro and its successors.
Agree that Vision Pro has failed on so many levels. Instead of being an aspirational product, typical customer reaction has been “Ew, what type of nerd is wearing that?” The problem is, Apple isn't able to counter that argument with a killer app or explain why a 49-inch ultrawide monitor can't serve as substitute.
Rychiar
macrumors 601
no, people know about those. they just don't choose them cus they want a big display and big battery. even my dad who always had a small phone opted for the regular size phone when given a choice for longevity's sake
A laptop is an overall more useful product that costs less and can be viewed by multiple people. But A laptop is not a better smart TV for a single person regardless of price.
I have a laptop and Apple Vision Pro. I go out of my way to use Apple Vision Pro for a smart TV over my laptop.
Would I go back in time and buy Apple Vision Pro just for this one use? No. But it is the one thing that Apple Vision Pro is better at.
lilkwarrior
macrumors 6502a
Which is a realistic price for a laptop APU VR headset with the quality the product is. No competitor has offered better to validate it's overpriced.
Mainstream consumers have a gross underestimation what something unsubsudized should and would cost.
And no business should have to take a loss or have zero margin to sell a product (see the outrage of console gamers that Valve isn't doing that for the Steam Machine as well as console manufacturers minimizing their subsuidization).
Existing headsets in the market actually for mainstream audiences lost tens of billions of dollars.
Especially Apple whose stakeholders overwhelmingly would consistently reject that. Apple has plenty of other existing businesses to put money in then have to lose tens of billions to appease… budget gamers (the most entitled and brattiest vocal minority on the interent)?
Rychiar
macrumors 601
and yet I've been dreaming about VR since I was a kid and saw lawnmower man lol
lilkwarrior
macrumors 6502a
…It's not an either-or with the laptop Vision Pro's Virtual Display substantially makes a laptop more useful. Not even close with the 5K 21:9 and 32:9 display you get than a 13"-14" display.
It's actually regarded one of its killer "app" (function) features even by outlets known to be the Vision Pro's most vocal critics: https://www.theverge.com/2024/12/11...ultrawide-mac-display-visionos-2-2-killer-app
False. That video showed people using the Vision Pro instead of a laptop for work. It showed people Facetiming with ghostly avatars and recording kid birthday parties. Yes, it was high production, but it showed people doing very ordinary things. The product was positioned as a replacement for the laptop, the future or computing. Spatial computing!
No one expected Vision Pro to sell like an iPhone, but it was very obvious that Apple was positioning "spatial computing" as the next big thing. Vision Pro was the start and they clearly expected the public to react with wonder and to want the product even if they couldn't afford it. Instead, most people thought it was ridiculous and once the fans had bought them, no one wanted it. It never became an aspirational product. That's why they're winding down development. It was never a "developer release" and price wasn't the problem. The problem is the same problem that has existed for decades. Outside of a small, very loud, group of people, no one wants VR.
I think the general public knows Vision Pro exists, but I agree that Apple has done nothing to market it. The general public is well aware of VR. It just doesn't interest them.
💯💯💯
VR looks great in the movies. In reality, it's not a great experience and certainly does not improve upon the laptop or desktop monitor for most everyday tasks. There's zero benefit to wearing a headset so that I can write an email versus opening my laptop. There's basically no single killer app for a VR headset. VR itself is the killer app, but the use cases are all quite niche and require custom software that is unlikely to deliver any ROI for a third party developer.
The cognitive dissonance is very strong indeed.
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Rychiar
macrumors 601
the only people I've ever mentioned my Vision Pro to who had the slightest clue what it was are hardcore tech geeks. Even my boss looked clueless when I mentioned it a few months back and he runs a business based on Macs and iPads and has all the other apple products. the only people who know about Vision Pro are the kind of people who watch apples keynotes
Analog Kid
macrumors G3
Whenever I see stories about AVP going away, I feel sad. I am so very happy with mine, and nothing matches what it does. Even after months of use I'm surprised by how good the experience is. Glasses won't do that. 2D displays won't do that. Most compromises to reduce the cost will compromise that experience.
Maybe Apple is making the call that it's not worth pursuing any longer, but it's weird to see people gleeful that it's going away. I never understood advocating the end of a technical powerhouse and truly unique product that others enjoy. Investors? Sure, maybe. But the comments come from people who elsewhere argue that Apple should focus on users and not on investors. Just reinforces my view that for many people they want the world to cater to their interests and no one else's.
Maybe Apple is making the call that it's not worth pursuing any longer, but it's weird to see people gleeful that it's going away. I never understood advocating the end of a technical powerhouse and truly unique product that others enjoy. Investors? Sure, maybe. But the comments come from people who elsewhere argue that Apple should focus on users and not on investors. Just reinforces my view that for many people they want the world to cater to their interests and no one else's.
While it's touted as a "killer app", and is a good idea on paper, Apple Vision Pro's virtual display is simply not good enough for everyone.
It's particularly bad with text heavy work. The resolution and display aberrations cause a lot of eye strain. Granted I've not tried the M5 version which is supposed to be a little better. But Combine that with the weight, face pressure, and hassle of having to plug it in and manage the battery pack while working long hours it's just not a good experience.
I'd rather do my work on a single 13" retina monitor but luckily larger good monitors are cheap and most people already have them and it's better to work from that than an Apple Vision Pro. Even when I travel I've largely given up on taking AVP with me because it's just a cumbersome and meh experience to work like that. I'm just one person but believe me.... I've tried to get my money's worth out of this. I've got nothing to gain from talking bad about it. I just don't want other people to think this is worth buying when the best thing I can say about it is it's a nice smart TV for $3.5K or whatever it costs now.
Maybe in your world. In my world, plenty of my non-techie friends know about it. Tim wore it on the cover of Vanity Fair for goodness sakes.
https://www.macrumors.com/2024/02/01/tim-cook-wears-apple-vision-pro-vanity-fair/
I agree with you that Apple did basically nothing to market it after launch, but it was featured in many mainstream publications when it launched.
What Apple expected: We're going to release this cutting edge, very expensive early adopter product that shows the future of computing. We know that we'll sell a few hundred thousand to our diehard fans. Over 300 MILLION people walk through our stores every year. We'll demo the product and our diehard fans will be evangelists for the product. Even if they can't afford this version of Vision Pro, the public will be fascinated by "spatial computing". Vision Pro is the start and we'll build momentum from here. Developers will create all kinds of cool experiences that will make Vision Pro even more of an aspirational product while we work to deliver a more affordable one.
What actually happened: Vision Pro landed like a thud. Tim looking awkward on the cover of Vanity Fair didn't help. But is it possible to wear such a device and not look awkward? The diehards did buy them, but after that sales fell off a cliff. Apple might not have marketed the product in the traditional sense, but would that have really helped? If they can't convince a small percentage of the 1 MILLION people who visit their stores EVERY DAY to buy, would more marketing have helped? Probably not. And that's likely why Apple didn't do any further marketing after launch. Their built-in store audience is low hanging fruit and even they didn't buy. Developers saw all of this and decided not to waste their precision time and resources on developing for a platform that no one was buying.
I appreciate your passion for VR, but be real. Marketing wouldn't have saved the Vision Pro. The entire concept bombed. The public isn't interested in VR, certainly not in any of the current form factors.
lilkwarrior
macrumors 6502a
…Mainstream piquing interest and fanfare about spatial computing and the Vision Pro does not mean it’s for mainstream audience.
That’s not how that works and disingenuous to suggest so because of such articles that clearly was framed that way.
Tim Cook accordingly spoke when talking to mainstream outlets about spatial computing and the Vision Pro debuting their investment in that paradigm of computing.
It’s a momentous moment a large scale manufacturer at the eagles to eventually ship mainstream spatial computing devices is shipping a spatial computing product at all when that haven’t happened at the scale Apple was willing to.
More mainstream spatial computing devices was always going to be glasses and at best indefinitely something less powerful than the Vision Pro (gaming companies have elected to go low-end, mobile-gamer-level games first with their spatial computing products that has had highly questionable success losing tens of billions of dollars and not appealing to most AAA gamers).
Debuting for non-mainstream audiences doesn’t prevent that. It’s been thinly veiled entitlement that mainstream audiences want the Vision Pro be rated against mainstream product expectations at a level no Apple prosumer device beyond phones have had to deal with or it was more reasonably understood as far fetched:
Mac Studio, Mac Pro, Pro Displau XDR, iPad Pro, and so on.
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lilkwarrior
macrumors 6502a
Get over yourself you mean perhaps respectfully: It’s not a flop because random people on the internet with no insight to its supply chain and strategic role in the line-up that was never mainstream sales say so.
It’s still actively supported; enterprise and up have and will continue to adopt it which is within reason lining up to an early adopter product.
There’s unfortunately not a better standalone prosumer headset in the market for those that just want the best one available in the market.
GtrDude
macrumors 6502a
Some of us here guessed that this would happen.
We were all labeled crazy.
After all how dare we criticize Apple and their decision making.
We were all labeled crazy.
After all how dare we criticize Apple and their decision making.
lilkwarrior
macrumors 6502a
…”Some of us”, “guessed that we would happen”, “we were all labeled crazy”?
We have chronic naysayers of a proposed component theoretically for a lesser product than what they couldn’t justify/afford buying now rejoicing in these forums now?
That’s some dedicated hate-mongering!
Do you hate potentially the ramifications of a spatial computing hardware taking off—and/or hate the costs being pursued by Apple for something that’s always been expected to be expensive and actual mainstream alternatives have yet to be good with their alternate pricing full of compromises or something like that?
Anyhow, I think that all sounds like a bunch of armchair analyzing hoping for any news to give you and the random few you decided to befriend merely sharing your “critical” views any validation the time spent you can’t get back with your criticism wasn’t for nothing.
I hope the opportunity costs weren’t too high for you to derive such value that a low-end display project that was reportedly two years out half as worse/sharp than what existed today is reportedly not gonna happen
If it did happen it would be almost half a decade later than today’s far better Vision Pro’s panels (which is a long time in tech), as well as existing (Galaxy XR) and upcoming (Valve Frame) cheaper headsets like the Vision Pro have far better resolution than this alleged low-end panel.
It can easily be argued that it would make more sense to just re-use the Vision Pro’s panels and its manufacturing process at that point.
The Vision Pr panels existing sharpness is not necessarily retina-like in ideal sharpness.
It makes more sense for newer spatial computing hardware for Apple accordingly to be as sharp and sharper—but half as sharp.
lilkwarrior
macrumors 6502a
Yeah about your M2-based anecdotal account for those that are unaware not trying the M5: Having owned the M2 and M5, the latter does have noticably sharper text and visuals as you expect from a GPU and CPU 3 gens ahead. This was consistently confirmed in reviews.
Besides the lack of AV1 hardware encoding and ray-tracing, that was one of the several reasons why it was criticized they went with M2 instead of M3/m4 with the original.
What part of winding down development don't you understand. Wow, the cognitive dissonance is unreal. It's a HUGE FLOP. Apple didn't spend billions to release a product for a few hundred thousand people with no further consumer interest. The public isn't interested. Enterprise isn't buying this thing. Get a grip.
lilkwarrior
macrumors 6502a
Let me help you out with a more broader perspective than what you've given such technology that transcends glasses, headsets, and glasses-free spatial displays:
Spatial computing by eliminating the constraints of physical screens enables a myriad of contextual, hands-free computing, immersive, and multi-tasking computing be significantly enhanced and more efficiently done through it than traditional computing.
Your email example is a perfect example. Instead of doing so on cramped 14"-16" screen, you can do so far more efficiently and with infinitely more canvas space spatially in addition to a multiple of apps placed not only vertically and horizontally better placed but spatially forward and backwards.
Instead of the limitations of having to hope that a rollable OLED ultrawide and ultra-vertical monitor that can go from 16:9 to 21:9 to 32:9 and so on to come out (and so on vertically), you can do so with spatial computing hardware like the Vision Pro.
Premium and emerging content like film in their native aspect ratios and vertical video will always be more fluidly represented on a spatial computing device.
All things equal, spatial representation of video and photos is the superior, ideal representation of video and photos; to best represent such things will necessitate spatial computing devices.
Spatial computing overall allows people's relationship with technology to be rethought to be more seamless, enhanced, comfortable, and more contextually helpful.
This is how throughout computer science history the pursuit of spatial computing has always justified spatial computing devices.
For the most immersive spatial computing experience–even as mindless as first-person games–VR technology by necessity will be the best means to accommodate such computing use cases individually.
I hope that helps you understand why VR isn't going anywhere besides average technologists pushing back on costs and the lack of choice of being able to have similar quality of a Vision Pro and other high-end spatial computing devices in form factors such as glasses and spatial monitors.
Both of those form factors necessitate far higher costs than the Vision Pro today that the average person is not well-versed on the technology constraints that necessitate that (or understandably care).