There’s No Dancing Around It: Apple’s Vision Pro Was An Ugly Dud

When Apple unveiled its AR/VR Vision Pro headset early last year the product was met with just an absolute ocean of tech press hype. You couldn’t spend thirty seconds online without reading about how the expensive ($3,500-$4,600 depending on accessories) headset was going to revolutionize every industry in existence or change absolutely everything. Seriously: everything.

Less than a year later there’s ongoing gossip that Apple ended production of the headset due to “weak demand and customer dissatisfaction.” The Information was the first to suggest as much last October, noting that weak sales had component makers scaling back part production as early as last Spring, as soon as it became clear this wasn’t, as it turns out, anywhere close to a technological revolution.

For most people the product either was too expensive, wasn’t comfortable to wear, made them throw up, or just didn’t have enough compelling software to justify continued usage:

“Apple sold fewer than 500,000 units of the Vision Pro since launch. While many returned the product after experiencing headaches, vision issues, neck pain, and motion sickness, even the people who kept it are reportedly not using it as much as Apple expected, largely due to the lack of compelling apps and games.”

When bankers and VCs took over Silicon Valley they created a chasm between marketing and reality, or set decoration and genuine innovation. A lot of these folks no longer care if a tech product is genuinely good or if it actually improves anything so long as you can convince people that it does. And with an increasingly feckless, access-obsessed, badly-run technology press, that’s often within reach.

Seriously, the gushing press coverage of Vision Pro was just fucking silly. A lot of unskeptical gibberish by outlets trying to kiss the ring for access. Words and phrases like “home run” and “revolutionary” were bandied around like confetti. Several key influencers claimed Vision Pro was as transformative as the original iPhone:

“I truly believe this is a landmark breakthrough like the 1984 Macintosh and the 2007 iPhone.”

A lot of people wanted to believe Apple had created another revolutionary miracle. Instead they built a dud. And it was pretty clearly a dud to those paying attention. That price tag was absolutely silly. Steve Jobs never would have approved that ugly ass battery pack and comically short battery life. Outside of some initial impressive gimmickry, there was little genuinely evolutionary, useful software.

But for a product to truly succeed it genuinely needs to improve things. VR and AR is also a challenge because computing size and battery life aren’t anywhere near where they need to be to offer the kind of transformative, inobtrusive experiences companies are promising. Most people still simply don’t like strapping plastic to their faces. A ton of people still can’t use VR without throwing up.

I don’t hate VR. I have three different major headsets. But the tech just isn’t cooked enough to warrant the kind of hype Meta or Apple VR products receive. Maybe someday, somebody will develop the perfect, seamless, almost magical experience that matches the hype in this field, but if I had to wager, when that product comes it won’t come from Apple or Meta (Apple and Meta will probably buy them, though).

Apple die hards generally got defensive when anyone suggested Vision Pro was a dud from the start. They’d usually say something about how “this was just a prototype” and “prototypes are supposed to be expensive,” and something actually useful might be coming down the road several years from now.

And that might actually be true. Maybe Apple turns around and leverages the lessons of this dud to create something actually useful and affordable. But that still doesn’t mean this wasn’t a wildly misrepresented dud from the start. And it also doesn’t excuse a technology press that repeatedly tripped over its own ass to deliver gushing praise for an undercooked product.