After finally releasing a Vision Pro version of my app last week, I've sold a total of 7 units. That's by far my worst software launch ever, even worse than my past failures.
Don't bother developing for this platform. The customer base is miniscule.
In my hallucination, my customer base is myself. If I had extra time right now and one of these devices to play with, I'd build something I wish existed, not something I expect the general population to buy.
If it's good enough for me, it's probably already worth my time—though https://xkcd.com/1319/ comes to mind
Then maybe some subset of the population that is closer in interests to me would also find it useful, in which case the app might get more traction. That'd be nice, but not a necessary requirement for my definition of success
The big issue here is justifying spending thousands of dollars on the product. I'd go for it at $500 or so. Definitely not $2k or $5k.
The developer in question makes a living selling Safari extensions, and the Vision Pro app they’re referring to is a version of what’s probably their most well-known. So we’re talking about an established developer with an established user base selling a version of an established app.
Your advice makes sense in general but doesn’t apply to this specific case.
It still applies to this specific case. He's released a version of his existing app hoping others might use, instead of solving a problem he identified would be best tackled with a Vision Pro than with a desktop app.
All I'm saying is "don't build an app for the masses if the market is small. build something that solves a real need that you have personally identified"
> A good hockey player don't skate to where the puck is.
I'm not a hockey player.
> He skates to where it will be.
The time scale for hockey players is seconds, not years.
This is such a useless cliché.
Most developers have very limited resources. Apple can afford to invest in pipe dreams (reportedly they spent $billions working on the now cancelled car project), but I certainly can't.
> 1975: Don't bother writing MicroSoft BASIC. The customer base is miniscule.
You're cherry-picking a single success, with the benefit of hindsight. How about listing all of the nascent technologies from 1975? It's likely that many of them flopped, and investing in them was a waste.
> if your company, or its leadership, lack vision for the future and only invest in the present
I am my company, a sole proprietor with very limited resources. I do invest in the future to some extent, but I can't invest in every possible future. The Vision Pro future does not look particularly promising.
Besides, you don't need to be first to be successful. I certainly wasn't the first to any platform, not even close. The thing about hockey is, there's only one puck on the ice. And it's a zero-sum game, one winner and one loser. But that's not even remotely true of tech.
I quoted where you violated the guidelines: "If you can't grok an analogy, that's on you." That's a personal insult. Could you please quote where you think I violated the guidelines?
> News that Google would be closing down Stadia was a big surprise for everyone, including the developers making games for the platform.
Now, Apple can probably pull off a lot of stuff, but with how quickly products get killed nowadays, sometimes you might end up betting on a future that will never come to pass.
Apple's history is to pick a strategic product direction and then continue to iterate on their hardware and software for that product year after year.
For instance, Apple Watch.
Throwing products over the wall and killing them if they don't prove to be an immediate success is more if a Google/Microsoft thing.
Although it's fair to point out that Microsoft did at least update HoloLens hardware once before they killed it.
The issue with both HoloLens and Vision Pro is the nearly identical price point. You aren't going to see mass market sales figures until you can reach mass market price points.
It's a risk / reward tradeoff; can you as an individual or a company afford to lose on the bet that Vision will become successful enough, AND that your app will become successful? There's much safer bets for anyone out there at the moment.
I mean… I think Apple hasn’t totally missed VR, and is still the only company that seems to have much of a chance of making it work…
But, a good hockey player doesn’t skate in the direction that absolutely nobody else is heading, somewhere that might even be outside the rink (in the sense that we haven’t really shown if a good UI for VR can actually be created, yet, so it might not even be a possible “part of the game,” so to speak).
I think VR is not a serious business for Meta, just something Zuck is doing for fun. Why not, rich enough to goof off, right? They spent $4b to make $400M on their headsets.
A better business model would probably be to pay people a couple hundred dollars to take their headsets. At least that might result in some install base.
Meta is having enough trouble attracting developers with hardware that's an order of magnitude cheaper and has two orders of magnitude more units in the wild. They got through the first hurdle of convincing people to try VR but keep falling at the second hurdle of user retention, headsets that are gathering dust in a closet don't make any money for developers.
Apples decision to go all-in on hand tracking compounds the software problem even further because the vast majority of VR software that has already been developed is designed around controllers with IMUs/buttons/sticks/triggers/haptics, and would be very difficult to port over to the Vision Pros much more limited control scheme.
I'm not convinced the demographic of people willing to spend $2000 on an Apple headset is much different from the demographic of people willing to spend $3500 on an Apple headset
> The rumor mill is saying it will be cheaper... but still not cheap at ~$2000.
That same rumor mill has always said that an affordable consumer version is the long term goal.
Apple has started development on a consumer version of the tech in a glasses form factor several times over the years, only to decide the current tech still doesn't allow for what they want.
For instance, an iteration that was tethered to an iPhone that made it to test production in 2019:
> Apple could begin production of its long-rumored augmented reality glasses as early as the end of this year, noted analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has said.
Apple does have the advantage of being able to project their 2D apps if they want, right? A $5k device seems like a dead end, and a $2k one seems pretty rough still (unless it totally replaces your laptop, which might make it worth considering).
They clearly haven’t executed it correctly yet. But at least they do have some hope of beating the bootstrapping problem that everybody else seems to have—they could try and get users first, and then I bet developers would quickly follow.
Unless the experience is good, it doesn't beat the bootstrapping problem and I haven't seen much clamouring for iPad apps on the AVP. It's a nice to have, sure. It will keep people in the headset longer, sure. But it's not a feature that will get someone to buy it over an iPad.
I sort of agree. But I think it is part of the puzzle.
The Apple headset thing is $5000 and much bigger than a pair of sunglasses. I just don’t think the tech is here yet to make something that most people actually want. So nobody has the problem that Apple can solve yet: good enough hardware in search of useful apps.
No VR device has even gotten close to having to answer a question like “how is this useful” because the current janky hardware is only appealing to those of us who are happy to just play games, haha.
Porn. Porn is how it is useful. It is 10x better than on a monitior/tv, and 100x better than on a mobile device. Some well heeled dirtbags are willing to pay for that.
> being able to project their 2D apps if they want, right
That's how they want to kickstart the app ecosystem by not doing anything.
Any non-ported app with any non-trivial functionality is likely to break in both obvious and subtle ways especially around UX. Who's gonna support the app on the platform and deal with customer complaints? Apple? You? Or the dev who might not even have the device to debug it on?
Meta's Horizon OS is Android, so they could basically just do the same. Of course, they don't have a proper app store for that, but the compatibility should be there.
The main roadblock would be the OS support, and Meta's already has that. They are of course lacking another big roadblock, which is the store.
Presumably Google wants VR headsets to run Google's own version of Android, perhaps called Android VR (or the like), though I haven't heard of a VR version of Android developed by Google. Previously they developed Android TV and Android for smartwatches. Even a version for cars I believe.
Meta just announced support for carrying standard 2D Android apps on their storefront at Connect a few weeks ago. I think the Vision Pro release has (pun intended) given them a vision to work towards (as seen by their rapid update process post launch to match features)
That said, visionOS can run iPad and iPhone apps unmodified. Meta will not bundle Google Play Services and a few other Android APIs, so APKs won’t be publishable on their store without some amount of work to use their alternate SDK.
you can already install android apps on the quest (since day one probably). I did that regularly over the past year, they work great.
it's just not officially supported, since they have been having a fight with google for years now. meta is claiming that google are the ones that don't want to see the play store on the platform.
> Apple does have the advantage of being able to project their 2D apps if they want, right?
Developers have to manually check a box to enable running the iPad version of their app on visionOS so it’s entirely out of Apple’s hands. Not sure why they took this approach
And it makes sense for some devs to not provide their app on the platform if they use unsupported APIs or if their experience is otherwise degraded for some unknowable reason. Though the side effect is Netflix and YouTube can just withhold their apps that presumably otherwise work.
You're still making a big assumption that this is a device anybody actually wants in the first place. How many of the people who bought one of these actually still use them with any regularity?
So, a developer should spend ~$5000 with no chance of ROI on the off chance that at some undefined point in the future this will pay off when they would have to spend another ~$5000 developing for the newer/cheaper/whatever device?
I doubt it... The platform seems like a dud without some big changes. If big changes are coming, how much time to market do you really save working on this iteration?
Familiarity is fine, but don't bet your livelihood on it just yet; have enough knowledge to be able to pivot to it if it does take off. But I'm not seeing it.
The platform has no killer mainstream use-case besides watching movies on a big virtual screen in solitude, with the drawback of having a heavy headset strapped to your face. I doubt that it would fare very well even sub-$1000. If they invested in gaming and allowed 3D controllers, the story might be different.
On track to having sold less than 15% of their Y1 target (400,000 vs 3 MM), production deliveries slashed, and the reported shareholder near-revolts, I think it's clear that the Vision Pro has flopped and there won't be a sequel any time soon.
GP is exaggerating (response below); at the same time many would argue that their overall argument that the Vision Pro is most probably a flop is in the ballpark. There's been much to say about price, the utility of VR, and most recently, the news that companies simply aren't bringing their apps to Vision Pro[1].
> On track to having sold less than 15% of their Y1 target (400,000 vs 3 MM)
All the reports online reflect actual vs. expected more around 450-500k vs. 800k - 1M, not 3 million.
> the reported shareholder near-revolts
The stock market's reaction to the Vision Pro announcement saw Apple's shares dip by 3%, indicating a mix of investor optimism and concern, not revolt.
I think both you and the person you’re responding to are correct. The supply chain reports said <1M displays producible. That’s <500K devices producible.
Regarding stock, Apple almost always dips by a significant amount during an event. They’re very much traded as buying on the hype and selling on the news.
All supply chain reports before the release were in line with the fact that the in-headset screens were capped at 1million maximum production possible for the first year, and two screens are required for each headset.
3MM was never possible, not sure where you got these numbers.
I've always assumed the Vision Pro was an experimental platform that is available publicly solely to enable developers to figure out what the heck can be done with a high-quality MR device.
Don't bother developing for this platform. The customer base is miniscule.