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by bdw5204
874 days ago
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This strategy works because investors will demand that companies support a popular platform. I don't know if this will work for Vision Pro because there's still no evidence of mass market appeal for VR or AR technology. Even Facebook's money and marketing muscle hasn't been able to make Meta VR mainstream. Nor is Playstation VR going to get widespread adoption or significant software support until Sony starts bundling it with Playstations which would be very risky by making Xbox dramatically cheaper. I think companies are making VR devices because they're appealing to their engineering department not because they actually have reason to believe there's consumer demand for such tech. But the popular alternatives to invest in are things like crypto and generative AI that also have open questions about whether the product is actually useful to the mass market. |
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Apple's $5k headset is not a popular platform yet, nor will it be as popular as smartphones anytime soon.
Companies want to push their apps to Apple/Google because everyone has a smartphone in their pocket at all times and has their eyes glued to it most of their spare time meaning shopping, product sales and advertising $$$.
Compared to that, even if the headset would be half price, very few people will be as absorbed into it as much as they are into phones, therefore companies are in no rush to port their apps to Apple's headset.
And I'm saying this as someone who has a VR headset and is bullish on VR. It's difficult to beat the convenience and portability of a smartphone with a clunky headset you wouldn't wear on the street.
Maybe when headsets will be as slick and as functional as Iron Man's E.D.I.T.H. glasses they'll be able to fully replace smartphones for eyeball time, but we're very far from that future, as the current iteration is more of a tethered virtual TV/monitor rather than a fully immersive stand alone AR experience device, and silicone and battery technology isn't advancing fast enough anymore to bring Iron Man tech to reality anytime soon, let alone make it affordable.
So I think devs are right in giving the headset the cold shoulder for now until it becomes a mass market product with mass appeal that people wouldn't mind wearing on the street.