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0 pointsxp8411mo ago0 comments

Yeah - I thought it was a good product, just a way-too-expensive-to-ever-gain-popular-support, completely useless one since no developer wants to support a new Apple platform knowing how brutally Apple treats developers with their in-app-purchase nonsense, and Apple itself sure isn't doing anything to put any wood behind the arrow.

If Apple cared, they'd drop the money to get, say, immersive courtside experience at every NBA and NFL game for a subscription fee. New long-form immersive content, not these silly 5-10 minute videos they drop every month or two.

It's a great product. But Apple's not serious enough about it. Someone who can deliver at least one of "normal people can buy it" or "a ton of incredibly compelling content exists" will own this market, eventually. It probably won't be Apple.

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SirBill11mo ago

" just a way-too-expensive-to-ever-gain-popular-support"

You assumed that models would stay that price forever???

"how brutally Apple treats developers with their in-app-purchase nonsense"

How is 15% brutal to have access to a market base of hundreds of millions of customers who can click to purchase without entering a credit card.

"Apple itself sure isn't doing anything to put any wood behind the arrow"

Of all the dumb things you said, this may possibly be the dumbest - though to be sure the other two items are incredibly stupid.

Apple has put a TON of effort into the Vision Pro. They have continued to produce high quality immersive content. They have obviously continued to work on new versions. They have recently put on an entire developer day program on producing immersive content (programmatic and video related). They have greatly improved the Mac mirroring features and added other good UI updates on a pretty continuous basis since launch.

Apple is doing all they can to move the platform forward, it just takes time to reduce costs. It's a platform well worth looking into supporting since Apple is obviously fully committed to it moving forward.

xp84OP11mo ago

> You assumed that models would stay that price forever??

Apple didn't bother to try to keep the cost down on this version, and for Apple, cost plus the margins they demand dictated the high price.

> "How is 15% brutal to have access"

Okay, first of all, 30%. We're not talking indie devs with <1MM in revenue that can get the 15% deal for a little while. The kind of developers they need to make huge killer apps are ones like Epic, Blizzard, etc. And entertainment firms like Netflix, the ones Apple insists on soaking for 30% of revenue across the board, and those firms have voted with their feet and aren't embracing any Apple platforms. I don't care, I'm not and will never develop for Apple's various "stores" -- take your argument up with the developers who hate them. Nobody wants to give Apple another market to throw their considerable weight around in.

> "They have continued to produce high quality immersive content. They have obviously continued to work on new versions. They have recently put on an entire developer day program on producing immersive content (programmatic and video related)."

Big deal. There isn't enough content that even many big Apple fans who love the product in theory mostly don't use them and admit they were a poor investment. A couple silly 10 minute shorts a month isn't enough to justify it. If they cared, they'd put serious money - of which they have plenty - behind selling a device (any device!) at a compelling price even at a subpar margin. See gaming consoles. Or they'd do what it takes to get developers and content companies to produce content. That means sucking it up and offering better terms than they have on other platforms (or doing sweetheart deals, say, Amazon can sell on the Kindle iOS app with a 5% commission in exchange for promising to produce a ton of immersive content on AVP.) Whatever it takes.

They're not serious (at the top level -- i am sure the person just in charge of AVP is serious, but Tim's not on board enough to support them).

parasubvert11mo ago

Their priority is not selling a mass market low margin product. That is Meta‘s strategy, and they’ve lost nearly $100b because they think it’s the future of all computing. The thing is, Apple agrees. But they’re not the kind of company to burn that kind of capital.

Vision Pro was all about selling an enthusiast device that pushes the boundaries of XR technology into what they thought was appropriate baseline that would shift the market. They succeeded at that, the entire market is changing their strategy to respond to visionOS. visionOS has set the baseline for spatial computing so much that even horizon OS is copying it now. Apple takes the product line very seriously, they they’re just playing a different game than you want them to play.

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