Apple’s generational fumble with the Vision Pro is one for the history books

In February of 2024, Apple did something that sent waves of excitement through me. The company, this massive worldwide smartphone sensation, announced the Apple Vision Pro. Apple was entering the XR (Extended Reality) industry!

I have long believed in the future of XR. Meta has done the VR market a great service over the last decade, but the space needed a push from another established manufacturer. Apple was just the right company for the job.

Many VR enthusiasts were overjoyed. Surely, Apple’s entry into the XR industry will spur other manufacturers into action and we will have a plethora of headsets to choose from! And the games! Imagine the VR games games that would come out once developers saw more and more people getting a headset!

You know, for a moment, it did seem like all of that was going to happen. Other manufacturers jumped on the bandwagon, as expected, and there were more eyes on the industry than perhaps ever before.

And then Apple fumbled it all horribly. Today, the Vision Pro is being discontinued, and I truly feel like Apple didn’t do it justice.

Apple’s biggest mistake

I think that it’s almost universally agreed upon that the main reason that the Vision Pro didn’t sell well is its price tag. Even the most diehard VR enthusiasts found it difficult to justify a $3,499 purchase, and the headset was even more expensive in other regions when it finally went global.

The saddest part is that the Vision Pro didn’t need to be this expensive. As Hugo Barra — former head of Oculus — and now even Apple executives say about the Vision Pro, the headset is needlessly overengineered.

Redundant sensors and cameras, premium aluminum and glass finish, and the external “EyeSight” display all help rack up the cost drastically. None of this was necessary, but Apple wanted to make a first impression. A first impression that it then foolishly decided to stick with.

When the Vision Pro got its refresh with the M5 chip, Apple removed none of the extras and kept the price at $3,499. So what the company decided to do was to not address the biggest reason that the headset failed.

This stubbornness was infuriating to witness, but it gets even worse.

No affordable Vision Pro

A more affordable version of the Vision Pro, perhaps even called the Vision Air, had always been planned. In fact, reports claim that Apple had been actively working on such a headset.

Instead of completing it and bringing it to market, the company canceled it instead. Apple didn’t even give the Vision Air room to breathe. Who knows, maybe a more affordable headset from Apple would have actually done well.

But no, let’s just can the entire project altogether.

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