Author: Ryan Schultz

EDITORIAL: Reports of the Apple Vision Pro’s Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated—And We Need to Compare Apples to Apples (Pun Intended)

Many people are already talking about the death of the Apple Vision Pro…what’s the real story?

Four days ago, I blogged about a widely-circulated report by an Apple industry pundit, speculating that the computer maker was making significant cuts to the number of Apple Vision Pro (AVP) units it was planning to ship this year, and stating that demand for the brand new, high-end VR/AR headset had “fallen sharply beyond expectations.”

This report ignited no shortage of opinions on the matter, both pro and con, with some even going so far as to say that the Apple Vision Pro was “dead.” Matt Binder of Mashable, reporting on the kerfuffle, said:

In the days and weeks after its February release, Apple’s new AR/VR headset was the talk of social media. Tech reviewers raved about how using it was a glimpse into the future of home computers. And the Apple Vision Pro memes were in abundance. Who can forget the guy who wore an Apple Vision Pro at his wedding?

Then February came and went — and there’s not much talk about anymore. It turns out that there’s likely a good reason for the sudden silence around the product: the Apple Vision Pro simply isn’t selling.

So, what’s really going on? I decided to do a little digging to see what’s going on, and what it might mean for Apple and the AVP.

First, there has been no shortage of pushback on the claims made in the original Medium article written by Apple industry analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. For example, my fellow metaverse blogger Wagner James Au posted to his blog, New World Notes, citing a conversation he had with a former AVP developer Ari Bar-Zeev. Here’s a direct quote from Ari from Wagner’s blog:

I don’t work for Apple anymore and would certainly never speak for them. But I will say the analysts citing “dramatically lowered production numbers” have lost all credibility.

First the analysts said AVP was supply-limited to 180k units. Now they claim Apple is cutting production from 800k to down to 400k. We must have all imagined the report where Apple RAISED production goals first for such a cut to happen. But it makes for a good attention grabber! Let’s just look at the real numbers when they come out.

Honestly, my expectation was that every dev or enthusiast in the US who wanted one or needed one lined up to get one early on. Similar folks overseas are still waiting for their chance (and have gotten creative in the meantime).

Future growth would largely come from new apps that deploy many units for high-value use cases. Like when a certain consulting company reportedly bought 100k Quests for onboarding new employees during the pandemic…

I’ve said from the beginning that the AVP, as Apple’s first Spatial Computer, was not going to be an “iPhone moment” (which still took 5+ years to ramp) but more of a Lisa or Macintosh moment.

The Lisa was truly groundbreaking, but too expensive for most people. The first Macs still cost way more than an AVP in today’s dollars, and it also took a while before they became widely popular. But that’s the appropriate set of numbers we can look at to compare ‘apples to apples.’

To paraphrase, Ari is suggesting that we need to temper our expectations for a brand new product which has been out for less than three months. He also suggests that we need to change our perspective. We’ve become so used to Apple selling millions of iPhones and iPads and MacBooks, that we forget that it can take years before a new type of product gains traction in the marketplace.

In other words, don’t compare the 2024 Apple Vision Pro to the 2024 iPhone, or 2024 iPad, or 2024 MacBook Pro. Compare the 2024 Apple Vision Pro to the 1983 Apple Lisa (which is generally considered the first mass-market personal computer operated via a graphical user interface, something which we take for granted today). And yes, this does mean that we might be waiting for 5, 10, 15, or 20 years to see widespread adoption of concepts which the Apple Vision Pro introduced! This is a long game. (Oh, and by the way, that first Lisa personal computer cost US$9,995 in 1993, the equivalent of US$30,000 today. Throughout the history of technology, early adopters are usually among those willing to pay a steep price to be among the first.)

David Heaney of UploadVR concurs with Ari, in an article which was published the same day as Ming-Chi Kuo’s report, April 24th, 2024:

Headlines are circulating claiming Apple cut Vision Pro production by almost 50% due to weak demand. Here’s why they’re almost certainly false.

The source of these articles is a new note from supply-chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. Kuo’s claims sometimes turn out to be true, but not always, and his latest contradicts not only what we know about Vision Pro production, but what Kuo himself said just a few months ago.

Specifically, Kuo is claiming that Apple reduced its sales forecast for Vision Pro from a “market consensus” of 700-750K units to 400-450K units, a roughly 40% reduction.

There are two reasons this claim doesn’t make sense. Firstly, Kuo claims the decision is due to weaker than expected US demand, leading to a production cut ahead of global launch. Yet as recently as February Kuo said Apple’s US target for 2024 was 150-200K units, and in January he said Apple sold almost 200K preorders. MacRumors separately cited “a source with knowledge of Apple’s sales numbers” as saying Apple had sold 200K preorders, particularly ironic given it’s now presenting Kuo’s claim and as if it were official news.

But more importantly, in January Kuo was referencing Apple Vision Pro “achieving a shipment volume of 500,000 units” as the goal for 2024. And this isn’t just a random number – it’s what multiple sources report is Apple’s supply limit for the year, regardless of demand.

The Financial Times, The Information, and The Elec have previously reported that Vision Pro production is heavily constrained by the extremely limited supply of near-4K OLED microdisplays. All three sources reported that Sony, the supplier, can only produce enough microdisplays for less than 500K headsets in 2024. And Kuo himself agreed with this figure, saying in a September note that Vision Pro production in 2024 will be limited to “at most 400,000–600,000 units”.

Given this, why is Kuo suddenly claiming the “market consensus” was 700-750K units? It simply doesn’t make sense.

David goes on to suggest, “Don’t believe everything you read.”

I wanted to end this post by sharing some good commentary I found in a place I visit almost daily—the r/VisionPro subreddit community on Reddit (which, as I discovered today, also runs an associated Discord server). Obviously, there’s going to be some pro-Apple bias here, but it’s not just an echo chamber of apple fanboys, and there are some dissenting voices as well. Even a few doomsayers!

The feeling that I do get from avidly browsing the posts and comments on Reddit is that, for those people who have already bought the device (almost exclusively Americans, since the U.S. is currently the only country that is selling the AVP), they did their research ahead of time, and most seem to be pretty happy for it for two main use cases: productivity/business, and media consumption. This is not a gaming device, although you can certainly stream games to it, and if that is what you are looking for, you would be much better served by another headset. In particular, the people who use it to watch TV and movies rave about it, and the most common complaint is that there’s not enough content (they are clamouring for more 3D movies!). I think there’s going to be pressure on Netflix and other media companies who have sat things out thus far, to cater to a small, but well-heeled, new audience.

Also, it is now clear to me that this is not, and probably never will be, a multi-use device. This is not a device that lends itself to sharing with others, although there is a Guest Mode which allows you to give the AVP to somebody else to give them a brief taste of what it’s all about (somebody has even written up a document called How to Give an Insanely Great Apple Pro Demo).

The process to finding the best fit, so that the device is comfortable to use, is deeply personalized and often, frustrating for some new users (I mean, you literally have to scan your face with an iPhone Pro or iPad Pro as part of the purchasing process!). I have read accounts of people going through mutliple sizes of face shields (you can return them within 14 days without charge), and many different kinds of head straps, to find something that they can comfortably use. And yes, a few people have given up and sent the whole thing back for a refund.

Anyway, on to some of the more interesting comments I have seen on r/VisionPro (with links back to the comment in the comment thread for some context):

It’s an expensive, niche product from a company that people LOVE to hate, and actively root for them to fail. Apple is trying to lay a foundation, and people are patting themselves on the back for pointing out that the top-floor penthouse isn’t done yet. Meanwhile, I’m just appreciating that a company like Apple finally took the leap to make a headset that doesn’t feel like a plastic gaming device. It will take time for a new platform, that launched in one country 3 months ago, that almost nobody owns, to build up momentum and conversation. But, as always, doom & gloom is what gets clicks.

—immpopjr

It is not [dead].

I am a developer, and I have just barely started scratching the surface of graphics programming. Making quality 3D software takes time, like decades’ worth of time. If you take a look at programs that truly utilize graphics processing, they are really decades-old apps: Photoshop(1987), Unreal Engine (1999), 3Dmax (1988), Blender (2002) and others. VisionOS, and developing for VisionOS is really not much different than tradition game development. Vision Pro is a totally different medium for input, and we are still looking for better ways to handle inputs. Obviously, there are controllers, but it would be really good if we could find a way to input without using any additional hardware and be cursor-level precise.

Vision OS itself is very young too. It is only 17 years old if you start counting from the iOS release, but even then, the VR part has started very recently. It is basically an iPadOS that is being run in a spherical environment with image analysis of the camera feed to interpret your hand gestures, position them in the sphere, and stitch together all the 8 cameras, and also render multiple apps simultaneously. AVP does all that in a small package while being completely silent for the most part. A lot of components in AVP have been released recently; ARM architecture in laptops started being a thing only in 2020, and it was a massive breakthrough with Apple designing them. Qualcomm only yesterday (April 24, 2024) announced Snapdragon X Elite, but there are no third-party benchmarks with it yet. AVP is a marvelous piece of tech available for $3500; prior to it, you couldn’t even buy a VR headset of this level of quality. Unfortunately, as part of being new products, it needs at least 2 years for good apps to pop up. If you’ve wasted $4000, imagine how much money tech companies are spending. You need a really good Mac (about $2000 for the cheapest Mac Studio), a Vision Pro (about $4000), and a developer costing over $120,000 per year. And you need a team of developers. Quality apps are coming; you have to give it some time.

As for now,really a device for the pro computer users. As a developer, I connect to my PC/Linux boxes using Moonlight and game at 1440p at 90FPS with WiFi 6. I lose hours playing AAA games while laying down in Mount Hood and listening to podcasts. It has phenomenal displays that nothing else compares to, screen quality-wise. It has a really good, power-efficient mobile chip (M2), iPad app compatibility, and great UX. It is one of the best things I’ve ever owned. Also, Apple already has M3 processors with hardware-level ray tracing. This would allow much more realistic rendering, and it makes me super stoked for the next iteration, whenever it will be. I am also excited to see what Meta will come up with next since there are good third-party processors that can be as power efficient as the Vision Pro.

Anyway, no, it is not dead.

—sapoepsilon

In no way is this dead. There hasn’t even been a global launch. Developers need time to build great apps, and most of them haven’t even had access to buy a headset because it’s only available in the US. Once people get them, it takes time to build great apps and games, so this is a long term play.

Apple is taking feedback from developers, users, and staff, in which it will update the OS with features that will excite people to buy one. They are developing AI that they will be adding to the AVP that will excite people to buy one. There are so many things yet to come, that I think you will have at least 2 generations, similar to Hololens. Considering AVP has already sold more than the Hololens 2 did in their whole time selling them, there is a definite market there.

—Edg1931

So, after all my reading and researching, my expectations are somewhat tempered, but I am still looking forward to when the Apple Vision Pro will be available for Canadians to purchase. You best believe that I will be hovering over my keyboard, waiting for the pre-order countdown clock to hit zero, with my new iPad Pro 11 ready to scan my face, and a copy of my eyeglasses prescription to hand. I’m in.

Yes, I am still willing to shell out some of my own hard-earned cash to essentially become a beta tester for a brand-new and very expensive product! Why? Because this device, and its potential, excites me. This feels like an important next step in my personal virtual reality journey, which started in December 2016/January 2017 when I bought my first VR headset, the Oculus Rift (original version). I’m all in (and may God have mercy on my soul and my wallet).

No, I will not be recommending the university library system I work for buy an AVP for the virtual reality lab project I am currently working on (I am specifying other hardware and software for that, which I am already familiar with). Why? As I said up top, the Apple Vision Pro is intended to be a personalized device, not a multi-user device. It will have a face shield, and prescription lenses, tailored to the shape of my face, my nearsightedness, and my astigmatism. The best I will be able to do is give interested users a brief Guest Mode session, but first I want to get comfortable with the device, and make sure that I have detailed, step-by-step instructions, much like this document, before I give any demos!

Wish me luck; I’m off on another adventure! And, of course, I will be blogging all about it here.

UPDATED: Fantasy Faire in Second Life Runs from April 18th to May 7th, 2024

So, it’s a very lazy springtime Sunday morning, and of course, I have my main Second Life avatar, Vanity Fair, slow dancing with my main male SL alt, Heath Homewood, at the LOVE romantic dance club, dressed up as a medieval queen and her knight—you know, as one does. 😜 It sure beats just turning on the radio while you’re doing laundry! (Hey, don’t judge me; we all have our obsessive little hobbies to help keep us sane in these trying times.)

This is my rather roundabout way of saying that it’s Fantasy Faire season once again in Second Life, and this year there are no less than 20 regions, each with its own unique fantasy theme. Roleplay opportunities abound, as well as hunts and quests, auctions and shopping, arts and entertainment, a literary festival, a film festival, and a grand masked ball. Something for everyone! There’s even a special radio station!

Fantasy Faire (running from April 18th to May 7th, 2024) is Second Life’s annual fantasy roleplay festival and shopping event, and a fundraiser for the American Cancer Society:

Celebrating its sixteenth year, Fantasy Faire 2024 is the largest gathering of fantasy designers, enthusiasts, roleplayers and performers in the virtual world, bringing their own visions together to support the American Cancer Society’s vision of a world without cancer.

Fantasy Faire is one of the megaevents of Relay For Life of Second Life. RFL of SL is a part of American Cancer Society’s Relay For Life fundraising. You can visit their page of the Second Life Teams to see how much various SL events have earned for Relay For Life during the year.

In 2023 Fantasy Faire ranked 12th out of 40,000 Relay For Life Teams worldwide in terms of money-raised. In addition, Relay For Life of Second Life was the 8th highest RFL fundraising community event worldwide.

Participating stores usually have several special offers on merchandise, with the proceeds going towards the American Cancer Society. For example, Heath’s wonderful Caelan armour (with its Tree of Life motif) and chain mail suit are available at the Poet’s Heart store at Fantasy Faire. The Caelan armour is L$300 for a fatpack of 13 different colours, including the green shown below, and the chainmail is only L$100 for a fatpack of 19 different colours. One hundred percent of the proceeds from the sale of these items during Fantasy Faire goes to the American Cancer Society. I don’t know if you’ve ever been shopping for armour in SL, but I have, and I can tell you that L$400 for a full fatpack of armour and chain mail, is an exceptional deal! You can easily spend up to ten times that amount, on just one colour of armour!

The armour and chain mail comes in the following male and female sizes, and includes everything except the helmet and whatever weapons you choose to carry:

Sizes for Male Mesh Bodies:

  • Belleza Jake
  • Inithium Kario
  • Meshbody Legacy male body

Sizes for Female Mesh Bodies:

  • Belleza GenX Classic
  • Belleza GenX Curvy
  • Maitreya LaraX (but since you are probably going to alpha out your entire body underneath the full-body chain mail anyway, this would likely fit Maitreya Lara 5.3 or earlier versions as well; please get a demo and check first, though!)
  • Maitreya Lara PetiteX (and probably older Petite bodies, for the same reason)
  • Meshbody Legacy female body
  • Meshbody Legacy Perky
  • eBody Reborn
The Caelan armour (in the Tree of Life motif), and the chain mail are available at the Poet’s Heart booth at this year’s Fantasy Fair (please note that the helmet is not included; I picked up this one a couple of years ago from the 10th anniverary giveaway at Eleran’s Crafts, as part of complete set called Faraam, and tinted it green to match the armour here).

Here’s a closer look at Vanity Fair’s magnificent (and, I must confess, rather intimidating!) outfit:

Full style credits below

Madame Noir has a store at Fantasy Faire (SLURL), but you’ll have to go to their mainstore location to pick up this gloriously over-the-top Queen ballgown (please note that the main store location is rated Adult, as it also stocks festishwear, as you might have guessed from this tightly-corseted gown!). I believe the Madame Noir store is currently undergoing a renovation at the moment, but trust me, it’s worth a visit! The proprietor seems to have gone of her way to rig for the new Maitreya LaraX mesh body, and I see so many amazing things that I want to buy there!

Madame Noir has a free group join, that gives you a bit of a discount on your in-store purchases, as well as a lovely selection of free group gifts:

The group gifts wall at Madame Noir

The Imperium head chainmail and the matching Regium crown are from Unholy (SLURL). They can be used together or separately, Both the crown (unrigged; resizable) and the chain mail (rigged) come in sizes to fit male and female avatars, and each has a HUD with many options, including ten different metal textures for various parts of each item. I decided to choose a silver metal tone to match the metallic sheen of the outrageous sleeves and collar of the Madame Noir Queen ballgown!

Complete Styling Notes

Vanity Fair is wearing:

  • Head and Makeup: the new LAQ Era2 female mesh head (UltimateHD version)
  • Body: the new Maitreya LaraX mesh body
  • Skin: LAQ Susanna UltimateHD head skin and matching Next Level Maitreya body skin (the Susanna head skin fatpack is currently one of the gifts at the Bellisseria 5th Anniversary Gift Plaza)
  • Crown: Regium crown by Unholy
  • Head Chainmail: Imperium by Unholy
  • Gown: the Queen gown by Madame Noir
  • Shoes (not shown): silver Heidi pumps by Garbaggio

Heath Homewood is wearing:

  • Head: Catwa Daniel mesh head
  • Hair: Boy Next Door by Exile
  • Body: Belleza Jake mesh body
  • Skin: Blaze head skin and matching body skin by Birth
  • Helmet: Faraam helmet (part of a complete knight’s outfit) by Eleran’s Crafts
  • Rest of Armour: Caelan armour and chain mail by Poet’s Heart

PRO TIP: Looking for free weapons? Jomo has a small stone building next to its main store (exact SLURL), where you can pick up dozens of free swords, shields, spears, staves, axes, and other weapons. No group join is required, and everything is free!

Please note that these are not scripted weapons, but they can be resized and modified as you wish. I use them with a very handy HUD I purchased from Antaya, called the Unisex Roleplay HUD, which offers a variety of static Bento hand and arm poses for use with unscripted accessories such as the sword I picked up from Jomo. Here’s the exact SLURL to find the roleplay HUD at the Antaya store.

Of course, most roleplayers would probably use some sort of scripted weapon attachment, part of a system which allows you to draw and sheath a sword using special keystrokes, etc. (there are many such systems already well-established in Second Life). The Antaya HUD is used more for static items, or for photography in SL.

Jomo offers a treasure trove of swords, spears, and other weapons—all free!
The unisex roleplay HUD from Antaya offers a wide variety of useful hand and arm poses, to use with accessories such as books, lanterns, purses, and weapons.

Be sure to explore the many different regions of Fantasy Faire; some of the best landscape designers in Second Life work their hardest each year to wow visitors, and each region has a different fantasy theme. Even if you don’t buy a single thing, it’s great fun!

UPDATE April 29th, 2024: Ava Bloodrose Delaney has informed me, “[Fantasy Faire] got extended to [May] 7th by the Lindens at the Jail & Bail event on the 19th.” Thanks, Ava! I have updated my blogpost accordingly.

UPDATED! Meta Announces the Meta Horizon Operating System for Future Third-Party VR/AR/MR Headsets, and Partnerships with ASUS, Lenovo, and Xbox (Also: Reports of Slower-Than-Expected Sales for the Apple Vision Pro)

WARNING: This blogpost goes off on a couple of tangents, including a recent report on faltering sales of the Apple Vision Pro, plus a new update at the very end with some very insightful commentary on Meta’s Horizon Store plans and how they might negatively impact the VRChat in-world creator economy, which is still in beta test.

On April 22nd, 2024, Meta (the company formerly known as Facebook) made an announcement titled A New Era for Mixed Reality:

Today we’re taking the next step toward our vision for a more open computing platform for the metaverse. We’re opening up the operating system powering our Meta Quest devices to third-party hardware makers, giving more choice to consumers and a larger ecosystem for developers to build for. We’re working with leading global technology companies to bring this new ecosystem to life and making it even easier for developers to build apps and reach their audiences on the platform.

This new hardware ecosystem will run on Meta Horizon OS, the mixed reality operating system that powers our Meta Quest headsets. We chose this name to reflect our vision of a computing platform built around people and connection—and the shared social fabric that makes this possible. Meta Horizon OS combines the core technologies powering today’s mixed reality experiences with a suite of features that put social presence at the center of the platform.

Of course, this also includes the Meta Quest Store, which will apparently be renamed the Meta Horizon Store:

Developers and creators can take advantage of all these technologies using the custom frameworks and tooling we’ve built for creating mixed reality experiences, and they can reach their communities and grow their businesses through the content discovery and monetization platforms built into the OS. These include the Meta Quest Store, which contains the world’s best library of immersive apps and experiences—we’re renaming it to the Meta Horizon Store.

And, as you might expect with a company whose profits still largely derive from social media based on surveillance capitalism, you’d best believe that Meta wants to make sure that it inserts itself into all the social aspects of this technology, as it licenses the tech to other companies:

The Horizon social layer currently powering Meta Quest devices will extend across this new ecosystem. It enables people’s identities, avatars, and friend groups to move with them across virtual spaces and lets developers integrate rich social features into their apps. And because this social layer is made to bridge multiple platforms, people can spend time together in virtual worlds that exist across mixed reality, mobile, and desktop devices. Meta Horizon OS devices will also use the same mobile companion app that Meta Quest owners use today—we’ll rename this as the Meta Horizon app.

It looks very much as though the word Quest is going to be replaced by the word Horizon throughout (much as Oculus was replaced by Quest previously). I guess those Meta marketing people need to justify their paycheques by constant rebranding! Gotta keep it fresh! Personally, I think they should have stuck with Oculus… 😉

Also part of this announcement are three key partnerships with third-party hardware developers:

  • ASUS and its Republic of Gamers subsidiary “will use its expertise as a leader in gaming solutions to develop an all-new performance gaming headset.”
  • Lenovo will apparently focus on education and the workplace: “Lenovo will draw on its experience co-designing Oculus Rift S, as well as deep expertise in engineering leading devices like the ThinkPad laptop series, to develop mixed reality devices for productivity, learning, and entertainment.”
  • Meta will also be working with Xbox to create a limited-edition Meta Quest (Microsoft and Meta also worked together recently to bring Xbox cloud gaming to the Quest).

Reactions to this new on Reddit have varied. One person on the r/VisionPro subreddit (hardly an impartial source!) commented, “Feels more closed than Apple. And also less developer friendly.” (As if Apple doesn’t have its own walled-garden approach to its technology.)

Also mentioned in Meta’s announcement was that software developed through the Quest App Lab will be featured in the newly-renamed Horizon Store:

As we begin opening Meta Horizon OS to more device makers, we’re also expanding the ways app developers can reach their audiences. We’re beginning the process of removing the barriers between the Meta Horizon Store and App Lab, which lets any developer who meets basic technical and content requirements ship software on the platform. App Lab titles will soon be featured in a dedicated section of the Store on all our devices, making them more discoverable to larger audiences.

I think that this is good news for smaller developers, who often struggle to get word out about their products. (Of course, Meta will get a cut of any sales through its store!)

In an Engadget report by Devindra Hardawar, she writes:

Think of it like moving the Quest’s ecosystem from an Apple model, where one company builds both the hardware and software, to more of a hardware free-for-all like Android. The Quest OS is being rebranded to “Meta Horizon OS,” and at this point it seems to have found two early adopters. ASUS’s Republic of Gamers (ROG) brand is working on a new “performance gaming” headsets, while Lenovo is working on devices for “productivity, learning and entertainment.” (Don’t forget, Lenovo also built the poorly-received Oculus Rift S.)

As part of the news, Meta says it’s also working on a limited-edition Xbox “inspired” Quest headset. (Microsoft and Meta also worked together recently to bring Xbox cloud gaming to the Quest.) Meta is also calling on Google to bring over the Google Play 2D app store to Meta Horizon OS. And, in an effort to bring more content to the Horizon ecosystem, software developed through the Quest App Lab will be featured in the Horizon Store. The company is also developing a new spatial framework to let mobile developers created mixed reality apps.

Devindra does have a good point; Apple has long been opposed to opening up its hardware to third-parties (and it would appear, based on recent media reports, that sales of the eyewateringly-pricey Apple Vision Pro are not as brisk as the company had hoped):

Apple has dropped the number of Vision Pro units that it plans to ship in 2024, going from an expected 700 to 800k units to just 400k to 450k units, according to Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo.

Orders have been scaled back before the Vision Pro has launched in markets outside of the United States, which Kuo says is a sign that demand in the U.S. has “fallen sharply beyond expectations.” As a result, Apple is expected to take a “conservative view” of headset demand when the Vision Pro launches in additional countries.

Kuo previously said that Apple will introduce the Vision Pro in new markets before the June Worldwide Developers Conference, which suggests that we could see it available in additional areas in the next month or so.

Apple is expecting Vision Pro shipments to decline year-over-year in 2025 compared to 2024, and the company is said to be “reviewing and adjusting” its headset product roadmap. Kuo does not believe there will be a new Vision Pro model in 2025, an adjustment to a prior report suggesting a modified version of the Vision Pro would enter mass production late next year.

According to Apple industry analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, initial sales of the high-end Apple Vision Pro have “fallen sharply beyond expectations.”

I find it an absolutely fascinating time to be working in virtual reality, augmented reality, mixed reality, and spatial computing! While Apple has aimed for the high-end with its US$3,500 headset, Meta has focused its attention on the low end, with a wireless headset that is seven times cheaper than the Apple Vision Pro! (Of course, you could also use the Quest 3 as a PCVR headset, but most people don’t do that.)

I never would have predicted that we’d have two firmly-set goalposts at each end of the field, instead of companies releasing a mass of options in the middle of the field! This leaves a huge gap between the ultra-low-end Meta Quest 3 and the ultra-high-end Apple Vision Pro, and I do believe that there is certainly opportunity for companies to fill that gap, with existing hardware (e.g. the Valve Index, the Vive Pro 2, etc.), as well as some new devices which fall in between the two extremes.

I think that Meta is very smart to partner up with third parties who already have some experience in this space (notably Lenovo), and from those partnerships, new products will spring up to address that gap. While it will likely not be until 2025 or 2026 until we see the fruit of these new partnerships, interesting times are ahead!

UPDATE April 26th, 2024: I sometimes post my blogposts to the various virtual world and virtual reality Discord servers I belong to, in order to drive a bit more traffic to my blog (I don’t do it nearly as often as I used to, though). And PK, on the MetaMovie Discord server, made the following insightful and thought-provoking comment on this announcement from Meta/Facebook:

I want someone to dig into what sort of access Meta would have to data on these third-party headsets, potentially, through various software that would be required. I think it’s existential that we need to keep metaverse data out of their hands.

Even now, having failed with five or six different social VR attempts so far, they still manage to collect 1/3 of every virtual transaction in VRChat, at least those using Quest headsets, which is the majority of users now. Their [i.e., VRChat’s]creator economy is only in beta so far, but thanks to Facebook and Steam, and Apple for pushing this model, we don’t have the thriving virtual economy we would have had by now, because even taking 1% of every transaction just for monopolizing app downloads, that would be too much. A third is robbery, but because [Meta CEO Mark] Zuckerberg could afford to make mobile headsets affordable without worrying about profits so far, they’re now cornering commerce in this space. I don’t think it’s safe to trust them with our future, and so I’m very skeptical about these sorts of initiatives.

PK is correct; it is troubling that the walled-garden gatekeepers like app store owners (Meta, Google/Android, and Apple) are each taking a cut of any in-world transactions. It has a chilling effect on anybody trying to make money within VRChat (of course, the social VR platform has long had a booming economy going on outside of VRChat, with places such as the Virtual Market series of avatar shopping events and the VRCMods Discord server, where avatar buyers and sellers can connect).

Linden Lab was luckily able to avoid this entire mess by creating its own in-world economy within Second Life well before the advent of Google Play and Apple’s App Stoe—but now that they are actively working on a new mobile Second Life app for Android and iOS, it will be interesting to see whether Second Life, too, will be impacted by other players like Meta wanting to take their cut. (Probably not, since you can do things like buy Linden dollars directly from the Second Life website.)

Interesting times lie ahead! As drag queen RuPaul likes to say on her hit reality TV show, RuPaul’s Drag Race (and my guilty pleasure!):

Mama Ru raises her opera glasses and says, “I can’t wait to see how this turns out.”

Thank you to PK of the MetaMovie Discord, for giving me permission to quote them directly!

UPDATED: Major Avatar Apparel Creator Blueberry May Leave Second Life: Are There Greener Pastures Elsewhere?

People are often mystified as to why I continue to write about the now-twenty-year-old virtual world of Second Life, when there are so many other, newer metaverse platforms which I could discuss and dissect on my blog. I attempted to answer that question in 2019: Editorial: Why Second Life Is the Perfect Model of a Mature, Fully Evolved Virtual World for Newer Social VR Platforms to Emulate. There’s quite a lot to learn from Second Life’s rich history; ignore it at your peril!

In today’s SL lesson, we learn that there may, indeed, be greener pastures than venerable, long-running Second Life—even for those creators who got their start on the platform! And it would be wise for the newer metaverse platforms, too, to ponder the possibility that their current user base might depart for more lucrative opportunities in other virtual worlds, or even from some unexpected competition!

As usual, I am a little late to report the recent news that major women’s avatar apparel brand Blueberry has decided to, at the very least, hit the pause button, and quite possibly, leave Second Life altogether.

Nobody seems to know the future of Blueberry…

To make a real-world comparison, it would be as if Zara or H&M—or, here in Canada, the ubiquitous Reitmans—suddenly decided to go out of business. Blueberry has been a phenomenally successful store in Second Life, easily earning over a million dollars a year in revenue, according to this October 2022 business article from the Observer. Blueberry might well be the single biggest creator of womenswear in Second Life. In other words, this is major news.

In a mid-April Facebook post by Blueberry’s proprietor, Mishi (the text of which was also posted in an April 13th, 2024 notice to the Blueberry store group in SL):

Hi fam ❤
I’m very sorry to say that I will be taking a break from SL. Blueberry does not plan to release any new items for the foreseeable future. At some point, I will share an update. Right now I need this time to reflect.
I do consider all of you berries as my forever family and I am eternally grateful for your support and understanding. Thank you for all of your love.

The store group notice goes on to add:

Please send all questions regarding credit to blueberryxx in a notecard and any other questions to [a URL, which unfortunately which appears to have been cut off by the character limit in the message]

Somebody suggested that the URL shortner redirect might be to the contact page on the House of Blueberry website, which is here: https://www.houseofblueberry.com/contact.

Okay, first, let’s deal with the practical matters in the wake of this news. Then, I’m going to pull back for a bigger picture.

If you have ever been a customer, you should go to the Blueberry store, as soon as possible, and head for the Information Wall in the front entrance to the store (exact SLURL):

The Information wall at the Blueberry store in-world

First, if you have made any purchases from Blueberry in the past, hit the Redeliver sign, follow the website link, and get redeliveries of everything you’ve bought over the years (for some of you, it’s a lot!). If the store shuts down (as is indeed possible), you will want to have backups of your purchases in your inventory, since you won’t be able to get any redeliveries.

Secondly, Blueberry has always been very generous with gifts of store credit over the past dozen years (since its founding in 2012), particularly during shopping events such as the regularly-occurring Shop and Hops. Click on the blue Check Store Credit sign to see what your current level of unspent store credit is, and spend it now.

All right, now that that’s done, let’s dig a little deeper into what’s happening here. From the long and growing discussion thread on the topic on the Second Life Community forums, started by Persephone Emerald, I will share only a few quotes:

  • “It was repeatedly reinforced by the CSR’s [customer service reps] in group chat that the store would be closing, no idea when, but if you have any store credit you should use it pretty sharpish.”
  • “The Blueberry Discord [server] seems to have disappeared too.”
  • “I don’t think it’s also been mentioned here that the group moderators said in the group that they were basically laid off, but were continuing to support users as best they could for the sake of the Blueberry customers and group members.”
  • “The store is closing in SL. The CSR’s have announced that in group and her Discord group is gone as well.”
  • “They have no more CSRs, only recently laid off employees. Those people are saying they do not know whether the store will stay or go, but they know that for now, no new releases. No support provided, buy at your own risk. Whatever was said three days ago is vague, and it still remains a mystery on what is happening with this brand.”

In fact, there was so much speculation (some quite unfounded), that Mishi posted a second message to Facebook:

I want to stress once again that this is not a goodbye.

I need a minute to reflect on the changes I want to make to the future content I want to create.

Please allow me some time to think in peace. This isn’t just a business for me, it has been my passion. This platform specifically has been my passion. The people have been my passion.

So I ask of you, please, to take my word at face value here. I don’t want to make promises to anything because I don’t know what changes I want to make as yet.

So, aside from closing the Blueberry Discord server, and letting their customer service representatives and group moderators go, we really don’t know anything at this point. We’re just going to have to wait and see. (But don’t wait if you had your eye on something in the store, or if you have unspent store credits. Do it now!)

But I now want to focus on the bigger picture here, and speculate a bit about what’s possibly happening with Blueberry. Blueberry and its owner, Mishi McDuff, started off small, as the Observer noted in its 2022 article:

Mishi McDuff, founder of House of Blueberry, or Blueberry for short, attended a 2011 virtual concert in Second Life, an online gaming platform some call the first metaverse. She had wanted to see Sean Ryan, a Texas-based singer and songwriter, perform. McDuff joined the platform for the first time and attended the concert with her starter avatar. But alongside characters dressed as fairies, warriors and supermodels, she felt out of place. For her second virtual concert, she wore a polka dot dress she created in Photoshop, and concert attendees asked to buy her design for their own avatars. 

McDuff founded Blueberry knowing Second Life users were willing to spend money on their digital identities. Its first year, Blueberry recorded $60,000 in sales according to McDuff. By 2016, its yearly revenue hit $1 million with a team of three, designing virtual clothing for Second Life.

But, like many creators who got their start in SL, Mishi started looking at creating wearables for other platforms:

Last year [2021], McDuff decided to expand the team and scale the company as interest in the metaverse swelled. It has now entered the Roblox metaverse and sold more than 20 million virtual assets total. In addition to digital clothing, their portfolio includes accessories, hair styles, pets and pet clothing.

As one person commented in the previously-mentioned Second Life community forums thread:

“Roblox revenue last year was 2.2 billion dollars. And they’re moving to more realistic avatars.”

Take a scroll through the House of Blueberry website, and it’s very clear where the emphasis is! (There is precious little mention of Second Life at all on their website!)

As one commenter stated on the SL Community Forums:

We know that there’s a massive number of daily and monthly users on ROBLOX (70.2 million daily and over 216 million monthly active users)… but according to Zepeto’s numbers, they have around 300 million users worldwide.  Go ahead and look, I did so myself.

Compare those numbers to what the daily and monthly numbers are for SL, and you’ll understand why this was more or less a business decision.

House of Blueberry was also front and centre in a mixed-success initiative called the Metaverse Fashion Week (MVFW), and last year they received some $6 million in funding for digital fashion initiatives, according to a VentureBeat article dated January 16th, 2023. (I also wrote about Blueberry’s heavy involvement in the Metaverse Fashion week in a February 2022 blogpost on my blog.)

While blockchain metaverse platforms and NFT-based avatar wearables have largely crashed and burned since their heady heyday only a few short years ago, they are far from the only game in town. Non-blockchain platforms and apps, such as Roblox, Zepeto, and Snapchat, all have far larger markets for avatar customization, and they absolutely dwarf the user base of Second Life.

And the user base for Snapchat, Roblox, and Zepeto also skews significantly younger than Second Life’s, another important consideration to anybody looking at the metaverse marketplace. While it’s true that older users tend to have more discretionary money to spend, they also—sad to say—have a tendency to grow old and even die! Second Life’s user base keeps adding just enough new people to replace those who retire (or die), but not at a rate that makes it grow significantly (pandemic bumps notwithstanding).

Also, factor in that popular avatar clothing designers in Second Life have to deal with constant changes and additions to the various brands of mesh bodies which they are often asked to make apparel for. For example, take the recent decision by Maitreya to replace its ubiquitious Maitreya Lara 5.3 mesh body with the retweaked LaraX, which is just different enough to require some rerigging work (although things like shoes and rings should still work).

It takes a lot of work to rig clothing properly for a single brand of mesh body; multiply that work by the number of mesh bodies you are being asked to support by your customers. It quickly becomes obvious that the amount of work required (rigging an article of clothing for five or six or seven or eight of the most popular brands of male and female mesh bodies), to serve a user base which has stayed pretty much the same size for the past decade, poses a rather serious workload problem.

Some stores, such as Spoiled in this image, rig for as many as nineteen or twenty mesh body variations! This is INSANITY, and yet new mesh bodies and add-ons multiply in Second Life.

So, I wouldn’t be surprised in the slightest that Mishi of the House of Blueberry, and whoever is on her team, have scouted out the field, done their research, checked their spreadsheets, and decided to cut their ties to Second Life, and focus on the much more lucrative opportunity to create avatar apparel for those games and apps that boast millions of users. It just makes economic sense.

The truly worrying thought is: how many other Second Life content creators are also looking at places where the grass is greener, and are willing to jump ship? (Go ahead, call the mixed metaphor police. I dare you. 😜 )

Blueberry just might be the most public case to date, but I somehow doubt that they will be the last. And the lesson here for all metaverse platforms is: be good to your content creators, or they might desert you for better profits elsewhere! What is your platform doing to attract and keep the talent that brings in new users?

UPDATE April 25th, 2024: I forgot to mention that the Blueberry store also has a group gifts wall, opposite the Information Wall in the front entrance hall. If you are a member of the Bluebeery group, don’t forget to pick up all the gifts!

However, I have just been informed that you can no longer join the Blueberry store group to pick up these group gifts. I take this as yet another troubling sign that Blueberry is planning to leave Second Life.