Tag: Apple

Why I Bought the Apple Vision Pro—And Why I Am Returning It (UPDATE: NOT Returning It)

This is not the review that I was expecting to write for the Apple Vision Pro.

Last Friday, I took the day off work, and went down to the Apple Store in Polo Park, giddy as a kid on Christmas morning, to pick up my pre-ordered Apple Vision Pro. The demo and walk-through went very well, and I have nothing but praise for the store associate who led me through a basic tour of the AVP’s features. I picked up the eyes-and-hand navigation in no time. I marveled at the technology, declared it worth every penny I had spent, and walked out of the store, bags in hand, feeling on top of the world.

I was told that I was the first person in Manitoba to walk out of that store with an Apple Vision Pro. I wanted to be on the cutting edge of VR and AR. I wanted to be one of the cool kids. I was all set to go.

However.

I am currently at the point where, unless something changes quickly, I will soon be walking back into that same Apple Store, the same bags in hand, with a repackaged Apple Vision Pro and accessories (e.g. a carrying case), to return them all and get my money back.

Why? Well, I’m glad you asked.

I am returning the Apple Vision Pro for one reason and one reason only. During the order process, I scanned a copy of my eyeglasses prescription, since I will be unable to wear my glasses under the face-hugging, ski-mask-like design of the AVP.

When I showed up last Friday to pick up my unit, they cleaned and put my eyeglasses into a machine called a lensometer, which automatically measured my lenses and spit out a code, which then could then use to pull magnetic prescription lenses from the large collection of lenses they have kept in the back of the store, just for the purpose of demos. So, in other words, even though I didn’t have my prescription lenses ready yet, I could still go through the demonstration and walk-through process in store which, as I have said, went swimmingly.

The problem is, that I only have 15 days to return the Apple Vision Pro for a no-questions-asked, full refund. The clock started ticking the moment I left the store. And, as it turns out, my prescription lenses I ordered are currently still sitting in limbo in the United States, and I cannot get a hold of any real, live person at UPS to explain to me why they were unable to deliver them to me today, when they were promised:

All day, I kept refreshing the tracking page, waiting for it to move from “On the Way” to “Out for Delivery.” It never happened. The last status of my order was dated July 13th, showing that my prescription lenses were sitting in a UPS facility in Louisville, Kentucky, where apparently they have been sitting ever since. No word. No updates. No text or email messages with status updates (even though I had set them up).

This is when my nightmare started.

I spent the next few hours this evening trying, in vain, to connect to a real, live human being at UPS who could tell me why my prescription lenses were stuck in limbo. Every time, I landed up in an AI chatbot hell, which sent me in circles.

So I have decided to return my Apple Vision Pro and get my money back, because there is every possibility that my 15-day return window is going to close before I can even use the damn thing! I have assembled it, charged it, and put it on, once—and I can’t see a thing without the corrective lenses I need. I can’t even begin to set it up! The clock is ticking while I essentially have a useless, CA$7,700* paperweight on my hands. And I am getting angry.

Why Apple chose to partner up with UPS to deliver their prescription lenses, and why Apple forces you to order the device and the prescription lenses at the same time, instead of ordering the lenses ahead of time, is something that I do not understand. Maybe once I actually get my hands on my prescription lenses, then I will go back and buy one. But not before.

But I am not going to sit around and wait for UPS to get their shit together, and spring me from AI chatbot jail. I even tried to file a claim, only for it to be rejected, with a reference to the same telephone number with the same AI chatbot I had fought with all evening:

I was quite willing (eager, even) to pay through the nose to be a glorified beta tester for Apple, but not if I can’t even USE the device I bought! This whole sales process is screwed up for people who require prescription lenses, and until it is fixed, they can have their Apple Vision Pro back, and my money can sit in my bank account until they do get their act together. Enough. This is not the level of service I expect from a company like Apple, and the fact they decided to partner with UPS, and their shitty customer service, just blows my mind.

UPDATE Thursday, July 18th, 2024, 9:00 a.m.: My tracking page now looks like this:

Therefore, since I now have absolutely no idea when I can expect my prescription lenses, without which my Apple Vision Pro is useless, tomorrow I will be packing up my device, and returning it to the Apple Store to get a refund within the 15-day, no-questions-asked return period.

UPDATE Thursday, July 18th, 2024, 10:44 a.m.: I have just spent a very frustrating half hour on the phone with the Apple Store in Polo Park, which started by once again being interrogated by an AI chatbot who is pretending to type on a keyboard while telling me to please wait. When I finally got through to a real person, I could not find the original purchase receipt in my email at all, and I had to jump through several hoops in order for them to send me another receipt, which I will be printing off and bringing with me on Friday when I return everything.

I am getting angrier and angrier at this whole experience, and that anger has nothing to do with the specifications of the product itself; it has everything to do with how I am being treated as a customer. UPS gets most of the blame here, although my situation illustrates that Apple might need to rethink how the purchase process might need to be adjusted for people who require prescription lenses.

UPDATE Saturday, July 20th: So, I packed up my Apple Vision Pro and took it back to the Apple Store, where I spoke with both the business manager and the store manager. They told me that they wanted me to take advantage of the full 15-day return window, and therefore would not start the clock until my prescription lenses are released from limbo in Louisville and are in my possession!

Therefore, I took my boxes back home, and now we are working from both sides (mine and the store’s) to figure out why there has been a delay in delivery, and how to fix it. (Please note that all this happened before the Crowdstrike outage, which apparently is also affecting UPS. As of this morning, the status on my tracking page is still “The delivery date will be provided as soon as possible,” and they are still stuck in Louisville, Kentucky, where they have been sitting since July 13th.)

UPDATE Tuesday, July 23rd: Well, today UPS updated the tracking page for my prescription lenses to a status of Delay, with the message: “We’re sorry for the inconvenience. If you are the sender, please check with the receiver to confirm delivery. Otherwise, you may start a claim to provide a resolution.” In other words, UPS seems to have lost my lenses.

I once again tried to file a claim, filling out several pages of information on the UPS website, before I once again got the same error message as I did last week, which referred me back to their 1-800 telephone number and AI chatbot hell. After yelling at the chatbot for half an hour (which, apparently, has not been trained on the phrase I WANT TO MAKE A CLAIM), I finally got connected to a real, live human being in the Tracking Department, who referred me on to a woman in the Investigation Department, where I learned that it is now up to the sender (i.e., Apple, or perhaps Zeiss) to start an investigation into what went wrong. So, I have dutifully relayed all the information this women gave me to my contact at the Apple Retail Business office at their Polo Park store.

At this point I am ready to tear my hair out in frustration. It doesn’t help that I have also been fighting with both my bank and Canada Revenue Agency this week, over a mistake which my former financial planner made in 2022, leading to fines I have to pay for all three of the 2022, 2023, and 2024 tax years. This thing with Apple was the cherry on top of a shit sundae, a very bad week overall. But I digress.

So far, this has been a horrible customer service experience, easily the worst one since I tried to get my Valve Index VR headset repaired when it broke. As a result of that experience, I swore that I would never, EVER purchase a Valve Index VR headset for the virtual reality lab project I am currently working on for the University of Manitoba Libraries, because even though I like the Valve Index hardware, God help you if anything should go wrong, and you have to try and get support for a problem, or (God forbid) you want to talk to an actual person about the problem you are having.

Valve’s entire support system is set up to hinder, not help you, and keep you from talking a real person, much like the UPS setup (and, for that matter, the Canada Revenue Service). I might be able to forgive, but I will not forget, and my current experience with Apple, Zeiss, and UPS, is shaping up to be similar to my Valve Index debacle. (I note with a feeling of harsh satisfaction that my blogpost outlining my nightmare support experience with Valve shows up in the first page of Google search results when you search on “valve index support.” At least, it does for me. Your mileage may vary.)

You give Auntie Ryan a poor customer service experience, trust and believe that everybody will hear about it, sweetheart! (Or, as I often like to say, “I am that bitch.”)

At this point, Apple is going to work with the investigation team at UPS to find out what the hell happened to my first order, and we have already placed a second, replacement order, which is due to arrive July 27th to 29th. And Apple will issue me a refund for the first set of lenses, which we now assume are lost in Louisville. And I have received an apology both from the Apple Store, and from UPS, for the incovenience and hassle. So, now we wait.

*cost of a 1-terabyte Apple Vision Pro, two years of AppleCare warranty coverage, a carrying case, plus provincial and federal sales taxes (equivalent to US$5,628 at today’s exchange rate)

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! 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!

InSpaze: One of the First Social Apps for the Apple Vision Pro (Plus a Tantalizing Look at Apple’s New Spatial Personas)

The HelloSpace team (makers of InSpaze) met with Apple CEO Tim Cook in late March (source: Twitter)

In its emphasis on the term spatial computing (instead of virtual reality or augmented reality), some observers have commented that there is a somewhat puzzling lack of social VR/AR apps for the Apple Vision Pro. Well, I recently learned (from the very active r/VisionPro community on Reddit) that there is a social app for the AVP, called InSpaze. Here’s a 15-minute YouTube video giving you an idea of what is possible now:

Please note several interesting things about this video: First, when you see the hands of the person capturing this video in his Apple Vision Pro (using the built-in video recording features), they are actually his real hands via pass-through, not an avatar’s hands!

Second, one of the features of InSpaze is real-time voice translation! One of the participants spoke a sentence in Chinese, which was translated into English and displayed as a subtitle under his Persona (at the 6:45 minute mark in this video).

There are people in this video participating around the table via their own Vision Pro headsets, in which their avatar appears as the still-in-beta-testing Personas (which is based on a scan of their real-life face, as a part of setup). While the Personas feature of the AVP can still be a bit unsettling, with uncanny valley vibes, and they appear currently in InSpaze only via a flatscreen view right now, Apple has just announced (and released) Spatial Personas, which look like this:

So, I expect it will only be a matter of time before Spatial Personas are added to InSpaze, replacing the locked-in-flatscreen look that current AVP participants have in InSpaze with a three-dimensional version. Mind blowing! It’s certainly a refreshing change from a Zoom call!

Also, note that iPhone and iPad users, running the InSpaze app, can also participate in InSpaze rooms! iPhone and iPad users actually have a cartoonified version of their real-life face, which honestly kind of matches the cartoony look of the AVP Personas. I couldn’t help but notice that one of the iPhone participants was standing outside, and the wind was blowing his hair around, which looked really weird combined with his cartoony face! Another guy (the one speaking Chinese) was behind the wheel of his car (let’s hope he wasn’t driving!).

InSpaze is already available on the Apple Store, for the Apple Vision Pro, iPhone, and iPad. It is made by a company called HelloSpace (website; Discord; Twitter/X). Apparently, it’s been quite a hit among AVP users, who seem to appreciate having a way to connect with each other in virtual space! In fact, in the first video up top, they talk about how Apple employees themselves like to use InSpaze to connect with their customers.

Things are happening so fast in this space that it’s been hard to keep on top of all the developments! I do find that a daily visit to the r/VisionPro subreddit is a very good way to stay abreast of everything that’s going on with this rapidly-evolving technology. I’m still patiently waiting for when we Canadians can pre-order the Apple Vision Pro (hopefully sometime this spring or summer). And I’m quite envious of the Americans who have already gotten their hot little hands on a unit!

I want one. I waaaant one!