I used to be rooting for the Apple Imaginative and prescient Professional.
I’m nonetheless rooting for it, and for spatial computing and wearable computer systems general. However, two weeks in the past, as I packed up the system in its overpriced carrying case to demo it to my colleagues at our workplace, I had a stark realization. Identical to each different headset that got here earlier than it (be it Oculus, Meta Quest, HTC Vive, PlayStation VR, Google Cardboard—the listing goes on), the one actual repeated use case that had emerged is exhibiting it to individuals who’ve by no means seen it earlier than. It was a devastating realization.
I’m a futurist, not essentially by selection, however by compulsion. I’ve an incurable case of extreme optimism. But additionally, a really essential filter for hype. And 4 months in the past, once I received my palms on the Imaginative and prescient Professional at launch, I believed I used to be glimpsing our collective future. VisionOS felt inevitable. It felt like, In fact that is how we’ll all be utilizing computer systems quickly.
Lastly, among the core issues that had plagued earlier generations of headsets (whether or not digital, augmented, or blended actuality) have been solved. The Imaginative and prescient Professional’s decision, body price, and eye-tracking have been revelatory. Gone was the near-constant concern of oncoming movement illness. Gone was the necessity to manually map a “safe area” to keep away from breaking furnishings. Gone have been the awkward controllers.
I used to be a vocal supporter of Apple’s freshman foray into the blended world of bodily and digital. I made counterarguments in opposition to the overwhelming refrain of why? Why so costly? Why so heavy? Why so creepy?
But it’s 4 months later, and I actually forgot the factor existed for 2 entire weeks. The fact of spatial computing is there’s nearly no area for it in day-to-day life.
How did we get right here?
The crux of the issue is the identify and market positioning of this system. In actuality, the Apple Imaginative and prescient Professional is a cumbersome, cumbersome, costly, however finally groundbreaking developer equipment. In that context, it’s a house run. However as an alternative, Apple’s crack group of entrepreneurs billed it as a consumer-ready Professional product (regardless of Steve Jobs’s warning about what occurs when advertising takes over a product-led firm). And so, we’re compelled to evaluate it by that lens.
Google Glass suffered an analogous destiny to what I feared for Apple Imaginative and prescient V1. It was launched with a bang, touted as the way forward for private computing and promising to liberate folks from the shackles of their neck-strain-causing smartphones, all whereas permitting die-hard futurist early adopters like me to behave extra naturally amongst muggles. But, the other occurred. Push previous the horrible battery life, shockingly steep value level (about half of what the Imaginative and prescient Professional prices) and restricted set of apps and performance. What truly killed Google Glass was how folks recoiled in disgust after they caught somebody sporting it in public.
The Imaginative and prescient Professional isn’t any completely different. The straight shunning I face sporting it’s a clear indicator that society has made its selection between the headset being a glimpse of our inevitable future, or an obtuse, repulsive technological folly. Not less than Google Glass was bodily comfy to put on. The Imaginative and prescient Professional is so heavy, unbalanced, and painful that within the first week, whereas attempting to put on it because the productivity-forward system it was purported to be, I barely lasted 2.5 days with it on. And that’s regardless of the face scan they carried out in the course of the ordering course of to find out which mild protect is my “perfect match.”
Right here’s the unlucky reality: Aside from once I’m exhibiting the Imaginative and prescient Professional to folks for the primary time, I’ve grow to be totally detached and unbothered by the prospect of turning it on.
It didn’t need to be this fashion, and I can’t assist however mirror on the place this headset went fallacious, together with the handfuls of gadgets that litter the timeline earlier than it, languishing away as useless trophies of progressive innovation. Apple has at all times been recognized to launch new gadgets with pared-down performance and overly simplified controls, however the Imaginative and prescient Professional takes this to the intense. And the supposedly next-generation visionOS 2, which Apple introduced final week, renders incremental updates at finest. The studies this week of Apple suspending its work on the following model of the system attributable to lack of demand and as an alternative prioritizing a less expensive mannequin reveals the corporate is probably back-tracking, and that there’s inside pressure over this launch being a case of know-how positioned earlier than buyer expertise (satirically).
Whereas the Imaginative and prescient Professional’s intuitiveness and design are definitely industry-defining requirements, the general public disgrace, the discomfort, the worth tag, and the missing performance are very laborious tablets to swallow. It’s unlikely the Imaginative and prescient Professional will obtain any vital market penetration or construct up a base of content material and experiences that ship the lasting emotional impression wanted to make it a “must have” funding for particular person customers.
My eyes are nonetheless lifting in direction of the horizon with hope. Hope for a lot lighter and cheaper {hardware}. Hope for an answer to the aching loneliness that units in once you put on it round others and understand they will’t share in what you’re seeing. Hope for a killer app or use case round distant telepresence to catch hearth and drive the huge enhancements in the price and miniaturization of the know-how which are at present limitations to its mass attraction.
As I watched one other slickly produced, uncannily sterile WWDC demo at Apple’s headquarters final week and noticed all the within jokes about software program chief Craig Federighi’s hair, one factor was sure: Nobody excessive up at Apple is sporting this factor each day both.
With the pending launch of the Imaginative and prescient Professional in Canada in a few weeks (I’m based mostly in Toronto), I’ve resigned to the truth that when mates, household, and colleagues ask if they need to shell out a good portion of their disposable revenue to get one, my reply will probably be, sadly, no.
Not but a minimum of.
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