Spot on. And I'll add: It’s also a dev kit positioned as a consumer product, priced as an enterprise/industrial tool but without any of the features that enterprise/industry can use. The whole thing remains a mess and no amount of “whataboutism” or iPhone comparisons, as if we aren't living in a different time, will change the fact that this thing is DOA in its current form and positioning.
@film_girl@marcoarment A decent number of folks are really into rewriting history on this one. Yeah, the VP may be a major hit one day, but it ain’t off to an iPhone-like start.
@matt@marcoarment exactly. And like, the thing is, the iPhone might not have had an App Store for a year -- but the enthusiast community was so strong that within weeks, you had people reverse-engineering apps. It had momentum. We've seen a small amount of that for AVP, but certainly nothing like what we saw for iPhone. Even the OG Mac, in its first year, killer apps were available from companies not named Apple (Microsoft Excel, PageMaker), again, momentum. AVP doesn't have the juice right now
@film_girl@matt@marcoarment If it were exactly the same, but only did movies/immersion, but sold by Bang and Olufsen, we’d be talking about it like a hit.
@philbee@gruber@matt@marcoarment it wouldn’t sell any better. It’d sell worse. The difference would be that no one would have an expectations of it selling super well. The idea would be for it to trickle down in 2.5 years until we all have progressive scan DVD players that are also PS2s. To me the problem isn’t that it’s a limited audience device, it’s that it has been positioned and marketed for the general/mass market consumer.
@philbee@film_girl@matt@marcoarment I agree. It would probably sell less — the B&O name is obscure, and Apple is the top brand in the field. But the profound entertainment quality right now leads me to object to categorizing it as a “dev kit”. It’s worth $4000 for movies alone, if you have need for solo movie-watching (frequent traveler, live alone, etc.).
@gruber@philbee@film_girl@matt@marcoarment Hmm in lovely springtime weather, it occurs to me it would be delightful to sit out in a yard or a balcony with the equivalent of an enormous tv!
@marcoarment@gruber@philbee@film_girl@matt for sure it's nice to look at reality. But where are you supposed to use the AVP? Indoors in the bathroom? (hmm that might be fun too)
@gruber@philbee@matt@marcoarment I’m not calling it a dev kit as a pejorative, I’m calling it a dev kit because as a fully realized general computing device, it is currently a dev kit. If it was positioned as a high-end solo video device, that would at least be an accurate way to position it, but it isn’t being positioned that way. For some high-end solo movie watchers, it's def worth the price, but this is also where content ecosystems become problematic (specifically talking 3D content)
@gruber@film_girl@matt@marcoarment Sincerely disagree with this as a longtime (non-Apple) VR headset owner. The awkward form factor is THE hurdle for the entire category, and that issue isn't going away soon, even if they solve the missing "killer app” issue and even with Apple’s UX advances.
The arc of the VR headset owner is at this point predictable: an initial surge of "wow this is amazing” (and it is!), followed by a slow drop-off in usage, until eventually it sits on a shelf, neglected
@gruber@matt@marcoarment perhaps, but Apple isn’t B&O and it isn’t even Sony in the 90s/00s. (And we’d still ding it for not having Netflix or YouTube or Spotify.) But if it were focused as a movies/immersion device, it would be positioned appropriately as a home theater device for rich people. Not as a consumer headset cum general computing platform. The positioning and marketing of the device have been completely wrong.
@film_girl@gruber@matt@marcoarment Apple can’t even make more than 500,000 AVPs per year… difficult to gain momentum when it can’t really be mass produced & sold globally.
Until Apple can affordably make tens of millions per year I don’t see much point in having an aggressive marketing push for AVP.
Given current cost of materials and manufacturing, it could be 5+ years for it to get anywhere near mainstream. Doesn’t mean they shouldn’t have released something now though.🤷♂️
@gruber@film_girl@matt@marcoarment it’s also a bit pundit-brained to be making sweeping predictions about a two month old product. (I’m of the opinion that we can’t make any decent predictions until we see what Apple says about it at WWDC — if they don’t announce interesting things for a presumptive visionOS 2, that’d be a pretty bad sign.)
@kemayo@gruber@matt@marcoarment I don’t think anyone is making sweeping predictions. Simply observing the reality that the momentum/general interest is not comparable to any new Apple product/platform launch in recent memory is just that. An observation. Maybe it turns around and becomes Apple Watch. Maybe it’s a Pippin or Newton or Windows Phone. If this were from any other company the critique would be even louder at this stage.
@kemayo@gruber@film_girl@marcoarment In fairness, I don’t think any of us made sweeping predictions, just opinions how we think this product is doing at launch. I’m really excited about what we might see in visionOS 2 at WWDC 😊
@kemayo@film_girl@matt@marcoarment It’s impossible to predict where it might go, but I think it’s very possible to judge “is this something?” right now, and I think it is most definitely something.
@gruber@film_girl@matt@marcoarment while I think that is true, it is absolutely not how Apple is framing it. This is portrayed as the next evolution in computing, basically as an iPhone or Mac-category device.
It may become that one day, but from what it seems now, it’s more of an Apple Watch. Complimentary, niche and potentially successful, but not revolutionary.
@doculmus@film_girl@matt@marcoarment It does not compare to the iPhone in 2007. But it might compare surprisingly well to the Macintosh in 1984, which at first sold so poorly it resulted in Steve Jobs being fired from Apple. And was extremely expensive ($7000+ in today’s dollars) and introduced a new metaphor for computing (GUI, not CLI).
Saying "it's DOA in its current form" is like saying the original Macintosh was DOA in its original form, as if there weren't ever plans for more, or ever plans for changes/responses to reception.
@godofbiscuits see, this is the sort of statement I completely disagree with. Comparing AVP to Macintosh or iPhone doesn't work because it isn't 1984 or 2007, it's 2024. This isn't the mid-1980s where there is a nascent world of personal computers and a mouse and a GUI are genuinely ground-breaking and sales move slow and trickle down.
This is 2024, where we've had over a decade of VR headsets (FB bought Oculus 10 years ago!) and the market size is still small but people know what a headset is
@godofbiscuits and not for nothing, but within the first year of the Macintosh, it already had Excel and PageMaker, two of the most influential Mac apps of all time. As I said, you can't compare these two moments or products. They are not the same and the market is not the same. But even if you were to do that, Mac already had momentum and AVP is stagnant in its current form. Maybe WWDC changes that - but I call a spade a spade. And this thing is DOA as it is currently positioned.
Pagemaker: July, 1985: 1yr 6 mo later
Excel: Sep 30, 1985: 1 yr 8 mo later
I was using my Mac + ImageWriter for nearly 3 full semesters as a non-networked desktop machine for labs, papers, drawing, and games before desktop publishing existed.
@godofbiscuits my point is that you can’t compare these things — because sales and development happen differently. I was barely alive when the Mac was starting out but I know it wasn’t a device you walked into Sears and bought. You had to go through dealers. And it was truly brand new. The fact that it had momentum and sold 250k units its first year shows that. Right now, as positioned, AVP has zero momentum. Zero. Maybe that changes at WWDC but this is where we are now.
@godofbiscuits I mean I wasn’t born yet so I’ll admit I’m wrong there. I didn’t think that happened enough masse until the end of the 1980s. Mea culpa. But it still isn’t like we can reasonably compare the personal computer market and how you bought hardware and software in 1984 vs the consumer electronics market today. Come on. That’s my whole point. It isn’t 1984. Or 2007 or even 2010. (And AVP isn’t even in the ballpark as iPhone or iPad at this stage in their lifecycle).
@godofbiscuits@dave and headsets have been around for a dozen years today. Apple refusing to call it VR doesn’t change the fact that it is AR/VR headset. Using the marketing speak of “spatial computing” is no different than when Microsoft was gung-ho on “mixed reality.” With AVP, the screens are better. The pass-through is better. It feels more premium. It still isn’t a fundamentally different product category. It’s an astounding tech demo. One of the best I’ve ever seen. It’s still a headset.
@fishcharlie@marcoarment It's really not -- I just use that as a caveat to show that you can have a flop product become a success with the right repositioning and focus.
@film_girl@marcoarment at least one company wants you to run a live show with a fully virtual production switcher (the line was long and I have doubts about targets that small)
Add comment