One thing Apple doesn't seem to be cognizant of is that once developers flip the bozo bit on a platform, they never come back — it's a death spiral. That's the danger visionOS faces with its current strategy.
You know what other platform launched with half-finished/emulated system apps and no content? Windows 8. And Microsoft literally paid third-party developers to come onboard, sent them devices, gave them all the support they needed, even ported their apps for them, yet it still didn't work
@markv @stroughtonsmith I think the problems of the Vision Pro go way past “gripes”: besides minor gripes like being WAY too expensive and WAY too heavy, which perhaps could be fixed, the truly big one is Apple’s structural inability to make the right calls:
- in the absence of a new killer app, target towards exercise, games and media consumption
- make the platform viable by financing the first wave of apps, games & content
- bring third parties on board as partners
@amonduin @markv @stroughtonsmith true, but even in the productivity space most of the applications are in the vertical markets, where the hardware and the software are bundled together as “solutions”, much like say “point of sale” solutions and that does not vibe with Apple’s walled garden philosophy.. not to mention hardware customizability.
Examples like surgery look great on a marketing video.. but will they make a bespoke easy-to-sterilize version? I think not.
@frankreiff @stroughtonsmith But I think the 1st one may be trickier? Deciding whether to target gaming or productivity is such a fundamental product choice with such impact on hardware and software design that I'm not sure if it's something they made the wrong call on?
The device they wanted to build is something to be used professionally as a tool for surgeons, 3D CAD designers, etc etc. I don't think you can build that hardware and then target the software & content towards gaming & media 🤷♂️
@markv @stroughtonsmith I think that’s the biggest problem of them all.. they WANT to go for high margin professional uses, but that does not vibe at all.
I saw the surgery marketing stunt.. a non-sterilizable headset with super low accuracy eye-tracking input for precision surgery.. makes perfect sense.. you need special licenses for use in surgical applications.. and hyper specialized software.. and those things are sold as hardware, software, support, maintenance contracts bundles..
@frankreiff @stroughtonsmith Yeah I agree it's mostly a marketing stunt - a bit like giving the latest Beats headphones to celebrities or publishing stories about people's lives saved by their Apple Watch: it communicates product aspiration, even if 99% of users won't fall into that category.
Plus the surgery thing was (if I remember well) about Vision Pro being used by the scrub nurse managing the instruments, not the surgeons themselves.
@markv @stroughtonsmith you’re right.. it was the scrub nurse.. but the intent was clearly to associate AVR with medical applications.. and think of the possibilities! 😀
A bit like that car launch video with Tim in cyberspace.
@markv @stroughtonsmith .. I’m pretty sure none of that software exists.
3D CAD.. any other vertically integrated market.. same thing: nobody is looking for a quick solution to giving away control of your entire business and dealing Apple in with 30%.
They look for serious business players: Microsoft HoloLens, Varjo, etc.. and for low-cost training VR, the Quest is unbeatable and you can side load your own software.
@frankreiff @stroughtonsmith The point about the 30% cut and sideloading points to the difference between the Apple of the 1990's selling a "platform" for others to build on top of vs. the Apple of the 2010's selling "the whole widget" and wanting a cut of every bit of value created in their ecosystem.
I don't see how they square the fact that they launched visionOS with the closed model like iOS and iPadOS with the fact that they're marketing it as a productivity platform like macOS.
@frankreiff @stroughtonsmith I'm somewhat optimistic (and maybe naïve) that the popularity of the Mac virtual display feature might eventually put a spotlight on the need for some openness if they want this to be a tool for work. They could choose to allow Mac apps to run natively on the device in one way or another, and then gradually follow that train of thought to more openness in general?
Probably a pipe dream 🤷♂️
@stroughtonsmith VisionOS is in a hard position.
Good apps that takes advantage of the unique platform are expensive to develop.
But the high cost of the hardware limits volume, making ROI difficult.
Making matters worse, even if a developer thinks ROI is there, they’re subject to App Store review capriciousness. A gamble.
VisionOS needs a killer app and given all of the above Apple needs to be the (first) one to make it.
@stroughtonsmith I love Apple platforms, but if they can’t make make the iPad as effective as a Mac in an iPad way, then I don’t really trust visionOS to be able to pull it off in its own way either.
Developer container where developer apps can run together in a sandbox would solve one of my problems biggest problems.
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