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
@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’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 🤷♂️
Steve Troughton-Smith
Frank Reiff
MarkV