Mastodawn

The $3500 face-covering, world-isolating, anti-social, uncomfortably heavy 3D computer headset with clunky external battery, limited optical quality, awful text input, awful voice input, primitive pointer input, a locked-down OS, almost no software, almost no content, and no good way to share it with anyone else in the household was held back by… poor retail training!

Yeah, that's it.

https://www.macrumors.com/2026/04/07/vision-pro-troubled-launch-in-apple-stores/

New Book Details Vision Pro's Troubled Launch in Apple Stores

A new book by New York Times labor reporter Noam Scheiber argues that Apple's decade-long erosion of its retail workforce directly contributed to...

MacRumors

Holger Krupp 1d ago

@marcoarment I have access to 5 Vision Pros. They have not been used since April last year.

FreediverX 1d ago

@marcoarment
NYT always playing defense for capital and shitting on labor.

Nico Reese 1d ago

@marcoarment I'm reminded of my Vision Pro's existence purely because it does the security reboot thing every 48 hours at 1:35 AM (that's when I last used it 6+ months ago) with an audible chime.

softmaus 1d ago

@nicoreese Why don’t you sell it?

Nico Reese 1d ago

@softmaus I still want to be able to try out new software features and see where it's heading, and immersive content is great.

softmaus 1d ago

@nicoreese I see. Would you purchase it again if it were broken / lost / etc?

Jack Wellborn 1d ago

@marcoarment Honestly, the retail experience I had was really, really good.

I still didn't buy one obviously, but that was in spite of the excellent retail experience.

Mieszko Ślusarczyk 1d ago

@jackwellborn @marcoarment this! The experience was nice, the Apple Store staff was great too, but there is NOTHING that would justify that price point for me.

@jackwellborn @marcoarment Also agree! As a former Apple retail store employee, I’ve been through many new product introductions and this was by far the smoothest and most enticing I ever experienced.

My only nitpick was that they were unable to demonstrate the aspect I was most interested in: Mac synchronization.

I still did not buy one, but that’s because I don’t have a spare $4k to drop on a solo movie-watching device.

Patrick B. Gibson 1d ago

@marcoarment a rep at the Chestnut St store (in SF) told me they sell about 1 a month, lol

ROTOPE~1 ⭐️1d ago

@pbg @marcoarment .… and 90% of the time, it comes back within the 14 days

Thomas Rademaker 1d ago

@marcoarment im a professional iOS developer. I love Apple and tech. I’ve never tried them.

Mieszko Ślusarczyk 1d ago

@rademaker @marcoarment I did when I got the chance (while travelling, sadly no Apple Stores in Poland), and I believe it’s at least worth trying out.

Mhorydyn 1d ago

@marcoarment Agreed that it's unlikely a fault of retail training, but after trying one for a few weeks I'd love to have one even if it didn't get a ton of use. It’s probably my favourite way to watch movies (for example) and would be worth having just for that…but the price is so so far beyond what I'm willing to pay for the utility it provides.

Jason Snell 1d ago

@marcoarment just falls into my entire thesis that Apple doesn’t know how to market/sell anything but mass consumer products, and this thing wasn’t and isn’t one. Yet was marketed as one?

J. Blake 1d ago

@jsnell @marcoarment I wonder if the AI pin will fare any better.

@jsnell @marcoarment They killed off the iPhone Mini, 11" MacBook Air and Aperture, but continue to sell this thing?!?

Roger Moore 1d ago

@rbender @jsnell @marcoarment
My guess is they overproduced based on unrealistic sales projections and are still trying to unload the stock.

Andrew Laurence 1d ago

@jsnell @marcoarment That anyone might think these are mass market devices … befuddles me.

@jsnell @marcoarment It's Apple's Segway.

The Macinthrope 1d ago

@marcintosh @jsnell @marcoarment It’s just Tim’s Newton. The ideas are interesting, but the tech just isn’t there yet.

Steve Barnes 1d ago

I can still see a truly amazing future for it, if its journey there can somehow be well-enough supported.

But my initial reaction lives on: I guessed from the rumours that the Vision Pro was a development device (like those transition kit Macs for Intel and Apple Silicon), and was still left blinking at the announcement, thinking "wait; this is just… out?"

(Why not, I guess…?)

@jsnell @marcoarment I think part of marketing, especially in tech, is iteration. Too often App gives up and leaves its products to languish for years between significant revisions. I'm kind of done with Apple products that don't get yearly refreshes. If Apple doesn't care then why should I? Marketing can't really fix that.

@robnee @jsnell @marcoarment Vision Pro should be moving at a pace where you're almost irritated every time you pick it up because there's another software update

Marco Arment 11h ago

@hoagie @robnee @jsnell I'm irritated every time I pick it up because I bought it

The Animal and the Machine 1d ago

@jsnell @marcoarment
To be blunt, it’s all on the price tag.

Everything else would have been ironed out with the pickup.

Roger Moore 1d ago

@jsnell @marcoarment
Apple clearly knows how to sell very high-end computers, too. Look at the price for the Mac Studio models; they are clearly mass consumer products, but they sell well enough to justify coming out with new models regularly. I think the problem was thinking the Vision Pro was going to be a mass market product, not a niche, high-end one.

Machiel 18h ago

@jsnell @marcoarment or: almost no body wants that thing. When I told my friends and family about it they all said: why would I want that.

I don’t think it was the marketing. It was the product.

SwampYankee 1d ago

@marcoarment Can't decide if this was a failed technology or a failed product. Maybe there was an alternate universe where face wearable computers are thing but it just doesn't seem to be something the public wants. Not just from Apple, from anybody. Can't see Apple spending anymore time on this. It will be allowed to wither, and then be cancelled without ever receiving a price reduction.

Joe Lion 1d ago

@SwampYankee @marcoarment in my view, good technology and a failed product. Here’s my list of problems, nearly all self-inflicted, from a screed I put in a YouTube comment section

——-

In an effort to be different than the rest of the market, Apple kneecapped themselves with product decisions that 1) made the AVP too expensive, and 2) made it worse that competitors in many ways.

1/13ish

Joe Lion 1d ago

@SwampYankee @marcoarment Like [said in a YT video], Apple often is a follower in key technologies and product markets. However, when they do decide to enter a category, they always like to add some "Apple flair" to differentiate their product from existing products. Sometimes its new features that are exclusive to Apple, but sometimes it's just extra polish and attention to details, so while they did not "invent" a feature, Apple may "perfect" it.
2/13ish

Joe Lion 1d ago

Their desire to stand out from the crowd and make the AVP "different" was its undoing. Here's a partial list of features on AVP that made it a worse product, or made it unnecessarily expensive
4/13ish

Joe Lion 1d ago

1)The front-facing screens for "eye-sight", models of the wearer's eyes are displayed on outward-facing screens. This was their "oh, wow, only Apple could pull this off!" feature, and it's one of the dumbest features on any modern product. It's a triple whammy, because besides being a feature nobody asked for, nobody needs and nobody wants, it also just simply didn't work well enough and looks creepy as hell, and worst of all, adds additional screens and significant cost, for no good reason.5/13

Joe Lion 1d ago

2) The insistence on using pure aluminum and glass. This is another example of Apple being snobby and saying "we're not like those other companies who build garbage out of plastic. _We're_ making our headset out of polished aluminum, premium fabrics, and scratch resistant glass." This methodology has served them well in laptops and phones, where they can afford to sacrifice a little bit of weight to make a premium-looking and feeling product.
6/13

Joe Lion 1d ago

2) (cont) Yes, it looks beautiful, but that's worth nothing if it's too heavy to carry on your head. They simply can't lower themselves to, heaven forbid, using plastic for the housing, even if it would make the AVP significantly lighter, less expensive, and ironically, probably more durable and accident-proof.
7/13

Joe Lion 1d ago

3) The hands/gestures-only input... _Again_, just in an effort to do things "the Apple way", they tried to convince us that using only your fingers poking and pinching in the air while floating in front of you is all that's needed for sustained, precision input. They initially didn't support 3rd party hand controllers like on the Oculus or PlayStation, much less build one themselves.
8/13

Joe Lion 1d ago

3) (cont) They tried to pretend like typing on a floating keyboard was as good as adding a real keyboard accessory. Their marketing material and tech demos tried to gaslight us into thinking that we would all be sitting in plush couches, flicking our wrists and fingers while the AVP sensed the movement of every finger with sub-millimeter precision.
9/13

Joe Lion 1d ago

3) (cont) And _even if_ their software was good enough to accomplish this (which it isn't, and will never be if only due to the fact that using only face-mounted sensors you can _never_ capture a full range of motion from all your fingers and hands), it's still a shit-way to interact with a computer for more than a couple minutes.
10/13?

Joe Lion 1d ago

3) (cont) Surely there was people inside Apple who knew this, and if they spoke up, they must have been shouted down by mangers or designers who said pig-headedly "nope - No hand controllers, no keyboard, no attachments. The only thing in the box is the headset, and the sensors built into the headset itself is the only way users can and should interact with the OS". Just a terrible decision.
11/14?

Joe Lion 1d ago

----

Then there are other things like initially only shipping with the band that went around the back of your head, which wasn't strong enough to hold the AVP up. Why only this band and not an over-the-head band like all other headsets? I'm 100% sure it's simply because the over-the-head bands 1) look dorky as hell, and 2) mess up your hair.
12/15

Joe Lion 1d ago

And, apparently Apple would rather ship a product that looks good in promo videos but is unusable in real life than, god forbid, ship one that is usable but makes you look kind of stupid.
13/15

Joe Lion 1d ago

And that's not even touching on the OS or the software, which had plenty of other terrible decision that hamstrung users and developers.
14/15

Joe Lion 1d ago

All-in-all, a huge list of bad decisions by design, management and engineering, and a terrific example of hubris. It's a shame, because they undoubtedly have superior technology and put a ton of work into groundbreaking 3D interaction models that could have worked, if they had just allowed themselves to be more humble and meet the market where people were, instead of trying to create a whole new market with a thoroughly unsustainable product.

15/15

Roger Moore 1d ago

@SwampYankee @marcoarment
VR is a fun gimmick technology, but I haven't seen anyone propose a use that would justify it as a mass market product at the price it would apparently cost to make it work.

toastedmilk 1d ago

@marcoarment I remember my training in 2010. It was long. We had to make keynote projects and logic projects to present to the existing staff,(results varied) but it was so we knew the basics of the prosumer software and could talk a big game for the Mac as the iPhones and iPods just sold themselves. In fact i think all our training was just Mac. This was as the iPad was preparing to launch. We got a couple hours with the iPad. It sold itself.

Brad Koehn 1d ago

@marcoarment It was a trial product that the market clearly didn’t want. I’m sure that several years on they could produce a better one, but indicators told them not to. 🤷‍♂️

I don’t regret not buying one, much the same way I don’t regret buying the first iPhone, (or the first Mac).

@bkoehn @marcoarment I was and really still am interested, but not at the price they are. I wish they would've continued to iterate and reduce the price.

But also, I with they would've just let it be run by an iPhone. It would've been cheaper but still better.

Matt Wilcox 1d ago

@marcoarment Just like what stopped the Nintendo VirtualBoy! History repeats!

Steven Lipton 1d ago

@marcoarment Apple was not fast enough on the Apple generated content and even slower on the tools to make content. I’d still like to see a better 3D image handling system as part of Xcode, or a inexpensive stereo camera that just works.

Janne Ojaniemi 18h ago

@marcoarment in choosing to blame the strategic decisions made at the highest levels of the company, vs blaming the retail staff who are tasked with convincing buyers to actually buy the device, the chose to blame the latter.

Mathias af Jochnick 17h ago

@marcoarment Well, you’ve never been one for hyperbole, so this tracks.

chris overcash 9h ago

@marcoarment well, when you put it that way…