Marco Arment2d ago

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
Show threadJason Snell
@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?
Apr 7 at 7:39pmWeb
Show threadJ. Blake2d ago
@jsnell @marcoarment I wonder if the AI pin will fare any better.
Show threadRob2d ago
@jsnell @marcoarment They killed off the iPhone Mini, 11" MacBook Air and Aperture, but continue to sell this thing?!?
Show threadRoger Moore1d ago
@rbender @jsnell @marcoarment
My guess is they overproduced based on unrealistic sales projections and are still trying to unload the stock.
Show threadAndrew Laurence2d ago
@jsnell @marcoarment That anyone might think these are mass market devices … befuddles me.
Show threadMarc Robinson 2d ago
@jsnell @marcoarment It's Apple's Segway.
Show threadThe Macinthrope2d ago
@marcintosh @jsnell @marcoarment It’s just Tim’s Newton. The ideas are interesting, but the tech just isn’t there yet.
Show threadSteve Barnes2d 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…?)

Show threadRob Nee2d ago
@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.
Show threadColin2d ago
@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
Show threadMarco Arment1d ago
@hoagie @robnee @jsnell I'm irritated every time I pick it up because I bought it
Show threadThe Animal and the Machine2d ago

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

Everything else would have been ironed out with the pickup.

Show threadRoger Moore1d 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.
Show threadMachiel1d 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.