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...
@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.
@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
@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
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
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
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
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
Marco Arment
SwampYankee
Joe Lion