Will Vision Pro Be A Thing?

So yesterday was a big day for Apple

They introduced many new features and upgrades to their already long list of tech and gadgets, but the main event was no doubt the unveiling of Vision Pro. It was long speculated that Apple would be releasing their vision of an AR head set which we now know is actually a VR/AR combo. That itself is actually worth highlighting since it's something completely new in the space. Before yesterday we only had AR or VR head sets. But there is much more to unpack here.

The event reminded me quite a bit of the iphone unveiling 16 years (!) earlier and I am sure they were well aware of that. Back then the iphone was completely revolutionary and even shocking to a world that was just beginning to get accustomed to cell phones. The first "smart phone" caught everyone by surprise. If you watched the movie Blackberry you will be aware of how this event impacted the industry. All phones after that had to be equipped with a big touch screen or else... So will the Vision Pro be just as revolutionary?

We have of course Meta that has been working on the Metaverse and its VR/AR headset for years. Is this going to be the Blackberry moment for them? I actually know too little on the situation to comment on this. At the very least they will have some catching up to do since Apple's head set seems to be much more capable/advanced than what is on the market.

3 major hurdles for the Vision Pro

From the event and videos they have been releasing since then it seems clear that they are targeting a pretty wide audience with this head set. We see it being applied in the work space, it's an entertainment device (moves and games etc.), it could revolutionize the way that we take videos and pictures... This seems obvious when looked at the fundamentals: a revolutionary piece of technology can only be successful if potentially everyone could use it. The iphone would not have been the success story it was had it only been developed for a niche of users. But I see at least 3 major hurdles for the Vision Pro which the iphone did not have to that extent.

The price tag: $3499 is quite a large one. Sure, the iphone was quite a shocker with a price tag of $499 which was several times higher than the average phone back then. But it was still "only" $499 and therefore affordable to most people. Just 4 days ago Meta announced that its newest head set the Quest 3 will also cost $499 which is 7 times cheaper that the Vision Pro. But it is also $3000 more expensive in absolute terms. That is a lot. And it is very clear that only a hand full of people will be able to buy the Vision Pro. This severly hinders mainstream adoption.
The battery life: The Vision Pro will have a battery life of only 2 hours. This is extremely limiting. In just 30 minutes of usage the battery will be down to nearly 70%! 2 hours is also just barely enough to watch a movie. If you want to use it for a day while traveling you will have to equip yourself with several battery packs; probably like 3 or 4. The only positive thing about them is that they will fit into your pocket (but attached with a cable to the device). At home one will want to plug the head set into the electrical grid; but ironically this means that we will back to a wired world. Also, I am not sure if it's healthy to have a electric cable running up the body and to the head.
Social acceptance: Apple is well aware of perhaps the major problem for this piece of technology: social acceptance. Wearing something so large on the face is literally upsetting thousands of years of how humans have socially interacted with one another. When we talk with someone we need to see the face of that person to properly interact. There are dozens of conscious and unconscious social cues that we are processing when engaging with someone. Wearing a standard VR head set removes almost all of that. It's quite literally impossible that such a device could gain mainstream adoption simply because of how humans work. By making the eyes visible, Apple bridged this gap at least to a degree. Perhaps enough for people to accept it and get used to it. But even if they do, it's clear that this would upset the current social rules that feel natural to us. Only time and more technological development could perhaps make something so unnatural feel natural again.