They bought themselves into a beta test/focus group. Apple still doesn’t know what this will be. It might be a Newton MessagePad. Or it might be the iPhone.
Apple is great at polishing and packaging things that already exist. The iPhone was a better Blackberry, the iPod a better MP3 player, the iMac a better all-in-one PC… I have a hard time thinking of stuff they truly pioneered. The Newton maybe? That did not end well for them.
If I had to bet, the Vision Pro will turn out to be a burnt pancake, but long term I have no doubt that something like it — something that augments reality one way or another — will become a thing. And in the meantime Apple has pockets more than deep enough to survive a failed Vision Pro.
The backlash against them trying to innovate is kind of dumb though. They aimed high for a change, and taking risks like this should be lauded not laughed at.
The problem is they didn’t aim high enough. AR/VR lives or dies on software. And for what they launched, it barely has the OS, and apparently that thing, although very polished UX wise, on security it’s a swiss cheese. And few people has the pockets to develop apps for it.
They bought themselves into a beta test/focus group. Apple still doesn’t know what this will be. It might be a Newton MessagePad. Or it might be the iPhone.
Apple is great at polishing and packaging things that already exist. The iPhone was a better Blackberry, the iPod a better MP3 player, the iMac a better all-in-one PC… I have a hard time thinking of stuff they truly pioneered. The Newton maybe? That did not end well for them.
If I had to bet, the Vision Pro will turn out to be a burnt pancake, but long term I have no doubt that something like it — something that augments reality one way or another — will become a thing. And in the meantime Apple has pockets more than deep enough to survive a failed Vision Pro.
The backlash against them trying to innovate is kind of dumb though. They aimed high for a change, and taking risks like this should be lauded not laughed at.
The problem is they didn’t aim high enough. AR/VR lives or dies on software. And for what they launched, it barely has the OS, and apparently that thing, although very polished UX wise, on security it’s a swiss cheese. And few people has the pockets to develop apps for it.
There was quite a different reaction to the iPhone when it launched, so I’m pretty confident it’s not the latter.