The inadequacy of a “killer app” in motivating consumers to pay more than $3,500 for an unproven untested product could be seen as a flaw for Apple, as Optical Professional goes on sale in Europe on Friday. Is.
Apple recently said there were “more than 2,000” apps available for its “spatial computing” software, five months after it debuted in the US.
This can be compared to the more than 20,000 iPad apps created by mid-2010, a few months after the tablet first went on sale, and the approximately 10,000 iPhone apps by the end of 2008, the generation in which the App Pack was announced. .
“The overall trajectory of the Vision Pro launch in February this year has been much slower than many expected,” said George Ziziashvili, analyst at marketplace tracker Omdia.
“The reality is that most developers’ time and money will be devoted to platforms with billions of users rather than tens or hundreds of thousands.”
Apple believes the software will become the way millions of people work and play games. The headset alternates between digital reality, through which the wearer is immersed in a virtual world, and a model of “augmented reality”, which overlays images onto the real environment.
Omdia estimates that Apple will promote 350,000 optical executives in this era. It forecasts a rise to 750,000 in the coming generation and to 1.7 million in 2026, although the figures are a far cry from the iPad, which produced nearly 20 million devices in its first generation.
Estimates from IDC, a tech market researcher, show that Apple shipped fewer than 100,000 devices of the Optical Pro in the first quarter, less than half of what rival Meta offered for its Quest headset.
IDC found that due to the tremendous price of software, Apple captured more than 50 percent of the total VR headset market in dollar value terms, but analyst Francisco Geronimo said: “The success of the Vision Pro, regardless of its price, Without it, it will ultimately depend on available materials.”
Early data shows that unused material is arriving slowly. According to AppFigures, which tracks App Pack listings, the choice of unused apps offered for the Optical Pro has dropped dramatically from January and February.
About 300 of the managed iPhone developers, whose apps have been downloaded more than 10 million times in a generation — including Google, Meta, Tencent, Amazon and Netflix — have yet to port any of their devices or services to Apple’s new software. I haven’t brought it.
Steve Lee, chief executive of AmazVR, which offers immersive live performance stories, said the surge in downloads of his app was due to the software’s strong launch in China and elsewhere in Asia. “However, this was only about one-third of the initial launches in the United States.”
Lee gave additional assurance that the Optical Professional will become a mainstream consumer product sooner or later.
Vamsi Mohan, fairness analyst at America’s Depot, said that Optical Professional “didn’t capture the consumer imagination at all”.
He said, “Given the price point, this is one of the slower starts for a new Apple product line.” “Management seems to be placing more emphasis on success in the enterprise.”
Still, some app developers are taking the leap of faith and launching on optical professionals. Some are betting that buyers who can find the money for an expensive headset may be more likely to spend money on tools, too.
Others are enjoying the game longer term, hoping that an early spot on Apple’s latest platform will bring returns in future years.
Anthony Geffen, chief executive and creative director of Atlantic Productions, which won the first BAFTA award for virtual-reality storytelling, said he believed Optical represents a “tipping point” for professional headsets.
“I’ve been through all the false dawns of VR,” he said. “I think in the next two to three years we will really have devices that will be mass market. Vision Pro comes at a very important time.”
Atlantic Productions is working with Apple to create immersive videos featuring vertical feats of mountaineering and “parkour” urban athletics, using bespoke 3-D cameras developed by the Silicon Valley company to gather ultra-high-resolution content. Includes use of.
Geffen said, “This is the most exciting platform I’ve ever worked with.” “I think it’s bigger than a smartphone.”
However he added that, for the economics of content creation and function, “we want this device to be in many homes”. This can happen only if Apple brings a cheaper model, which analysts estimate could debut in the coming generation or two.
“Even though it’s a small market right now, I think it’s going to be big,” said Tim Davison, developer of CellWalk, an immersive biology training app for Apple’s headset. “Now’s Vision Pro is an amazing glimpse into the future.”
Davison came away from Ultimate Speed’s Apple Global Developers Conference — where he introduced the first update for a device running the software, VisionOS 2 — more positive about the optical professional’s past.
“It’s been a year of enthusiasm and persistence from (Apple) engineers to executives that has convinced me I can invest in this platform,” he said.
Werner Janeck, chief executive of Cultural Code, raced to assure his enterprise control app had issues available when Optical Professionals first crashed onto the market.
“Our experience has been that being on the Apple platform from day one is much better for the long term,” he said. He said Apple consumers have shown themselves willing to pay for a “premium product” like Things, which costs $30 on the Optical Pro. “People are definitely interested in this new platform to spend money on productivity software.”
The Optical Pro version of Things was already out of whack, Janek said, because Apple’s developer gear made it easier to adapt its existing iPhone and iPad apps.
However, for developers of immersive apps for alternative VR headsets like Meta Quest, porting that device to Optical Pro may be as difficult as starting from scratch.
“It was an adjustment,” said Arturo Pérez, chief executive of Cluj Interactive. Its music-based VR recreation Synth Riders has been featured on the Apple Arcade video game subscription provider.
Adjustments to the PlayStation VR and Quest versions included adding hand monitoring, as the Optical Pro lacks motion-sensitive controllers that alternate the utility of VR headsets for input. “It was a big challenge,” Perez said.
Perez said he expected to see “real rewards later.” Optical Pro is less like the iPhone-era future of VR and more like the PC future of the early ’80s, he said.
“Apple can play the long game,” Perez said. “They are committed.”