Meta withdraws! Apple Vision Pro sells so badly that Zuckerberg calls it quits: no more high-end hybrid headsets! Netizens: tech companies have no new jobs

Produced by | 51CTO Technology Stack (WeChat ID: blog)

I thought that Apple Vision Pro would come as a bolt from the blue and bring VR devices into a new era.

Unexpectedly, the weak sales of Vision Pro scared Zuckerberg. He finally announced: quit!

According to foreign media "The Information", Meta's high-end mixed reality headset that was previously being developed to compete with Apple Vision Pro has been officially stopped!

Zuckerberg decided at the product review meeting to stop the development of the device starting this week.

As a high-end device that competes with Apple Vision Pro, Meta was originally going to take the "stacking" route.

It is reported that the device was originally planned to be launched in 2027 and equipped with a high-resolution micro OLED display - the technology used in Apple Vision Pro. Meta planned to price the device below $1,000, but due to the high cost of the display, this goal may be difficult to achieve.

As a competitor, Meta hopes that Vision Pro can sell better.

After all, Meta's plan is to let Apple take the lead to boost the head-mounted display device market, and at the same time verify Zuckerberg's contribution to the AR/VA field.

Unexpectedly, Apple's performance was disappointing. Vision Pro encountered difficulties in attracting consumers. Most Apple fans who made appointments for trials tried the product but few bought it!

1. Meta's previous experience: Vision Pro will also be available in low-end configuration

Just one month after the Vision Pro was launched, enthusiasm for it began to wane, and visits to Apple retail stores declined. Apple cut Vision Pro shipments in April, predicting that the company is unlikely to sell more than 500,000 headsets in 2024.

In addition, the high return rate also causes Apple a lot of headaches.

Bloomberg reporter Gurman, who continues to cover Apple news, wrote that in the United States, small Apple stores receive one to two returns every day. In the investigation, it was even found that eight Vision Pros were returned to the same store on the same day. The reasons why buyers gave up the first generation of Apple headsets were varied, such as the device was too heavy and caused eye fatigue.

Although analyst Ming-Chi Kuo believes that the return rate of Vision Pro is less than 1% and there is nothing unusual, this number may not be so ideal in China. A digital blogger posted on Weibo that the return rate of Vision Pro in China is higher than 50%. Although this number has not been officially verified, judging from the posts on social platforms, there are definitely not a few users who choose to return the product.

Not to mention that Meta doesn't want to make high-end headsets, even Apple itself wants to step down from the altar.

Apple has reportedly stopped development of its high-cost Vision Pro second-generation device and is instead focusing on launching a low-cost model with fewer features and a price closer to that of a high-end iPhone.

Meta, which has decided to withdraw from the high-end headset competition, will continue to develop Quest 4.

Quest 4, the successor to Quest 3, is expected to be released in 2026. Quest 3 is priced at $500, and its successor may also have the same target price. Meta currently focuses more on software rather than hardware development, and launched the Horizon OS platform for third-party hardware manufacturers earlier this year. Zuckerberg follows his consistent open source beliefs and wants to cultivate a better ecosystem for VR devices.

2. The addition of Vision Pro makes Quest-dominated games more exciting

On Hacker News, the news that Meta had stopped developing its high-end hybrid headset caused a lot of discussion.

Many people think that the Apple Watch time for VR/AR devices has not yet been found, let alone the iPhone time.

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Some netizens think that the price is not high considering the experience provided by Vision Pro. Because the space photos give people an immersive feeling, which is hard to buy with any amount of money, he calls the headset a "transmission device."

The netizen said, "One of the experiences of Vision Pro impressed me deeply - the photo of 'Haleakala National Park'. I felt like I was really transported there. I had this feeling because I went there a few years ago. I have rich visual memories as a reference, and it's not an exaggeration at all, it really made me feel like I was there. I immediately shed tears, and the feeling was very profound.

Vision Pro lacks a killer app because development is unintuitive, the user base is small, the UX is unfamiliar, and the hardware costs to build those experiences are still quite high. Give it a few years. The hardware is there. Just like PalmOS (an operating system developed by Palm, Inc. that was successful but ultimately did not dominate the market like iOS or Android), you need to find a solution that was too early to market.

I have family members with disabilities. The fact that the Vision Pro can transport my loved ones to places they could never go on their own is worth $3,000. … Don’t dismiss it until you’ve tried it.”

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However, this reply was not recognized by many netizens. The first reason was the high price of Vision Pro.

One person responded, "I want to believe you, but unless the price drops below $1,000, there is almost no market for the Vision Pro. It's just a toy. People don't need a so-called teleportation device. It is fun, but just like a toy. It doesn't really solve enough 'real' problems to justify the current cost. It's also too expensive for most family members to give it as a holiday or birthday gift."

I believe in the saying ‘give it a few years,’ but only with the caveat that ‘a few years’ probably means 10 or 15 years.”

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Some netizens also objected to his analogy to Palm OS.

In the follow-up post, he said: "Actually, I don't think the Vision Pro is Palm OS. Palm OS has been around for many years, and although it is not as popular as iOS or Android today, it obviously filled a large enough market need that it has been able to survive and create a market. I owned a Kyocera 6035 Palm "smartphone" half a decade before the iPhone was launched, and the Handspring Treos were also very popular among early users.

The credit for user education here (in the VR/AR field) goes entirely to Oculus/Meta, especially Quest.

At best, the Vision Pro is a Newton, which is cool technically, but perhaps too balanced or not radical enough to cause a sea change in usability. It's also a bit like the Pippin, where Apple doesn't have a deep enough understanding of how games and gaming activities drive VR adoption, nor does it understand how to best exploit these factors. Ultimately, the Vision Pro is more of a technical demonstration of better devices and ecosystems in the future.

I think one advantage the Vision Pro had over the Newton was timing. The timing was better for the Vision Pro than for the earlier Newton. The Newton had many features early on, but Palm only had some of them good enough that everyone forgot about the Newton.

In this context, we already have Quest as a ‘good enough’ device, which makes now the right time to start discussing how VR devices evolve. From that perspective, I think the addition of the Vision Pro is very interesting.”

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The reason why Vision Pro is not popular is that the scenes that must be completed with a headset have not appeared yet. Users can't find a reason to buy a high-end headset at a high price. However, some people are optimistic about its future and believe that the headset will not always remain at the toy level.

“I’m pretty sure Vision Pro will find some mass-market use cases, maybe even outside of gaming, but it’s a little concerning that some pretty smart people haven’t figured out how yet,” he said.

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Some people even directly believe that user co-creation can find some miracles.

“I hope the Vision Pro is like the Apple Watch. When it first came out, it wasn’t clear why people would buy it. Initially, Apple tried to sell its bland aluminum box as a fashion accessory — after several iterations, they figured out that health and fitness were the main appeal, and focused on that. Maybe they can do that again if they pay attention to how people use VR headsets.”

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3. Last words: Apple struggles to enter the robotics race

The Vision Pro, which was highly anticipated, encountered repeated setbacks, and Apple's dream of making cars has been shattered after ten years.

Now, Apple is still eager to find a new source of revenue.

It is understood that Apple has begun to advance its own robot project. Starting with the "desktop robot" of iPad + robotic arm, Apple will leap into the field of household robots.

Kevin Lynch, the senior executive who is independently in charge of this project, was the person in charge of the previous car manufacturing project.

Apple is expected to launch the device several years from now, and the team's vision for the desktop robot is constantly changing during the development process. Some people involved in the project said that the functions have changed from the initial ambition to compromise, and some people described its development process as a roller coaster experience.

Some people lamented that the bottleneck period of technology companies has arrived. "It seems that technology companies have no real creativity anymore, so they decided to use the buzzword "AI" once every two sentences in every product launch."

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However, all technologies require time for exploration and maturity. The impact of each technological advancement is complex, and perhaps at the next turn, we will see the stunning dawn rising from the horizon.

After all, after trying the Vision Pro, my friend chose to buy a PICO.

Reference Links:

1.https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-08-14/apple-pushes-ahead-with-tabletop-home-device-in-shift-to-robotics

2.https://www.notebookcheck.net/Apple-Vision-Pro-return-rates-are-relatively-high-according-to-new-estimate.804645.0.html