Remember when Apple strapped a $3,500 computer to your face and called it the future of computing?
Six months later, the killer app lineup is looking less like a revolution and more like a very expensive way to watch YouTube in your pajamas.
The headset launched with a promise of spatial computing nirvana.
What actually arrived was a parade of developers porting their iPad apps, slapping a window on a virtual wall, and calling it innovation.
Congratulations, you can now look at the same spreadsheet from a slightly different angle.
The genuinely interesting stuff is buried under the gimmicks.
There's a handful of apps doing actual spatial work—3D modeling tools you can walk around, medical imaging viewers that let doctors poke at a patient's anatomy in midair, and a few meditation apps that turn your living room into a serene forest.
Also, roughly twelve people will use these.
The rest of the App Store reads like a fever dream.
An app that lets you place a giant clock on your wall, which is somehow both impressive and the saddest thing I've read all week.
Here's the part nobody at Cupertino wants to admit: the Vision Pro's best app is still the one Apple shipped on day one—the ability to mirror your Mac screen.
It's a $3,500 external monitor that makes your neck sore.
They watched the install base and did the math.
When your potential audience is smaller than a mid-sized high school, you don't build a bespoke spatial experience.
You port the iPad version, collect whatever crumbs fall off the table, and go back to building for the iPhone where actual humans live.
The apps that do try something ambitious often feel like tech demos wearing a trench coat.
Impressive for ninety seconds, then you realize you can't do anything useful with them.
It's the VR equivalent of a restaurant with a gorgeous dining room and a chef who only knows how to make toast.
This is exactly how the iPhone started—a handful of weird apps, a lot of skepticism, and one day someone builds the thing that makes it click.
The difference is the iPhone cost $499 and fit in your pocket.
The Vision Pro costs a mortgage payment and requires you to strap a ski mask to your skull.
For now, the honest review is this: if you already own one, you've got enough to keep yourself entertained for a weekend.
If you don't, there is absolutely nothing in that app store worth four figures.
Save your money, buy a nice laptop, and watch the spatial computing revolution from a safe distance. **The Verdict:** Apple built a beautiful solution and is now waiting for a problem.
The apps will come eventually—or the headset will quietly join the Newton in the graveyard of Apple products that were ahead of their time.
Final Thoughts
Either way, you're not missing anything this year.