Apple would like you to know the Vision Pro just crossed 2,000 apps in its store.
That number sounds impressive until you remember the App Store once celebrated 500 apps the same way, and half of those were tip calculators.
The company dropped the milestone alongside a fresh round of headset features, and the tech press dutifully reported it like a moon landing.
What Apple didn't mention: a healthy chunk of those apps are just iPad ports wearing a fancy spatial hat, which is like calling a hot dog a craft sausage because you put it on a plate.
It's genuinely impressive hardware with a genuinely confusing pitch.
You strap $3,500 to your face and mostly use it to... open windows?
Pretend you're doing work while your neck slowly files a complaint with HR?
The app situation reflects that identity crisis.
You've got your streaming apps, your "spatial" photo viewers, a meditation thing, and seventeen different ways to look at a 3D model of a sneaker.
Meanwhile, the killer app remains the same as it was on day one: taking it off and realizing how much your forehead appreciates fresh air.
To be fair, some of the new additions are legitimately cool.
There are collaboration tools that let remote teams share a virtual workspace, which is the kind of thing that sounds amazing until you remember most people turn their cameras off on Zoom.
There are also spatial games that are fun for about the length of a TikTok and then never opened again.
Apple keeps selling the Vision Pro as a productivity device, but productivity is mostly typing, and typing on this thing is like doing taxes with oven mitts.
At that point you've built a $3,500 setup that a $600 laptop handles without the neck strain.
The app count will keep climbing because developers chase platforms, and Apple has a habit of eventually winning.
But right now the Vision Pro is a developer kit with a consumer price tag, a beautiful answer to a question most people haven't finished asking.
So no, 2,000 apps isn't the victory lap Apple wants it to be.
It's a reminder that quantity and usefulness are two very different numbers, and one of them fits on a spec sheet while the other lives in your actual life.
The headset isn't a flop—it's a beta test you can buy.
And like most beta tests, the people paying the most are the ones doing Apple's homework for free.
Our take: the Vision Pro is a fascinating gadget and a terrible purchase for almost everyone who isn't a developer or a dedicated early adopter with money to burn.
Final Thoughts
Wait for the version that doesn't require an apology to your neck.