Apple spent years promising that the Vision Pro would reinvent how we work, play, and pretend to be productive in a floating browser window.
Then it launched with a price tag higher than most used cars and an app library that felt like a mall food court at 4 p.m. on a Tuesday.
A year in, the situation hasn't exactly turned into the App Store gold rush Apple's keynote slides implied.
The headset costs $3,499, and wearing it for more than an hour feels like strapping a warm breadbox to your face.
They looked at that install base—a rounding error compared to the iPhone—and decided their time was better spent making another app that tracks your hydration.
The result is a library heavy on tech demos and light on anything you'd actually open twice.
Streaming apps let you watch movies on a virtual IMAX screen, which is genuinely cool until you remember your $800 TV already does that with zero neck strain.
Some spatial productivity tools are slick, letting you pin windows around your room like a cyborg Tony Stark.
But the killer app everyone keeps waiting for?
It's the gadget equivalent of a fancy restaurant with a gorgeous dining room and a menu that's mostly garnish.
The bigger issue is that Apple built a premium product and then treated the software like an afterthought.
Big-name developers like Netflix, YouTube, and Spotify reportedly skipped building native apps entirely, and you can't blame them.
Why pour resources into a niche device when the same effort on iOS reaches a billion people?
Apple's pitch to devs boiled down to "trust us, it's the future"—a line that works great until the future shows up and nobody's wearing it.
There are rumors of a cheaper model on the horizon, which might finally move units and drag developers off the fence.
But cheaper hardware doesn't fix a thin app catalog, and a thin catalog doesn't justify the hardware.
It's a chicken-and-egg problem wearing a very expensive ski goggle.
For now, the Vision Pro remains a spectacular demo in search of a reason to exist.
Early adopters got a glimpse of something genuinely futuristic, then watched the app ecosystem crawl along like it's stuck in molasses.
If Apple wants this thing to matter, it needs to stop selling a vision and start shipping reasons to keep the thing on your head. **The Bottom Line** The Vision Pro isn't a bad product—it's an unfinished one wearing a luxury price tag.
Until developers see a reason to build for it, you're paying a premium to be a beta tester with a great view.
Final Thoughts
Maybe wait for the sequel, or at least the discount.