Apple spent years promising that the Vision Pro would reinvent how we work, watch, and play.
But if you actually strap one on and open the App Store, the story gets weird fast.
A huge share of the "spatial computing revolution" turns out to be iPad apps floating in a void.
Developers quietly told reporters they're holding back because the headset's install base is tiny and the tools to build true spatial experiences are still a headache to learn.
So Apple filled the shelves the way you'd fill a party nobody showed up to: by inviting the same apps you already have on your phone.
Dig into what's actually native and the pattern jumps out.
A handful of brave studios built genuinely three-dimensional tools, immersive sports replays, and spatial video editors that feel like the future.
Then there's everything else, a flat rectangle glued to your eyeballs, sometimes with a virtual screen so large it clips through your living room wall.
Some developers are charging premium subscription rates for experiences that are basically a slightly bigger version of their iPhone app.
Early adopters on forums have started calling it the "hologram tax," paying flagship money to run last year's software in a new shape.
Apple's response has been to lean on entertainment and novelty, immersive concert clips, dinosaur demos, and a slow drip of exclusive content meant to feel magical for twenty minutes.
Then the demo ends and you're back to staring at a spreadsheet in a floating window, wondering why you're wearing ski goggles indoors.
The uncomfortable truth is that the most compelling Vision Pro apps right now aren't productivity tools at all.
They're experiments, art pieces, and games built by small teams who took a gamble.
The apps that could justify the price tag, the ones that make spatial computing feel essential, are mostly still sketches.
You're not paying for what the device does today.
You're paying for a bet that developers eventually show up in force.
Every platform lives or dies on that bet, and right now the Vision Pro's app library reads less like a launch lineup and more like a promise waiting to be kept.
The conspiracy-minded read is that Apple knew this all along and shipped anyway, betting that its brand and its fanbase would carry the headset through the awkward years until the software caught up.
But if you're spending thousands on a headset today, you deserve to know you're buying a seed, not a garden.
My take: the Vision Pro isn't doomed, but it's coasting on demos and potential while the real app ecosystem stalls.
Until developers see a reason to build for it, you're paying a premium to be a beta tester.
Final Thoughts
Wait for the killer app, or at least wait for the price to make sense.