Apple sold the Vision Pro as the future of computing.
Six months in, the most honest review comes from the App Store itself: a storefront with a few thousand titles, most of them ported, demo-grade, or abandoned.
For a device that costs more than a used car, that is not a rough start.
Talk to people who bought one and the pattern repeats.
The headset goes back in the case, and the case goes on a shelf next to the Peloton.
It's that nothing you can actually do with it justifies strapping a battery pack to your hip.
YouTube took months to show up, and only through Safari.
Spotify works, but it's the iPad version in a floating window.
The few genuinely native experiences — spatial video, some medical and design tools — are impressive and almost entirely irrelevant to a normal Tuesday night at home.
Meanwhile, the apps that do exist feel like tech demos dressed up as products.
You can float a giant screen in front of your face to watch a movie alone, which is a strange pitch for a device sold on connection.
You can pin timers and notes to your kitchen wall, which your phone already does for free.
Productivity apps ask you to work in a headset for hours, and your neck will file a complaint.
Developers watched Apple sell a niche product at a luxury price and did the math.
Why spend six figures building for an install base that fits in a conference hall when the same team could ship to a billion iPhones?
Apple can't fix this with a software update.
It has to convince builders that the platform will matter, and so far the company's own enthusiasm has not been contagious.
This is where the American living room gets weird.
The Vision Pro was supposed to replace them, not become another one that sits idle.
Instead it joins a growing pile of expensive gadgets that promised to change daily life and mostly changed our credit card statements.
None of this means the technology is doomed.
Every major platform had a rough first act, and Apple has patience and cash.
The uncomfortable takeaway is that we keep buying the future on layaway, paying premium prices for promises that arrive years late or never.
A device is only as good as what you can do with it on an ordinary evening.
Final Thoughts
By that measure, the Vision Pro is a beautiful answer to a question most of us never asked.