Apple's Vision Pro launched with the promise of a new era.
Months later, the most honest description of its app library is "a very expensive demo reel." The headset costs $3,499, and yet users keep cycling through the same handful of experiences that impressed them on day one.
Meanwhile, the companies that once raced to build for the iPhone are quietly shelving their spatial computing teams.
The numbers tell a story Apple would rather not discuss.
App Store analytics firms have tracked a steep drop in new visionOS submissions since the spring.
Several high-profile developers who showed off launch-window apps have gone silent.
One studio behind a popular spatial video editor confirmed it paused updates indefinitely, citing "insufficient return on engineering hours." That's corporate speak for nobody's buying.
There are gorgeous tech demos that run five minutes.
There are iPad apps floating in virtual space, which is exactly as thrilling as it sounds.
And there's a small cluster of genuinely useful tools, mostly for 3D designers and surgeons, that justify the hardware for a few thousand professionals.
Everyone else is left with dinosaur encounters and meditation apps.
Developing for visionOS means learning new frameworks, rebuilding interfaces for eyes and hands, and gambling on a user base that's a rounding error compared to the iPhone.
Venture funding for spatial apps has dried up.
Independent developers, the lifeblood of any new platform, are choosing to spend their limited hours on platforms where people actually spend money.
Apple's response has been characteristically quiet.
The company keeps touting enterprise partnerships and a slow trickle of minor software updates.
It recently nudged developers with new tools and a push toward immersive sports content.
But sports clips and a handful of branded experiences don't build an ecosystem.
Within a year of the App Store opening, developers were shipping apps that made the device indispensable, and they were getting rich doing it.
No game that everyone's talking about at lunch.
Just a headset that sits on a shelf after the novelty fades.
Some defenders argue it's still early, that the hardware needs to get lighter and cheaper before apps follow.
But it also means the current Vision Pro is, for most Americans, a $3,500 paperweight with a great screen.
And in a country where families are already stretched thin, that's not a quirky luxury.
It's a symbol of tech that's outpacing the people it claims to serve.
There's a societal cost hiding in all this.
We keep celebrating products designed for a future that most households can't afford to inhabit.
The Vision Pro isn't collapsing society by itself, but it represents a growing gap between what Silicon Valley builds and what ordinary Americans can actually use.
When the killer app finally arrives, it may be for a device nobody around you owns. **Our take:** A platform lives or dies on whether regular people find a reason to keep using it.
Apple has the cash to wait years for that reason, but consumers don't owe the company their patience or their rent money.
Final Thoughts
Until a genuine must-have app shows up, this remains a remarkable machine in search of a purpose.