Apple's Vision Pro was supposed to usher in a new era of computing.
Six months after launch, the app store tells a different story.
Developers are quietly abandoning the platform, and the people who dropped four figures on a headset are starting to ask uncomfortable questions.
App analytics firms tracking the visionOS store report that a significant share of the launch-window apps haven't been updated since February.
A few high-profile developers who demoed flashy spatial experiences at launch have since gone silent.
When was the last time you heard someone rave about a new Vision Pro app?
The apps that do exist fall into two camps.
There are the "wow" demos — immersive dinosaur walks, floating movie screens, virtual museum tours — that impress for about twenty minutes and then collect dust.
Then there are the productivity apps that mostly just mirror what your Mac already does, except now you're wearing ski goggles to check your email.
This is the classic chicken-and-egg problem, and Apple knows it.
Nobody wants to build apps for a device nobody owns, and nobody wants to buy a device with no apps.
The Vision Pro is a solution in search of a problem.
Watching a movie alone in a headset is isolating.
Video calls with floating avatars feel like a Black Mirror episode.
The killer app remains as elusive as ever.
Meanwhile, the broader pattern should worry anyone paying attention.
We've watched this movie before with the metaverse, with 3D TVs, with Google Glass.
American consumers keep getting sold futuristic hardware before anyone has figured out what it's actually for.
The gadget-industrial complex churns out products, influencers post unboxing videos, and six months later the thing is on eBay at a 40 percent discount.
Every overhyped device that fails to deliver makes people more cynical about the next genuine innovation.
When actual breakthroughs arrive — and they will — a lot of Americans will have already tuned out, assuming it's another expensive gimmick.
A cheaper model is reportedly in the works, and the company has deep enough pockets to keep funding developer outreach for years.
But throwing money at a platform doesn't create demand.
Only genuine utility does, and right now the Vision Pro's utility is about as solid as a hologram.
Maybe the headset finds its niche in medicine, or architecture, or some industrial use case nobody's talking about.
But as a mainstream consumer product — the thing Apple marketed to regular families — it's looking less like the future and more like a very expensive answer to a question nobody asked.
We keep letting tech companies define what we need before we've decided we need it.
The Vision Pro is the clearest example yet that a slick keynote and a premium price tag can't manufacture meaning.
Final Thoughts
Until someone builds an app that actually makes life better, this $3,500 paperweight is just another reminder that we should stop buying the future on credit.