Why Buyers Would Love a Tethered Apple Vision Pro

Apple's Vision Pro is about to launch outside the US, but it's already a bit of a flop. Maybe it's time to rethink it as an iPad and Mac accessory instead of pushing it as a whole new computing platform.

The Vision Pro's end-game is a pair of glasses that give you ubiquitous all-day augmented reality (AR). But the current Vision Pro is far from that. It's bulky, it requires a cable, and it's way too expensive for most people to buy. Until it can make them cheap and small enough to appeal to normal folks, Apple could make an AVP that connects to your Mac or iPad. It could be much lighter without the computer and cooling, it could be cheaper, and as it already needs a cable running to the battery, it would make little difference.

"No one likes wearing uncomfortable bulky headgear. The weight of the headsets and disorientation caused by VR has always been the biggest hurdle in end-user adoption. For wider adoption, headsets have to be much lighter and more user-friendly," Oindrila Mandal, senior game product manager at Electronic Arts, told Lifewire via email. "To make AR mainstream, companies like Apple should focus on the usability and intuitiveness of the product over its technological capabilities. Consumers know the tech is cool. But even die-hard AR/VR fans who buy these products are unable to use the headsets for a long time at a stretch. Focusing on the user experience is what would make AR more ubiquitous."

Virtual Flop

On the cusp of Apple's worldwide-ish rollout of its augmented-reality headset, early adopters are posting their long-term opinions, and they're not good: The Vision Pro is uncomfortable, it doesn't have enough apps, the battery life sucks, and many buyers of the $3,500+ headset barely use it, only watching the occasional movie because they feel an obligation to switch it on after spending so much. "[R]ight now, my feeling about the Vision Pro is that it was the worst way I could have possibly spent $3,500 on upgrading my computing life," UI designer Matt Birchler writes on his blog.

It seems like Apple is equally disappointed in its bold new spatial-computing platform. Since launch, there have been barely any new 3D experiences, aka immersive movies, and Apple didn't even bother with a launch event. Months after the initial announcement, it just dropped the AVP into the store with a press release.

If the project seems like it's on hold, that's because it kind of is. According to reports, Apple has ditched plans for a sequel to the Vision Pro and is instead working on a cheaper model that will keep the amazing dual displays but cut out lots of other parts to make it smaller, lighter, and cheaper.

But would you buy a Vision Pro even if it cost $1,000? Less? Right now, it doesn't do enough to be worth buying. Major software developers like Netflix, YouTube, and Spotify have steered clear, and unless a lot more people buy it, it seems unlikely that will change.

Apple is great at iterating on its designs. Just look at the difference between the original iPhone and today's model, which arrived step-by-step with incremental yearly updates. But if a product doesn't do well from the get-go, Apple can lose interest and let the product languish, e.g. the HomePod and the Touch Bar.

Unlike the Touch Bar and the HomePod, which were fully formed from the beginning and just needed some attention, the Vision Pro needs a lot of work and a lot of annual updates to transform from a bulky, uncomfortable headset into a viable mainstream pair of AR glasses.

Tethered

One way to keep the AVP alive while improving it would be to stop selling it as an all-in-one computer and sell it as an accessory for the one you already have. The Apple Vision could hook up to your Mac or iPad and act as a fancy display and input device. You already have to deal with a battery cable, so hooking it up with a Thunderbolt cable wouldn't be any worse, and it's not like anyone is walking around using these things anyway.

You could then use it as a virtual display for your Mac, play VR games (which is all anyone really wants from these things anyway), and watch movies. Apple could make it smaller and cheaper and, therefore, attractive enough to make it a success.

"Standalone is extremely important in the bigger picture, but for many use cases in both enterprise and personal use, even a tethered headset in the Apple ecosystem should be a very attractive offering—especially in the contexts of expanded and multiplied screens, entertainment consumption, and artistic work," Maeva Sponbergs, CMO and head of publishing at Beyond Frames Entertainment, told Lifewire via email.

What's certain is that Apple has to do something. Right now the AVP is a novelty gizmo that costs more than an iPad, an iPhone, and a Mac added together, and the international rollout has the added disadvantage of potential buyers being aware of its long-term shortcomings. Until Apple changes something, the AVP is totally more of a Touch Bar than an iPhone.