The device was first unveiled to the public during the company’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) and was hailed by CEO Tim Cook as “the most advanced consumer electronics device ever made”.

It really did seem like something out of science fiction. The interface can be controlled using just eyes, voice and fingers (no clunky remote required), and wearers can navigate between augmented reality (AR) and fully immersive virtual reality (VR) using a small, integrated “Digital Crown” located on top of the glasses. “It’s like magic,” says a speaker during the WWDC demo video.

That roar has since degenerated into more of a whimper. Sales have failed to meet expectations, which has reportedly prompted the company to cut production. An April report from Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo revealed that the company plans to cut the number of units shipped in the U.S. to just 400,000 for 2024, compared to an expected cap of about double that number. More recent reports suggest that no more than 80,000 were sold in the second quarter of this year, and that number is expected to drop 75% in the current fiscal quarter.

For all the effusive excitement Apple exuded when it launched the Vision Pro, it’s been relatively quiet about the device since then. Instead, the company has focused most of its attention on Apple Intelligence, its new suite of generative AI offerings unveiled at this year’s WWDC. (This shift is not unlike that of Meta, which seems to have shifted much of its attention and investment away from its namesake, the Metaverse, and toward AI.)

So what happened?

The most obvious explanation for the Vision Pro’s sluggish sales is its $3,500 price tag—far too much for the average consumer (even the wealthier ones who are quick to buy the latest Apple products). That price also contrasts sharply with the prices of other popular virtual reality headsets; Meta’s Quest 3, for example, costs $500.

“At launch, (the Vision Pro) caused a stir until the price was announced,” says Michael Gartenberg, a former senior product marketing executive at Apple who now runs his own technology consulting firm. “It was a huge bang in the room because it changed the whole nature of the product. It wasn’t something Apple was going to sell to the mass market.”

A report published in June by The Information, citing sources involved in the manufacturing and supply of the devices, found that Apple is also focusing on releasing a cheaper model of the Vision Pro in late 2025 rather than the next version of the headset.

According to Charlie Fink, an author and associate professor at Chapman University who specializes in VR and AR, Apple should have anticipated this blow and instead decided to market the Vision Pro exclusively to developers: individuals and companies that create apps for the device that could then potentially bring the device into the mainstream. “Apple should not have marketed the Vision Pro as a consumer device,” he says. “It is clearly priced as a developer kit or developer device – and is best used as such.”

The headset weighs about 650 grams and covers most of the face, so there’s little you can do other than use it safely on the couch. And indeed, that was basically the limit of the use cases shown in the WWDC launch video last year. Users were shown sitting at home or leisurely walking around and using the Vision Pro to do things like watch movies, scroll through online articles, or chat on a video call. More than a year later, it’s still relatively rare to see someone wearing one of these devices in public.

“I’ve found that I can’t use it for more than twenty or thirty minutes before it becomes really uncomfortable,” says Gartenberg, “which in some ways limits the best use it has, which is to function as a $3,500 movie theater… this is a solution in search of a problem to solve.”

Gartenberg sees the Vision Pro’s development so far as evidence of the loss of some of the creative genius that helped Apple in its early years become the tech titan and trendsetter it is today. The headset “really shows that the era of Steve Jobs and his products is over,” he says.

Tipatat Chennavasin, an investor who focuses on young VR and AR companies, takes the opposite view. Despite the commercial difficulties, he says, the Vision Pro shows that Apple is “still innovating, not resting on its laurels, and still thinking about the future of computing.”

Chennavasin argues that it’s better to broaden the time horizon and view the device’s first year or so on the market not as a flop, but as a spark that will start a broader and more pervasive cultural trend. “It’s not necessarily about getting the biggest (sales) numbers, but about getting developers excited and then testing use cases to ultimately find the things that will stick with consumers in the long run,” he says. “I mean, of course there are still so many problems, (and) there’s a lot of room for improvement, but (Apple has) made a bold first statement with this device.”

And while the Vision Pro hasn’t seen the kind of gold rush of brand investment that came with the metaverse hype a few years ago, marketers are still urging patience, saying the device could become a cornerstone of mainstream culture once the price is lowered and more practical, everyday use cases are established.

The future of the Vision Pro and the mixed reality industry in general will depend largely on marketing strategy, according to Rosh Singh, managing director (EMEA) at Unit9, a production company that helps brands create experiences in VR and other digital media. “Our problem – and it’s a positioning and awareness problem – is that there are preconceived ideas about what a headset does,” he says. “That’s not white space.”

Headsets in general are heavily associated with gaming, he says, and it will take a lot of marketing resources to transform them from a niche hobbyist device into the kind of everyday wearable technology envisioned by companies like Meta and Apple.

“There needs to be a reboot,” says Singh. “It’s about changing the perceptions that are out there, these preconceived notions about quality, about what the device is for.”

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