I'm sure it's a great product, but the form factor and price are clear indicators for how far away from mass adoption we currently are. Sure, strapping on an Oculus Quest might be compelling for occasional use, primarily due to its relatively affordable price, but I bet most of those cheap headsets still collect dust, because after all, using it still requires strapping on a headset.

I say this as a person who has been absolutely nuts for VR ever since the early 90s. While the technology is good enough to be cool from an enthusiast perspective, getting people to regularly don a full headset is pretty much impossible. The PSVR is the most comfortable headset I've ever used, and I still get tired of using it after a while... and I used to play my Virtual Boy for hours at a time. I neglect it more than I should simply because I don't feel like moving furniture and strapping on a headset every time I want to play a game (never mind the fact that the gaming library is a lot more limited).

And software is a huge sticking point for the technology at the moment. From a gaming perspective, creating a good VR experience is a lot more work than creating a traditional game. I am reminded of this blog post from Gregg Tavares about how much more work it was to create Gex for the 3DO compared to a typical 16-bit game. Sure, the tools improve over time to make the job easier, but there's inherently more complexity, which means it's inherently more difficult to make the experience actually feel good. Furthermore, I expect AR/mixed reality to be the real innovation, something that actually enables people to be more productive rather than being simply a gaming product. I don't think it's a coincidence that Apple has designed Vision Pro in this manner.

In general, I don't think Apple with Tim Cook at the helm nearly understands its own product stack or where its headed compared to how Steve Jobs ran the company. I highly doubt that Jobs ever would have removed ALL ports other than USB-C or kept trying (and failing) to push the terrible butterfly keyboard mechanisms onto their users. Vision Pro feels, to me, like yet another misstep. It's a product that is too expensive and not yet compelling enough for anyone but the most ardent Apple zealot (and one that will drop in value faster than the first-generation iPad or Apple Watch). VR/AR/MR needs to be lightweight and with a long battery life. It needs to be as simple as wearing a pair of sunglasses. We're nowhere near that yet. We'll get there eventually, but until then, it'll continue being a niche technology.