TechnoTalk: Time to Tech

[Potato]

Shower thought: Whatever happened to those Apple goggle things?

Got my answer

https://www.designwhine.com/apple-vision-pro-discontinued

Discontinued in late 2024.

Apple’s initial projections were ambitious to the point of delusion. The company expected to sell a million Vision Pro units in year one, later scaling back expectations to 500,000 units as reality set in. They sold fewer than 370,000 worldwide by the time production ceased.

The manufacturing story tells an even more sobering tale. Production peaked at 2,000 units daily in early 2024 before dropping to 1,000 units per day by summer. Luxshare Precision, Apple’s primary assembler, received shutdown orders by November 2024. Component suppliers had already produced enough parts for between 500,000 to 600,000 headsets by October, leaving massive inventory overhangs that would take years to clear at current demand levels.

But the real story isn’t in the sales figures. It’s in the return rates and usage patterns that emerged after Apple Vision Pro discontinued production. Return rates during the 14-day window reportedly exceeded 25%, an unprecedented figure for Apple hardware. Even more telling, users who kept their devices showed rapidly declining engagement over time.

Anyone with half a brain could have (and did) predicted this disaster. 

A solution for a problem that doesn't exist. They ended up being a way to make a simple task uncomfortable and inconvenient.

For designers and technologists, the lesson is clear: advanced technology must serve genuine human needs, not just showcase engineering capabilities. The next generation of mixed reality devices needs to solve real problems rather than create artificial ones.

What real problems is it going to solve? Is anyone genuinely struggling to be productive on a traditional screen with a keyboard and mouse setup?