The Reality of Society's Virtual Dawn
The internet is dismissing the Vision Pro way, way too soon.
There’s arguably no better topic for Valleywood than virtual reality. Part-tech, part-entertainment, virtual reality has birthed a series of hype-cycles and head-fakes since it was first introduced to the world in 1935 via Pygmalion’s Spectacles, or at least since it was first introduced to me in 1999 via DisneyQuest’s Cyberspace Mountain.
Climbing the Mountain
In 1999, on the night of my first-ever sleepover, my mom took a friend and me to DisneyQuest, Disney’s now-defunct indoor amusement park. The appeal of this late-nineties fever dream was its array of interactive experiences, anchored by its virtual reality roller coaster, Cyberspace Mountain. The virtual ride was powered by giant flat-screen TVs, surround sound speakers, and a roller coaster chassis that jostled, twisted, and turned in synchronized fashion with the video. I loved it, my friend threw up, and my mom still talks about how much she regrets taking us there.
Suffice it to say, VR had not arrived yet.
Crossing The Valley
My next foray into VR took place in 2016, when I was 1 year into my finance career and my boss invited me on a trip to Silicon Valley with his hedge fund clients. The clients were intrigued by the renewed buzz surrounding VR in the wake of Facebook’s Oculus Rift launch, and the purpose of the trip was to determine if and how it might be an investable opportunity. On the trip, we met with academics, venture capitalists, big tech, and startups, all of whom regaled us with anecdotes and data points suggesting that VR had arrived in earnest. In our meetings, we learned about how Stanford researchers were using VR to teach users empathy through having them embody characters of different races, genders, and ages; we learned how Shenzhen was emerging as the “Silicon Valley of Hardware'' and accelerating VR adoption in China through low-cost devices; and we learned how face-mounted displays could unlock new opportunities for advertisers, since these devices now knew precisely which pixels a user was looking at and for exactly how long.
Yet, despite the VR enthusiasm conveyed in each meeting, when we demoed the tech, it all still felt like a work-in-progress. Headsets were uncomfortable, screen resolutions weren’t sharp, and you still needed a physical cable connection to a nearby PC. Moreover, from a user perspective, putting on the headset felt akin to putting on a blindfold: you felt instantly removed from your immediate surroundings. VR wasn’t here yet, and one hedge funder recommended buying stock in the underlying chip manufacturers versus the actual device makers themselves. Specifically, he told me to buy stock in Nvidia.
(*Ron Howard voice*) I did not.
Walking the Store
Fast-forward again to 2024, and on a recent Sunday afternoon, I decided to walk into the Apple Store to test out the Vision Pro. I had seen all the hype online about the device, but in truth, I was fully braced for a let down. To my surprise, this was not the case.
The Vision Pro was nothing short of incredible, and it was better than any Oculus I had tried from over the years. What was so notably different? For starters, the technology itself was better — the screen resolution was fantastic, the processing speed was fast, and the UI was easy to navigate due to smooth gesture controls and the ability to activate components simply by staring at them. Most importantly, unlike competitor devices, the Vision Pro thoughtfully maintained the user’s sense of presence in the real world. When I wore the mask, I could still see the Apple Store around me, and a familiar array of app icons nestled into the physical space around me in a completely natural way.
All that said, the true standout of the demo was the immersive content, particularly the home movies of children that felt like reliving memories, as well as the private Alicia Keys performance that afforded a genuine peek behind the curtain into the recording studio.
Of course, Apple is great at hardware sales, so it’s not lost on me that my demo experience was perfect because it was meticulously designed to be so (in fact, you can’t just walk into a store and try out the Vision Pro, you need to book an appointment). I’m also aware that I’m ~2 months late to the party, and that the hype has already faded on social media since the original launch, perhaps evidenced no more so than by the experience of famed YouTuber Casey Neistat.
I hear all that. But, nevertheless, let me just say: I think VR is finally here.
(Almost. We just need more content.)
Content as Killer App
Of the Vision Pro’s issues — expensive, heavy, impractical — the most glaring issue was the lack of abundant, immersive content at launch. As Stratechery’s Ben Thompson wrote, “there were, when the Apple Vision Pro was released, four immersive videos and one teaser trailer; now there are five…This is, frankly, bizarre, given that immersive video is arguably the single most important thing in terms of standing up the Vision Pro ecosystem.”
I’d add one nuance: it’s not simply “immersive video” that’s critical, it’s video that’s both immersive and inaccessible. The Alicia Keys recording session is a perfect example: it was awe-inspiring not just because it felt like I was actually there, but also because, absent VR, it felt like I otherwise never could be there.
Personally, I care less about being taken to the Shire or to Outer Space; I’d much rather be transported to the writers room of Saturday Night Live, to the admissions office at Y Combinator, or to Final Tribal Council on Survivor, watching from the jury as an undeserving coattail-rider receives their due reckoning. I’m also excited about how VR will extend to podcasters, streamers, and creators, all of whom already strive to make audiences feel like they are their actual friends and privy to intimate, organic conversations.
To make Apple’s content problem worse, Netflix, YouTube, and Spotify have each opted to not support the Vision Pro at launch, but I think they will come to regret (and likely reverse) this decision in the future. With time, the Vision Pro will deliver a 10x better and more emotion-stirring viewing experience, and I expect consumers will increasingly lean in and shift loyalties to whichever content providers are most prominently available. Disney, one of the streamers supporting Vision Pro, will stand to benefit, and I suspect its success will help fuel CEO Bob Iger’s ambition to build a virtual Disney World a la Fortnite (more on that another time…).
The Bottom Line
Today, VR is perceived as a niche market. When Apple announces quarterly earnings in May, Vision Pro sales are projected to be almost $1B, which, while impressive, is a blip on the radar when compared to Apple’s other consumer products. That said, I’m eager to listen to the earnings call and see how much focus the Vision Pro receives, and I’m keen to learn how much they’ll share about having introduced the medium to consumers who had never previously considered trying it.
And even though this model version may not ultimately take VR mainstream, I do believe the Vision Pro will still be the product line to do it. What’s more, I think Apple’s initial pricing strategy —i.e., $3500 for a Vision Pro — reveals their plan. By pricing the initial device so high, they deliberately preclude it from being the product to take VR mainstream, using it instead to help generate learnings from a smaller swath of users that can inform future product improvements, and all the while buy time for the broader immersive content ecosystem to mature. In the end, once these developments occur, Apple will drop the price, and just like a perfectly guided in-store demo, they will introduce a new-and-improved product to the mass market, primed and ready to transport people to new places and help them relive old memories.
Personally, I can’t wait to go back to DisneyQuest.