Over the past few years, virtual and augmented reality (VR and AR) have attracted a lot of money and hype. But how is this nascent industry actually faring, and is it worth exploring as a potential source of jobs and freelance income?
First, the pessimistic take: Apple’s much-publicized Vision Pro, a “mixed reality” headset that allows wearers to interact with a virtual environment (and see the outside world via cameras), is apparently losing consumer interest, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman.
“Here’s what I’m hearing from Apple retail stores: Demand for demos is way down,” Gurman wrote. “People who do book appointments often don’t show up, and sales—at least at some locations—have gone from a couple of units a day to just a handful in a whole week. Apple also has had to step up the marketing on its online homepage.”
Of course, that’s somewhat apocryphal, and Apple is unlikely to break out sales numbers for the device anytime soon. In any case, the Vision Pro (which retails for $3,499) isn’t a mass-market product like the iPhone or iPad, and the current market for it seems to consist of VR enthusiasts, die-hard Apple fans, and enterprise tech professionals trying to figure out how to weave the device into verticals such as healthcare.
Meanwhile, Meta, the other big player in the VR and AR space, is taking a page from Microsoft, which figured out how to dominate the PC market of the 1990s by licensing its software to a variety of computer manufacturers, and Google, which allows anyone building a phone to install its Android OS on it. In this case, Meta is licensing its Meta Horizon OS, which powers VR experiences, to hardware manufacturers such as Lenovo and Asus.
“In every era of computing, there are always open and closed models,” Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in an Instagram video. “With phones, Apple’s closed model basically won out. Phones are tightly controlled, and you’re locked into what they’ll let you do. But it doesn’t have to be this way.”
Even as it increases its hardware footprint, Meta is still aggressively losing money on its VR dreams, with its Reality Labs division taking a $4.65 billion loss in the fourth quarter of 2023. While people are buying the company’s VR products, it feels a long way from profitability.
Both Meta and Apple are offering a host of developer tools for building apps and services in their respective ecosystems; Meta’s offerings include a new spatial app framework for porting existing apps into the Meta Horizon OS, while Apple has tools and documentation for visionOS, which powers the Vision Pro. But if you’re a technology professional interested in this space, keep in mind that your apps might not draw a huge audience, and it may take years for VR to go truly mainstream—if it reaches that point at all.
