I remember that gap in time between when iPhone was announced and when the iPhone was launched. The entire world was pregnant with anticipation about being able to touch this new device. Apple fanboy that I was, I was among them but due to a bout of unemployment I didn’t expect to get a fancy phone any time soon. Then one day a gift from my co-workers at our newly formed Paravel arrived at my door; a brand new iPhone that changed how I spent my all idle time. A clear delineation that I had entered a new post-PC era of computing.

Fast-forwarding to today… this Spring Apple launched a brand new category of computing, a spatial reality device called the Vision Pro. It’s impossibly expensive, yet I’m interested in those ski goggles. Playing with your kids while having a big piece of glass strapped to your face is a bit dystopian, but I have a slight obsession with Web VR/XR and have hundreds of ideas for interesting experiences I’d like to prototype. I’d love to use this device. Yet, something’s missing…

That thrill of expectation that an incredible new and novel device is around the corner… is gone. I’m wondering what it could be and have human generated a list of possible reasons why.

1. It could be years of routine Apple product cycles and rumor sites de-sensitizing me to new products.
2. It could be the marketing machine hasn’t kicked in yet for the Vision Pro.
3. It could be Apple themselves don’t have confidence in the product and I’m echoing back that energy.
4. It could be a rare snafu in Apple’s timing, announcing a bit too late after the Metaverse was already dead.
5. It could be the cold, dead, dystopian, projected eye balls.
6. It could be there’s no “killer app” use case yet.
7. It could be the power of comparison; in 2007 we were years into using crappy Motorola phones with operating systems from the 90s and iOS looked like a ten-step evolution of something we already had.
8. It could be the iPhone was the successor to the well-loved, multi-generation iPod we were all familiar with.
9. It could be how the announcement event painfully tried to hide compromises in the design like the kludgy external battery.
10. It could be too many years of being online and my brain is already looking for the next materialistic dopamine hit.
11. It could be – and probably is – the price.

I’d love to pinpoint why the Vision Pro has already exited our collective conscious. I have a fascination with follow-up products from well-loved companies with infinite marketing bucks not succeeding (Kindle Phone, Windows Phone, etc). I’d love to know why this revolutionary device feels different. Like I said, I hope it succeeds because one day I hope to look at my children with the hollowness that can only come from empty projected eyeballs.

I’m kidding, I do want one.