Vision Pro Usage Survey: Only a Minority of Early Adopters Are Daily Users

Interesting post from XR influencer Gabriele Romagnoli, summarizing the results of a survey he took of Vision Pro users. Among the 108 owners of Apple's headset he polled -- actually a pretty good data sample, for a device with a user base roughly under 250,000 -- a strong majority of almost 60% report using the device very sporadically throughout the week. Only a minority of 41% report daily use.

This is fairly surprising, because by definition, the first people to purchase the first edition of the headset costing $3500+  are the most dedicated XR/Apple enthusiasts with the most incentive to use the device -- even attempting to use it up 8 hours a day, like it was an alternate to a Mac Pro for work. (As I thought it would be.)

Having finally tried the Vision Pro at Augmented World Expo last week, I can definitely understand why not to use to on a regular basis: My immediate, overwhelming reaction is marveling just. How. Heavy. It is. But I'm not a dedicated XR/Apple enthusiast who just paid $3500, and is trying to at least get my money's worth. It's almost equivalent to spending the same amount of money for a glamorous weekend in Paris, and then mostly staying in the hotel to watch old American TV shows.

That analogy might seem like a stretch, until you read further in the survey, and find that 70% of Vision Pro users polled are mainly using the HMD to... watch videos:

Media consumption was also highlighted and users mentioned apps like Disney+, Apple TV+, and RedBull TV. Nevertheless, some brought up the device's ergonomics as an issue for extended use...

Cesar Berardini: "I use entertainment apps (Disney+, Max, Apple TV+), take some Microsoft Teams calls, and run demos for a lot of people, from family and friends to co-workers and customers."

Lok Wong: "I use it for safari YouTube and safari webxr development right now Hong Kong has no AppStore."

Read it all here. I'd love to see more usage surveys bef0re making any definitive conclusion, but I do see this as an early warning sign: If the very most dedicated adopters aren't interested in Vision Pro beyond most sporadically using it to watch videos, is this really a sustainable ecosystem?

Comments

[Frank]

Do you really are flabbergasted by the result of this survey? Your comparison doesn't make sense at all. The first thing everyone is overwhelmed with when using the Vision Pro is the uncomparable and never seen before quality of the 3D,180 & 360 video's. With that, watching movies is like going to the best cinema ever. And you are surprised that users use this stunning feature the most? For practical use new apps are (being) developed and some of them are quite interesting, however with apps you often don't use them everyday. For consumers gaming on the AVP will be the very next big thing. Therefor Apple started too early to aim at consumers. It should have had more online 3D/360 games ready. But that will come soon.

[Martin K.]

> like it was an alternate to a Mac Pro for work

For app development, the Apple Vision Pro is closer to an iPad than a Mac because you can't run Xcode on a standalone Apple Vision Pro. (Devs who use the Vision Pro for developing apps have it connected to a Mac.) Thus, for standalone usage, the relevant comparison might be to iPad usage.

> My immediate, overwhelming reaction is marveling just. How. Heavy. It is.

Did you use two(!) solo knit bands? Apparently, there is now a small industry selling solutions to attach two(!) solo knit bands for best comfort, like this 3d printed clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CaEw0nc_20Q