A Temperature Check on the Metaverse — Has the Vision Pro Moved the Needle in Any Way?

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In the two years we’ve been writing about the metaverse, this is the first time the concept actually feels both viable and desirable.

Why?

Cause ever since the Apple Vision Pro came out, our YouTube feeds have been inundated with content surrounding Vision Pro and its alternatives, like the Quest 3, Bigscreen Beyond, and Immersed Visor.

But here’s our worry:

What if we’re stuck in an algorithmically fenced echo chamber? (Because of course we’re getting fed VR content — we’ve been following it for years!)

In an attempt to calm those fears, we’re going to dig into some numbers around the Vision Pro and see:

1. How many units have shipped

2. How many Vision Pro native apps are available

3. How many of those apps are actually being used

(Cause if Apple wins here, the rest of the industry will be able to ride its coattails).

Ok, so answers 1 & 2: an estimated 200,00+ units have sold, and the headset launched with 600 Vision Pro native apps (along with 1M+ iPad app ports).

We’re looking at native apps because they take advantage of the Vision Pro’s ‘spatial computing’ abilities (which is a baseline hardware requirement for the metaverse, aka ‘the 3D virtual internet’).

Now for the burning question — how many of those apps are actually being used?

First, a pallet cleanse…

Remember, hundreds/thousands of downloads per day ain’t much for an app on iPhone (which has 1B+ users), but on Vision Pro’s 200k install base, they’re damn near industry leading.

Here’re some notable stats we gleamed from The Immersive Wire:

• JigSpace (view/deconstruct 3D objects) saw 14k installs in week 1!

• News Ticker (a paid news app) is receiving 300+ downloads a day

• Juno (a Vision Pro native YouTube player) broke into the (overall) top 10 in the Photo & Video category shortly after the device’s launch.

The takeaway:

Those numbers are impressive (relative to the number of total Vision Pro’s out there)! The apps themselves? Not so much.

That ‘killer app’ for the Vision Pro — the one that’s going to convince everyday people to fork out $3,500 for a headset? It’s still yet to be discovered.

Patience is a virtue 🧘