What is a product that sounded promising but ended up being very underwhelming?

Interstellar_1@lemmy.blahaj.zone to Ask Lemmy@lemmy.world – 122 points –
133

You are viewing a single comment

Apple Vision Pro

Seems only the influencers took the bait. And then they returned it once the channel had its run. Anyone know of any real world users/ uses for it?

Probably nothing beyond normal VR stuff. It's still pretty new and it sounds like Apple is still trying to figure out the chicken or the egg problem when it comes to developing an entirely new platform and have decided to try putting the egg first to see if anyone will incubate it for them. Who knows if they'll commit long enough for it to pay off. Tbh I can see VR enthusiasts still getting something out of it since it sounds like people have figured out how to get it working with steamvr. Other than that though, I don't really see any uses for it. I think they're going to have to spend a lot of time looking for problems that are worth paying $1,000~$2,000 to solve (I'm assuming that's what a "consumer" version would cost), and then refine their solution until it feels natural before widespread adoption will be a thing.

It’s actually got traction in industry where we were already exploring AR for things like using 3d models to enhance maintenance on large facility equipment.

Compared to the value prop of increased reliability and enhanced frontline accessibility of consumable model data its cost is not a barrier and its quality is a MASSIVE step up from the equipment we had.

I’ve heard about it being used in high cost per unit sales experiences too, like jets or whatnot, it haven’t seen that directly.

I recall talking to a vendor back... 8 years ago? Who had a colleague trialling hololens augmented maintenance. I personally felt it would be amazing to be able to look at equipment, bring up a model and explode it to get a look at (Yeah I know you can do that with a laptop, manufacturing lines have notoriously shitty wifi, not to mention greasy around equipment), assisted procedures were a cool idea too, helps people who may not be super familiar with your specific equipment, like shift or loaner maintenance people.

Over a decade ago, different company, they had a bounty on video procedures, you'd strap a go pro to your head and record something like changing batteries, replacing o-rings, removal of electronics etc for a cash bonus. I'm a text and photo person but I totally see the value in video documentation.

Microsoft had a demo at an ignite conference in 2020 if I recall of hololens doing ar metrics, person looked at things like the elevator and would give them real-time performance data, definitely a gimmick but I still think AR could be useful in an industrial setting.

Ok so I do agree that the Vision Pro is crazy overpriced and never gonna succeed by itself.

But remember the first gen iPad? That thing sucked!

The iPad 2 was a genuine quantum leap forward for the form factor, so I’m waiting to see the next Vision device before making a proper call.