Apple is reportedly asking Sony for help with its Vision Pro problem

• Apple’s Vision Pro headsets went on sale in February. They have not taken the world by storm.
• Apple is reportedly looking to Sony for help via a plan to bring Sony’s gaming controllers to Apple’s devices.
• But unlike other headsets, the Vision Pro isn’t really built for gaming. So, this seems unlikely to solve Apple’s long-term Vision Pro problem.

Maybe, one day, the Apple Vision Pro — or a future version of the Apple Vision Pro — will end up being a huge hit for Apple.

Right now, it seems anything but.

As we’ve noted multiple times, there are several indicators that Apple’s “mixed reality” goggles aren’t a breakthrough product. Most important: There doesn’t seem to be a killer app that creates a use case for the Vision Pro, which starts at $3,500.

Apple has always positioned the device, which launched in February, as the first step for “spatial computing” — not the end state. Still, it’s hard to imagine it didn’t have higher hopes for the initial product.

Now Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reports that both sales and usage are underwhelming. He says Apple has sold fewer than 500,000 units of the device, and that “a large number of Vision Pro buyers (those who haven’t returned it) aren’t using the product as much as Apple anticipated, according to internal data gathered by the company.”

What could change all of that? Perhaps a cheaper, lighter version, which could hit the market next year. But Apple is also reportedly looking outside the company for help, by integrating third-party controllers for the device.

Gurman reports that Apple is working with Sony on a deal that will let Vision Pro owners use a version of the PlayStation VR2’s hand controllers with the device. That’s a notable change since, right now, the Vision Pro doesn’t use any controllers at all. Instead, users manipulate the gadget using their fingers and eyes.

That’s a pretty cool and novel way to use a computer (again, I really urge anyone who hasn’t tried Vision Pro to book a free, 30-minute demo at an Apple store). But that choice also means that developers who built something for other augmented/virtual/mixed reality devices — which generally do use hand-held controllers — would have a hard time porting their applications to Apple’s new device.

Which makes the killer app problem that much harder to solve.

But even if the Apple-Sony deal does happen soon (I’ve asked both companies for comment) I don’t think it immediately changes the Vision Pro’s prospects.

Apple headset rivals like Sony and Meta are positioning their devices as gaming consoles (Meta is bundling a Batman game with its newest Quest headsets). But the Vision Pro just seems too expensive and bulky to support video games at scale. This move seems more like an indicator that Apple knows it has a problem. It’s not a solution.