Vision Pro Usage Survey: Daily Essential or Dust Collector?
A couple of weeks ago I put up a survey on X and LinkedIn asking people a simple question:
How often have you used your Apple Vision Pro in April?
I got 366 replies and I wanted to share some interesting findings with you.
About the survey
Let me start by saying that there is an inevitable bias in this survey because many of the people in my network are creators, developers, and founders. We will also look at another survey I found on Reddit that asks a question related to the usage of the device.
That being said, the actual survey and available answers were the following:
How often have you used your Apple Vision Pro in April?
Almost Daily
A few times every week
A couple of times or less
Don’t own it but curious
As you can imagine I added the last option to allow people that do not own an Apple Vision Pro to see how others have been using theirs.
The survey ran for 7 days and at the end I reached out to everybody who responded “Almost Daily” and “A few times a week” asking “Could you share one or two sentences about how you use the Vision Pro, like what app or usecases?”
Results
258 people who voted, didn’t own a headset and that left us with 108 votes. That still feels like a good number to look further into the data.
When we look at both LinkedIn and X aggregated results, we see the results are fairly distributed with 41% of people using their headsets daily.
When we look at the data split between Linkedin and X we see some differences in headset usage for the less active users (the one who responded “A couple of times” and “ A few times a week”) while the percentage of daily users remains constant.
If we look at the broader picture we still see that 69% of respondents use their Apple Vision Pro a few times a week or more 4 months after release, and while I don’t know what the headset retention is for other headsets, it feels encouraging.
But… What are people doing with their Vision Pro?
A more “qualitative” look at usage
Understanding what people are doing with this device is probably as important (if not more important) than knowing how frequently it is used.
During the same period, I found another survey started by a Reddit user on r/VisionPro that asked specifically this question:
What do you primarily use your Vision Pro’s for?
As you can see the vast majority of users who responded to that survey are using their Vision Pro for Media consumption, followed far behind by “Productivity”.
As previously mentioned I have asked each of the respondents on LinkedIn how they have used their device and the results were quite different.
The answers given by my respondents indicated that the primary focus was development. Developers are leveraging its integration with tools like Xcode and the ability to work with multiple floating windows, making it easier to test and push builds without removing the headset.
For daily productivity, it is used to run standup meetings with spatial personas to enhance social interaction and use “immersive mode” to be more focused and remove distractions.
Users are also exploring its potential for gaming by streaming their gaming PCs or using platforms like Moonlight or Steam Link.
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.
You can see an extract of what people said right here:
Michael Bundy: "I use it daily, mostly for VisionOS development as it’s insanely easy to mirror Xcode into a space and push builds to myself without ever removing the headset."
Kasimir Lehto: "We’re developing for Vision so most of it it’s that multiple times per day for the past 7 months. Also, we’re doing daily standups in FaceTime with spatial personas."
Brian Mila: "I work in a fully immersive mode which helps reduce outside distractions. I don’t think I have a particular app that I use, mostly Remote Desktop for my Mac, slack, calendar, and Roam for our digital office."
Simon Graff: "I mostly use it for work ('headphones for the eyes'), blending out my surroundings and/or focussing on specific deep dive tasks."
Niccolò Vianello: "The main experiences involve 3D configurators for high-end products that require a great level of detail, such as furniture accessories, jewelry pieces, and luxury bags."
Marc Wicht: "I enjoy spatial videos quite a bit and really dig the continuity features, to work with my virtual Mac screen on the AVP."
Theo Papadopoulos: "My teams use Apple Vision Pro almost on daily basis, as we are currently developing several internal PoCs testing their capabilities."
Joshua Opel: "Right now, use it daily for building apps for clients on it. A FEW times a week."
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."
Jeff Sipko: "I use the AVP for a couple of things: number one as a development platform. Outside of that, I also use it for having multiple extra floating windows of common apps."
Alexey Menshikov: "I use the Vision Pro to develop games."
Lucky Lance Gobindram: "It allows for seamless transitions between emails, Zoom meetings, X, capturing family moments, and complex tasks like 3D model manipulation, all within an immersive virtual workspace or my world."
Cyril Tuschi: "I am using the Vision Pro mostly for checking and enjoying new features, testing all new apps to see if or if not they use real spatial content or UI which is truly placed in the real world."
Conclusions
The Vision Pro was primarily marketed and positioned as a “Spatial Computer”. Right now it appears to be more of a development platform and a device for media consumption than a computing device where people “get their work done”. Multiple screens or spatial windows is what many people ask for but I am not sure that is what is needed and is going to drive usage… at least in the current form. There have to be apps that really take advantage of the medium and justify the hassle of wearing a (very) heavy device for an extended time. Currently, we still lack apps that take advantage of what makes XR compelling like creativity and collaboration. WWDC 2024 is around the corner and I hope is going to bring some interesting developments to propel and broaden the usage of what is an incredible piece of hardware with right now little to offer.
I hope you enjoyed this little research. If you do, remember to subscribe to the newsletter to get weekly in-depth interviews with founders and makers shaping the future of XR and AI.