Father of the iPod, Tony Fadell, says Apple has "jumped the shark" with the Vision Pro headset

With the Apple Vision Pro headset now finally unveiled, reaction has been mixed. Some see it as heralding a new paradigm for what Apple is calling spatial computing, while others are questioning why Apple is entering a market where competing products haven’t exactly taken the market by storm. One of Apple’s legendary former employees, Tony Fadell has now shared his thoughts about it on Twitter. (Fadell, if you weren’t aware, is known as the “Father of the iPod”, was central to the creation of the iPhone, and also co-founded Nest which was later acquired by Google for $3.2 billion).

Taking to Twitter to respond to a question about his thoughts on the Vision Pro headset, Fadell responded that he thought “Apple has truly “Jumped the Shark”. On the plus side, Fadell thinks that the hardware is a “Technological Tour-de-Force” and is “very impressive”, which is high praise coming from one of the greatest ever hardware engineers. However, Fadell was highly critical of its pro-level price, but marketing and apps targeted at everyday consumers and a limited two hour battery life. It appears to be a valid criticism as Apple has used “Pro” labeling for the device, but said that only iPhone and iPad apps would be compatible with it.

In a later tweet, Fadell later added some additional thoughts about the Apple Vision Pro in response to a tweet that said that Apple could offer higher capacity battery packs to address the limited battery life. Fadell responded that even if it had “24 HR” battery life, “the apps & marketing pitch is awful. He also said that it didn’t address any pain points with existing competing products. Fadell concluded “Platforms don’t become useful products. Useful products become platforms…”

Although the Apple Vision Pro was unveiled at WWDC23, it won’t go on sale until 2024 at a price of $3,499 and will only be sold in the US. It will not be until 2025 that Apple has plans to start rolling the product out to global markets.

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