Pundits continue to hold up clear signs of restraint as failures while asking Apple to behave like Meta, OpenAI, Google, or anyone else but themselves, especially when discussing Apple Vision Pro. Apple is the only one that knows if Apple Vision Pro is a success or failure. If any of Apple's thousands of employees dare leave the company, or if one of hundreds of internal prototypes doesn't make it to production, you better believe punditry will be there to let us know.

The critical analysis almost always suffers from the same problem: asking Apple to chase the puck to where it is today, not where it is going. Look, there are a dozen Steve Jobs-isms that I can throw in here that should tell you exactly how Apple operates. It is one of the most scrutinized companies on Earth, and yet, reporting in the 'Power On' newsletter from Bloomberg can't help but ask Apple to change its behavior.

That Apple essence may confound analysts and pontificators, but one thing has held true in its long history: don't bet against it. The focus of the week is on Meta's new 'VR Glasses' that are neither VR nor glasses. Sure, they weigh 1/6 less and cost 1/3 the price, but they're also half the spec. Apple Vision Pro has a weight problem, absolutely, but let us not pretend that Apple is actually okay with sacrificing fidelity and scope for that simple metric. Even this report shows the lengths of the research and prototyping Apple went through to try and get a smaller device sooner, but chose to say 'no.'

But of course, in light of Meta's 'yes' with Meta VR Glasses, Apple's no's need to be seen as a failure. I'll let Apple's 2013 WWDC introduction video do the talking on this one (if it isn't taken down). I mean, given the reporting from folks who have spent many long years in the industry, they seem to forget exactly who they are talking about. A thousand no's Apple has an untold number of active prototypes in development and magnitudes more in a graveyard out back. I have no doubt that Apple's secret projects division is working on everything from rollable OLED to drones. That doesn't mean we'll ever see any of these products, nor does it mean that every abandoned prototype is a sign of failure and mismanagement. Every time a project is canceled in spite of the sunk cost, that is a victory. But apparently three known abandoned internal prototypes are a sign of confusion, failure, and mismanagement. N107: compute offloaded to an external product like a Mac, not as much visual fidelity, likely comparable to XReal glasses N100: a 'Vision Air' attempt at moving compute to the battery pack while maintaining the closed VR design N109: a lighter, lower-cost version with a less powerful chip These are likely...