The Mouse and the Cat

Apple’s Vision Pro & a lesson in strategy from an ancient Zodiac tale.

There is an ancient tale behind the Asian Zodiac signs. It involves a mouse, an ox, and a cat, among other animals. The announcement of Vision Pro from Apple this week reminded me of that tale. Depending on the country in Asia, the tale differs slightly but here’s the Japanese version that I grew up with:

“A long, long time ago God decided to give a place of honor each year to an animal in a twelve-year cycle. He summoned various animals and beckoned them to meet him on January 1st, letting them know that the selection would happen by the order that they arrived.

The ox, knowing that he was a slow walker, decided to leave the night before. The mouse in the attic of the ox’s barn seized the moment and jumped on the ox’s back. As the ox approached the house of God in the morning, the mouse jumped off from the ox’s back and greeted God, securing a first place among the twelve animals in the Zodiac race.”

The lesson here is that you don’t need to be the fastest but need to be the smartest. Reading this now, there is a degree of sneakiness on the mouse’s part so I’m not sure if I’d pass this tale exactly as it is onto my kids. But this post isn’t about parenting.

Is it VR or AR? Neither.

By the time you are reading this, there have already been countless voices opining about Apple’s Vision Pro and why it’s “ impressive,” “ magical,” “ disappointing,” or “dystopian.”

The press release from Apple reads:

“Today marks the beginning of a new era for computing. Just as the Mac introduced us to personal computing, and iPhone introduced us to mobile computing, Apple Vision Pro introduces us to spatial computing.

This statement is a little grandiose and misleading since Apple didn’t quite introduce us to personal computing or mobile computing.

In 1973-four years before Apple released its Apple II-Xerox PARC developed the Xerox Alto, the computer “to use a mouse, the desktop metaphor, and a graphical user interface.” According to this Wikipedia entry, “It was the first example of what would today be recognized as a complete personal computer.”

In mobile computing, there were Blackberrys, Palm Pilots, and many other mobile devices from the late 1990s to early 2000s. Apple wasn’t even the second to move into the mobile market. It wouldn’t be until 2007 that Apple entered this market.

After witnessing the abysmal traction of Meta, Google, (Glassholes, anyone?), and Magic Leap with their virtual/augmented/mixed reality products, Apple took its time to enter this market. While there have been some sporadic successes in this area, nothing has reached scale and VR/AR/MR technologies remain on shaky ground as a mass-market proposition.

Back in 1987, there was the EyePhone before the iPhone.

Jaron Lanier, widely considered the father of virtual reality, and his company VPL Research developed a set of goggles and gloves to explore VR. He called it the EyePhone.

But this EyePhone for virtual reality never scaled. VPL Researched filed for bankruptcy in 1990.

Words like “metaverse” and “virtual/augmented/mixed reality” were noticeably absent from Apple’s announcement, perhaps as an attempt to distance itself from the collective failures we’ve seen, not just in recent years, but in the 1980s and 90s.

Instead, Apple is trying to create a different narrative and own spatial computing.

Connections vs. Interface

Apple’s entry into this space is a little late. Does this make Apple the mouse and the likes of Meta the ox in the Zodiac race?

Even though the use cases of Vision Pro presented in the demo this week suggest a wide range of scenarios-from work and productivity settings to personal and family settings, such as watching movies, FaceTiming with friends and family, and creepy scenarios like recording your kid’s birthday parties-Apple is not even trying to capture the mass market with Vision Pro. It’s evident in the high price point as well as “Pro” in its branding.

In 2022, there were 8.8 million AR/VR units sold according to one report. The overall market was led by Meta with nearly 80% share, meaning Meta sold about 7 million units whose price point starts around $400. Even with these numbers, no one thinks Meta is succeeding in its quest for the ever-so-elusive metaverse. At $3,500, Apple has its job cut out.

But Apple really isn’t competing with Meta and the like.

What Apple is trying to build and sell is fundamentally different from what Meta is. This is the difference and that just might determine where they are headed as companies and we are as a society.

Meta is in the business of creating connections and monetizing personal data. It always has been. It’s an extremely lucrative business and the attempt to own the metaverse by creating platforms like Horizon Worlds is another step toward that agenda. It needs scale for it to be a good experience for any user.

Apple, on the other hand, is in the business of creating the interface for the individual. It always has been. It is attempting to slowly but surely dominate access humans have to any digital world. Some, not all, Vision Pro’s propositions make sense as long as the user can enjoy the experience alone.

Vision Pro does seem like a myriad of numerous technical marvels, an impressively advanced product. But advanced technology doesn’t necessarily make a product innovative. Innovation is about about finding an unexpected solution to an obvious problem, or finding an obvious solution to an unexpected problem. Vision Pro does neither.

(For the record, I’m not a journalist or an influencer with early access and have not tried it myself so this is highly speculative.)

So are Meta and others the ox in this tale? No.

Where is the cat?

There are twelve Zodiac animals: the Mouse, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Goat, Monkey, Rooster, Dog, and Pig. But there is no cat.

In America, Tom and Jerry is a famous rivalry tale. According to a Reddit post that went viral a few years ago, despite what one might think, Tom and Jerry are best friends.

In Asia, cats do hate mice. The Zodiac tale that I mentioned earlier provides the backstory behind cats’ eternal animosity toward mice.

After God announced the race, the cat couldn’t remember the exact date the animals were supposed to visit God. The cat asked the mouse, to which the mouse answered, “January 2nd.”

By the time the cat showed up before God, the race was over obviously. God reprimanded the cat and refused to give him a spot.

That is why cats hate mice and always chase them whenever they lay their eyes on mice.

The part about the mouse lying to the cat isn’t cool so I’ll conveniently ignore it.

Everyone wanted to hate the new headset from Apple. But even some of the most critical skeptics are exhibiting some affinity for it, as heard in this podcast where one of the hosts goes on a rant heavily questioning the validity of the product, only to admit at the end “I’d probably buy it.”

This product is not meant for the mass. It’s meant for wealthy, privileged folks (see above) in the business class. By this time next year, we’ll spot a few guys on flights from San Francisco to New York, or New York to Cannes, flaunting their Vision Pro binge-watching episodes of Succession. Putting on a headset after dinner by yourself in front of your partner makes you a bad partner (ok, a douchebag). Doing that in business class on an airplane might be slightly more tolerable (and less douchey, but still is).

Not everyone will want or be able to afford one, but everyone will know it’s the new status symbol, just like the iPhone, AirPods, and Apple Watches were. Until they weren’t.

It turns out Meta, Magic Leap, and everyone else were the cat.

The lesson, again, is that you don’t need to be the fastest. Reframe the race you are in, so that you can play to your strength.

The Mouse and the Cat was originally published in UX Collective on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.