Apple lived up to months of expectations on Monday when it introduced new high-tech goggles that blend the real world with virtual reality. The $3,500 device, called the Vision Pro, will offer “augmented reality” and introduce “spatial computing,” Apple said.

But conspicuously absent from its carefully choreographed announcement were the actual words “virtual reality,” underscoring the challenges the tech giant will likely face in marketing the device to a mass consumer audience.

Interest in virtual reality picked up briefly after the idea of the metaverse — an immersive online world popularized by science fiction — was introduced to mainstream audiences during the pandemic. But the concept lost steam as people returned to their prepandemic lives, investors pivoted to artificial intelligence and it became clear how much technological innovation would be required to achieve such a futuristic vision.

Past virtual reality offerings, including Google Glass, Magic Leap, Microsoft’s HoloLens and Meta’s Quest Pro, have been either commercial failures or only modest successes. And companies have so far failed to demonstrate what is indispensable about virtual reality.