This is an odd way of looking at in my opinion. Apple started making the newton tablet in 1987 and the iPad came to fruition in 2010. The underlying technology for a compelling and consumer-ready VR/AR/<buzzacronym of choice> is much harder problem to solve, it will naturally take longer. I think the software industry sometimes has too short a timescale in its understanding of "bleeding edge".

Same thing with cars, TV’s, airplanes. Basically every piece of important technology was selling to the public before the first “good” iteration.

>Apple started making the newton tablet in 1987

I'd say it also helped that Apple had already shipped the Apple II and derivatives before 1987 so that they could at least burn some percent of revenue on R&D (if you want to also ignore how they were also struggling from the mid 80's to the 90's even after already shipping an actual product to the market).

>…it will naturally take longer.

Whatever they're working on at this point, maybe it would have been better to stay in academia for a while longer before starting up the hype machine…

But oh well, we shall see eventually, one way or another.