Apple CEO Tim Cook Compares Vision Pro 'Moment' to iPhone and Mac

[Rafterman]

The other big difference is the iPhone was really a first of its kind.

Well, not rreally. Pockets PCs were the first true modern smartphone. Palm also had a cellular enabled Palm Pilot phone before Apple. Blackberry too. But Pocket PCs were the first smartphones to do all the things iPhones could do - run apps from app stores, wifi and bluetooth, read and listen to books and music, GPS maps, games. Stuff like that. And of course, be a phone.

Apple did invent the centralized app store, which made them easier to use and that's what made the smartphone mainstream and not just for geeks like me.

 

[topmounter]

I'm sure the Vision Pro Mini will be huge.

 

[Jim Lahey]

iPad can be anything you want it to be? This from the company that nerfed the orientation-lockable volume buttons so that after moving it from one location to another inside a folio or keyboard case, you quite literally have to guess which button does what if you're still playing an audiobook or podcast and need to adjust the volume.

 

[Antoniosmalakia]

In year three, the iPhone sold 55 million units.

That’s about the total number of VR headsets sold in five years from multiple companies according to a back of the envelope Google search.

I really love me some Apple, but I’m not delusional enough to think that Apple will be doing those numbers alone with Vision Pro. This iteration of hardware has perhaps six dedicated fans on this site, and five of those are probably Tim, so please calm down.

 

[nfl46]

When has ANY price come down for ANY product since the first iPhone debuted? I have had every iPhone ever, and I never paid less than the previous year. The same - or more.

No way in hell those V2 price jump!

 

[Steve Jobs Turtleneck]

I am convinced Tim Cook is doing blow. You going to release Virtual Boy 2.0 and think
people aren't going to get sick from this ?

 

[ThailandToo]

They just don’t want to admit that AVP is basically just a content viewer

I got mine today and did the in-store demo. The lady spoke to me like I was a three-year-old child. As I went through each segment, she seemed more amazed than me until I got to the birthday cake or Alicia Keys moments, those show how Vision Pro absolutely shines. It’s not good as a computer. It’s too much, but as a viewer of content it blows away pretty much anything. The way to relive moments past or see a new video seem actually magical.

Now, I know that this isn’t the end all consumer device Apple wants it to be. It’s a starting point and that’s why people need to give developers time to create the killer apps. I see this for also being excellent at future surgeons learning how to do, educational, in the work place using VR to control everything from drones to robots. But, there will be amazing games and killer apps for this.

The App Store is what created demand and opportunity for Apple and developers. Even though Apple thinks of itself as the whole system, Apple relies on developers and the ones who make the killer apps for this will be critical to Apple.

I don’t feel it’s a big deal for the price to be high. I think by version three or four people have clear value from buying. It will eventually be as small as glasses maybe within ten years. And 20 years from now we will have something as small as contacts to view the world in AR/VR.

I intend to develop a few apps for it in the next year. I expect the adoption to be slow. Right now, it’s primary a consumption device but a darn good one. In the future I expect similar technologies to rule our world. This isn’t typical Apple. The Apple Store didn’t even have the prescription lenses my son wears for trial for him. He had to go without. There was light leakage for me until the third attempt. It’s a lot of hassle right now for a consumer device. I expect it will be a niche device that developers and time will turn it into the possibilities.

This is about possibilities.

 

[Royksöpp]

I got stick after using it. I threw up and I got a loose stool.

Is that your way of saying you sh*t your pants.

 

[Silver78]

They crammed to much useless stuff in the headset.
Nreal and xreal similar glasses looks much more like something i would use. Even the old google glass.
Loose the bad straps, overpriced battery, front screen, heavy aluminum, charger in box, any face/eye cams (if there ….avatars suck)
Lower price, optional charger, strap accessories.
Steam/pc/controller support is so vital for this headset to become a success.
Iphone on my face is not enough unless the ergonomics are more like google glass or n/xreal glasses

 

[Leachb31]

If Steve Jobs was still alive, and behind the development of this device, I might consider buying it. But being that it was developed by the same rejects that have put notches on the iphone/macbook screens, and the same rejects that have butchered the macbook pros over the years by removing vital ports, using flawed keyboards, etc... I think I'll pass on this one.

 

[bushman4]

Not for Everyone! Has possibilities more so for gamers and Business . Apps will make or break this AVP

 

[cardfan]

Not for Everyone! Has possibilities more so for gamers and Business . Apps will make or break this AVP

Games isn’t this.

 

[Marty80]

Lets talk in three more years about the launch Tim.

 

[DJTaurus]

Introducing a product in a dead and niche category. This guy is so desperate to produce a Steve jobs moment but still he is only good at logistics. Magic is gone years ago. Wake up Tim. We are only using your products because there’s no real competition to the Apple ecosystem. Yet!

 

[Naraxus]

A flop out of the gate as so many predicted

 

[Naraxus]

I’d like to see Federighi given the nod.

That clown can't even design software that isn't riddled with bugs, so much so that just about everyone waits for the .1 version to upgrade, and you want him in charge of Apple?

 

[springsup]

On the price, Cook went on to explain that it's "tomorrow's technology today,"

That is not true - I mean, by definition.

 

[The Game 161]

But it lacks the mass appeal.

the appeal seems very strong right now.

 

[Seamaster]

Cook compared the Vision Pro to the Mac, iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch, and said that it is joining Apple's "pantheon of groundbreaking products" that have both "defined Apple" and "redefined technology as we know it."

<click, click> Barman, I'll have a glass of whatever he had.

 

[svish]

Cannot say how the product improves over the years. AR/VR glasses will be the true future. Vision Pro may be a path towards it.

 

[iluvcrap2000]

This is a rich people's toy. it's like people are bragging about their Porsche. Normal people can't relate and will ignore it. Working people won't bother because they have no use for it and it's a waste of money.

 

[Mostly Adequate]

This is Apple’s new Newton, really, isn’t it? A concept which the current level of viable consumer technology can’t do justice for a mainstream product, and won’t be able to for several years to come.

 

[bgillander]

There's such a thing as a "healthy dose of cynicism" but these days a lot of folks are overdosing on it because apparently moderation is a sign of weakness, or something like that.

I would have been surprised if Tim Cook just treated today like any other day in the office. Obviously he's going to make the rounds for a new product line. Whatever he does is a no-win with the peanut gallery who seem to think they know how to run Apple better than him.

Thank you. It is refreshing to see that someone else still remembers a time when shades of grey existed and everything wasn’t black and white.

 

[Jim Lahey]

I think it's worth remembering that come 2016, LG had pretty much eliminated the technical foibles of 3DTV with their passive 4K OLED sets. By then, the content was also by-and-large stunning, but 3DTV still crashed and burned because a) the damage was already done after years of horrible content on bad hardware, and b) too many people didn't want to wear glasses of any description never mind a giant cyborg helmet.

 

[d686546s]

Well, not rreally. Pockets PCs were the first true modern smartphone. Palm also had a cellular enabled Palm Pilot phone before Apple. Blackberry too. But Pocket PCs were the first smartphones to do all the things iPhones could do - run apps from app stores, wifi and bluetooth, read and listen to books and music, GPS maps, games. Stuff like that. And of course, be a phone.

Apple did invent the centralized app store, which made them easier to use and that's what made the smartphone mainstream and not just for geeks like me.

I was going to say the same thing. I usually think iPhone comparisons aren't the most helpful for the AVP, but as you say in terms of features the iPhone had almost nothing we hadn't seen before.

What was unique about it was how easy it was to use and how accessible it made things like music, texting, email or maps. Again, there's nothing you couldn't do an another phone and smartphones of the time certainly covered most if not all of these bases. In many ways, the iPhone hardware was also far from complete (no 3G, no GPS and no front facing camera, although the latter didn't matter so much because you couldn't install Skype anyway).

What does that mean for the AVP? Primarily that its unfinished state doesn't mean that it can't be a success. The problem, as I said earlier here, I think is price. The iPhone was affordable in the literal meaning of the term. It was expensive, yes, but not ridiculously so, and if you were planning on buying an iPod anyway, it was fairly manageable.

Now the AVP, on the other hand, is ridiculously expensive and only has limited potential to replace a product you were going to buy anyway. So I think for Apple the problem will be that even if the AVP may excite many, the price will kill any potential iPhone moment. I'm genuinely wondering whether Meta will be the biggest beneficiary of the buzz that is being generated.

In any case, I'm curious to see what will happen with future generations of this product.