I agree with your take. I doubt there will be enough users in each niche to warrant strong developer interest, but I agree that the virtual monitors and entertainment aspects will appeal to certain users. I've said in other posts that I view these two things as the device's killer apps. I just don't think there's a big market for either one, especially at the price point.
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Apple Claims Vision Pro SDK Downloads Exceeded Expectations Amid Developer Lab Attendance Concerns
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People living vicariously through their headset, I hope not, lol.
it will be like that skit from the Simpsons:
Me.
Apple Vision
Virtual Lawnmowing App
Anker - Vision Compatible Self Driving Lawnmower 3900
I can see the future now and I love it~
(since I won't have to cut the grass by walking around in the heat anymore.)
Me.
Apple Vision
Virtual Lawnmowing App
Anker - Vision Compatible Self Driving Lawnmower 3900
I can see the future now and I love it~
(since I won't have to cut the grass by walking around in the heat anymore.)
It is VERY odd that a fairly large contingent of people here seem to think that gazing into a screen in a headset is essentially the same thing as participating in real world experiences like attending a sporting event or a play or a movie.
Looking at a screen a few millimeters away from your eyes is NOT the same as looking at a real thing in the real world. As much as Apple wants you to think of this as augmented reality, it’s nothing of the sort. It’s a VR system that presents you with a live feed of the world around you. Not the same as AR.
It’s Ready Player One. A dystopian vision of an isolated world. One where people can’t leave their homes because of pandemics, natural disasters, over population, food scarcity and political sectarian violence.
Is this the sort of future we WANT?
Autonomous lawn mowing robots already exist. You don’t need a Vision Pro for that.
So Apple has no idea what its doing, has done zero research, does not understand the market, has collaborated with Stanford University's AR laboratory for 7+ years wasting time and money, and is just winging it hoping to get lucky?
Like Apple did with iPod, iPhone, AirPods, iPad, etc where all of the experts here said those products would flop.
Astonishing... and yet despite all of the above, Apple is one of the most successful tech companies in the world with around 1 Billion customers (many repeat), 160,000+ employees (with no mass layoffs like other tech companies) and a market valuation of around 3 trillion dollars.
What amazing luck!
Goalless draw with bottom-of-the table Sheffield Wednesday at the weekend. Nooe, it ain’t looking good.
I was listening to a podcast the other day talking about the housing problem. One the big drivers of this is that fewer people are living in a home.
"New data from the Census Bureau show that more than a quarter of all households in America — 27.6% — had just one occupant in 2020. The rate of solo occupancy is more than three times the recorded level in 1940, 7.7%."
How quickly they forget.
'Never' is a reallly long time. Rarely is closer to the truth.
" .... The iPhone was released in the United States on June 29, 2007, at the price of $499 for the 4 GB model and $599 for the 8 GB model, both requiring a 2-year contract.[17] Thousands of people were reported to have waited outside Apple and AT&T retail stores days before the device's launch;[27] ...
....
.... iPod Touch ... At the same time, Apple significantly dropped the price of the 8 GB model from $599 to $399 (still requiring a 2-year contract with AT&T) while discontinuing the $499 4 GB model.[34] Apple sold the one millionth iPhone five days later, or 74 days after the release.[35] After receiving "hundreds of emails" upset about the price drop, Apple gave store credit to early adopters.[36] ..."
iPhone (1st generation) - Wikipedia
2007 isn't in the 'never' class.
Technically, the phone was priced higher than that.
"... I wish I had thought of the model of subsidizing phones through the operators. People like to point to this quote where I said the iPhones will never sell. Well the price of $600 or $700 was too high and it was business model innovation by Apple to get it essentially built into the monthly cell phone bill ..."
Former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer Admits He Was Wrong About the iPhone
In a new Bloomberg interview with Steve Ballmer, the former Microsoft CEO revisited his famously dismissive remarks about the iPhone when it launched...
www.macrumors.com
There is no mechanism where Apple can use for misirection on full cost using a 'middleman' to collect the difference. And Apple has better 'almost mostly direct to customer' financing options available now. And to a lower extent but still real traction, Apple has the 'blue bubble' effect. Vision Pro is going to be an even deeper blue bubble twist on that network effect on consumer spend.
Getting the iPad Touch out the door to crank up the economies of scale helped. But Apple padded the initial iPhone a lot. When it looked like competition would going to heat up substantially they pushed through a cut. Other 'slab' phones were in the hopper in R&D labs when the iPhone was perculating and iOS didn't even have an app store.
This situation is much different. Most of the other major players entangling themselves deep into "VR Gaming' mindset means nobody else is going to be able to respond to Apple any time soon. ( even after delay. Nobody has a R1 chip in their back pocket to match them on. And highly unlikely anyone can't whip one of those out in 12-18 months. ).
However, I don't think the Vision Pro has as much 'slop' in the pricing, because do not think Apple is even targeting anywhere near the kinds of first year numbers the initial iPhone (and Touch) did that first year. Silicon and Screen wise they pushing way past the envelope what other folks are doing. And that isn't 'cheap'. ( and it really isn't going to be cheaper for anyone else either. The initial iPhone had relatively far more commodity parts in it. ) . The Vision Pro was designed to be expensive on purpose. ( not quite as bad as the 'road to nowhere' 24K Watch. But doubtful they were trying to hit a volume price target here at all. More so eyeballing the Microsoft Hololens and Magic Leap 2 as justification they could go 'high'. Doubtful they were bothering to obsess about the Gamer focused ( Quest , etc. much at all). )
Any notion that "price to high so Apple will drastically cut it " to pump the volume is likely wont come true.
The "Vision SE" probably is 'years' away, but the Vision Pro (version 1 ) may not fully make it out the door for half a year (from now... and certainly more than half a year from the initial dog and pony show). That is a significant chunk trimmed off those 'years'.
I suspect those estimates are low. The R1 costs are likely much higher. There is no huge volume sales to amortize the high fixed costs for those over. Plus the software costs there are probably grossly underestimated also. There is a fair amount of 'iceberg' hardware/software costs in this system that users and actually the apps don't really see. (nor these hardware estimates. )
There is rumblings that VisionOS stack is a substantively augmented set of personell resources outside the shared mac/iso/etc group. All the more to pile on top.
There is a decent chance the 'non Pro' version could come in the ballpark of $2,500 , but I have doubts the 'Pro' version will drop that far as opposed to use the price point to put better tech in that system to differentiate it from the relatively more affordable one. ( e.g., can send the R1 as a 'hand me down' chip to the mainstream and the Pro has 'R2'. Ditto for screen tech and cameras. rinse and repeat. )
Apple has a large slicon gap now in Vision Pro , but likely lots of money is going to get thrown by competitors to close the gap. Apple is probably going to need that money to keep running on the treadmill trying to stay out in front.
The whole zone of 'sell below costs and hope to make it up on software sales and/or advertising' in 'gamer market' modus operandi approach ... Apple just isn't likely to go there at all. There are a large group of folks that are price anchored on price points that are not really viable. At least for what Apple is primarily aiming at.
More like:
Board: we need you to innovate, Tim Cook.
Cook: what about the car?
Board: no.
Cook: well, we have this half baked helmet thing…
Board: Yes! Future!
Sure. Assuming there’s a market for these things. Meta and Google don’t seem to think there is.
Yeah can't wait for 200 versions of pull my finger or flappy bird in 3D 
Sure. No one can afford a house so many “households” now are individuals living in over priced single bedroom apartments.
Now, one could consider that a trend that should be addressed by isolating virtual reality gizmos so that they can escape their sad fate… or we as a society could try to address the issue of egregious house prices.
I understand the conceptual difference, but what is the functional difference between seeing with naked eyes vs seeing a live feed (assuming the tech is solid)? After all, screen or not, it’s all just photons hitting our eyes and it’s all just a live feed to our brains.
Refresh rate. Color fidelity. Accurate depth perception. Full peripheral vision. Resolution, luminosity…
I mean, come on. The substantive differences here are glaring and obvious.
There are many concerts that I cant get to, viewing them in VR will be a lot better than watching some clips on YouTube.
All of the environmental stimuli add to the actual viewing experience, even down to the excitement of being there.
Sure. But that isn’t enough to make this thing the next iPhone. I guarantee you 99% of Taylor Swift fans would not be satisfied watching her show in VR.
That too. The thing about any event is that it’s social. You’re not standing alone at the venue. You’re there with friends and other fans of the performers. The notion that isolating VR = legitimate experience of a live event is absurd on the face of it.
I don’t know if you caught that I said assuming the tech is solid. So at a certain point everything you listed will not be distinguishable to our brains. The VP won’t be 100% there when it is launched, but even if it was, I get the feeling those aren’t the real reasons you think it’s fundamentally different. Am I wrong in saying you probably care more about the conceptual difference, rather than the functional?
Yep... Of course...that's how the most successful tech company in the world operates their business. As evidenced by the success of iPod, iPhone, iPad, AirPods, etc that the experts here pre-ordained as flops.
Your above characterization dovetails nicely!