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Apple Delays Debut of AR/VR Headset Until June

I usually avoid comments on unreleased products and rumored pricing. But I simply don't get it. Even at half the price, how is this thing going to gain any traction? Again, sight unseen, but if this thing is going to be anything but a catastrophe, Apple is going to need to have a couple of really awesome features/solutions that make it worth while. They are going to have to play an even longer game than they did on the watch with patience and a willingness to change the playbook up. But at a price of thousands of dollars rather than hundreds, they're not going to get the easy halo sale to general Apple users. It will be interesting to observe....
 
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Lounge vibes 05 said:
I’m still convinced this is what the plan was all along.
A $3000 headset is mainly going to appeal to developers, who should have plenty of experiences ready in a year and a half or so, when Apple introduces the reality SE or whatever that’s a grand and a half cheeper.
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Has Apple launched a product this way before? I can't recall any time they have.
 
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themikedshaffer said:
I usually avoid comments on unreleased products and rumored pricing. But I simply don't get it. Even at half the price, how is this thing going to gain any traction? Again, sight unseen, but if this thing is going to be anything but a catastrophe, Apple is going to need to have a couple of really awesome features/solutions that make it worth while. They are going to have to play an even longer game than they did on the watch with patience and a willingness to change the playbook up. But at a price of thousands of dollars rather than hundreds, they're not going to get the easy halo sale to general Apple users. It will be interesting to observe....
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I agree. I'm pretty skeptical about the usefulness of this product for a large customer base. I can imagine very specialized use cases. But Apple wants to move millions of units every year.
 
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Going by the concept render and price alone, I doubt it will get any traction besides a small set of core enthusiasts. I like what Google did with the Google Explorer Glasses before they shelved it, I would consider if Apple did something similar that's useful. Given it's all rumors at the moment it's hard to comment on something that has not been officially announced yet. But we can imagine.
 
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mnsportsgeek said:
Not a big deal. WWDC is the better platform to launch an entirely new product segment that will need significant developer support to succeed.
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Not really. Apple purposely unveiled Apple Watch 2 months before WWDC, just like they planned to do here, because there was a lot to talk about with brand new hardware, and WWDC already has a lot to talk about with 4 software platforms, now becoming 5.

This is not better, this is plan B because the thing still isn't ready.

I'm betting it won't even launch in 2023.
 
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Spock said:
Apple will not release a $3k headset. This product will either never see the light of day or the price will be far less than the rumors. I can remember when people thought the iPad would be more expensive.
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Even $1500 is a lot.

After adjusting for inflation the original iPhone 8GB would be about $1000 now. $1500 is still a lot more than that.
 
prime17569 said:
Hopefully, they don't delay it too long...or else they might end up like RCA and their CED (Capacitive Electronic Disc) - a technology that was well ahead of its time when conceived, but was so costly to develop and took so long to bring to market that it eventually killed the company. It didn't help that it was more expensive than its competitors.

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Wow! Loved that! I barely kindof remember those but I went with LaserDisc. Thanks for sharing!
 
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Spock said:
Apple will not release a $3k headset. This product will either never see the light of day or the price will be far less than the rumors. I can remember when people thought the iPad would be more expensive.
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To be fair, at the time of the ipad's release. Tablets were basically either giant phones or touchscreen laptops without a keyboard. Neither of those product segments were cheaper than the iphones at the time.
 
christopher_cuilla said:
Has Apple launched a product this way before? I can't recall any time they have.
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maybe not necessarily all at the same time, but Apple has clearly made products directly aimed at early adopters and possible developers.
The first iPhone was $599 for 8GB at launch, the second iPhone a year later was $199 and turned the iPhone from “that cool thing rich nerds have” to the phone used by the majority of people.
Apple had no idea what they were doing with the first generation Apple Watch, they tried to make it a luxury timepeace, a fitness tracker, a weird romantic sending real-time heart rate machine, and a platform for developers. It wasn’t until a couple years later they finally realized what people want is just a simple and amazing notifications and fitness watch. That’s it.
The HomePod started out as a $350 monster aimed at audio files… Before they finally realize people just want a small sub-$100 smart home controller and they introduced the HomePod mini.
So yes, I expect the headset to have a similar trajectory.
First generation is extremely expensive, out of reach for most, and mostly owned by developers and people with lots of money.
Before inevitably the second generation is introduced, which is everything good about the first generation, but distilled down to a cheaper, more reasonable, more focused second generation that really takes off.
Or the product could be a massive flop, who knows.
 
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twolf2919 said:
thousands will line up for sure - but Apple needs millions to line up to make a successful product. And that's just not going to happen at this price - and this dork factor (not many people are willing to make complete dorks out of themselves donning a headset for multiple hours a day).
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I’m just not sure what Apple has to offer to make people want to use it. Most other VR vendors have games to pair it with. Apple doesn’t have that yet. It’s going to be very niche in Apple’s case for a while.
 
Some see a hard pass, I see opportunity.

If they offer AppleCare, it’s probably a device that actually costs apple an arm and a leg for everything wrong with it, and as it’s 1st gen there will likely be a lot wrong.

Eventually, when the design flaw is too great to repair reasonably, get free upgrade to next version.


Worked for me with apple in the past.
 
You know what, this one I'm interested in, though it will be expensive, BUT it can and will be a game changer for.the AR/VR game
 
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