Apple Has Sold Approximately 200,000 Vision Pro Headsets

[mdatwood]

Asking consumers to take the intentional step of covering their faces or eyes with extra hardware is a hurdle that has never really caught on. Going back decades (I’m thinking as far back as the Nintendo Virtual Boy in the 90s. But probably even further.) Meta has had some very limited success, but it’s years later and their vision has largely failed to materialize. If any company can succeed in this space, then it’s probably Apple, but they definitely have their work cut out…

I think this is why the AVP commercial focused so much on AR vs. VR. Apple doesn't see a future where everyone is closed off from the real world all the time, but where they are blended (seeing a persons eyes, having the real world 'break in', etc...). The first iteration is clunky, but I think the vision is clear. Only time will tell if Apple will be able to develop the hardware to make that vision a reality.

Meta's vision (metaverse, hello) has never been about blending reality. It's been squarely focused on VR even if they have some AR capabilities.

 

[BellSystem]

200k probably doesn’t even cover the R&D costs. Wake me up when it’s in the millions….so far it’s a flop.

 

[jonnysods]

I think the whole rollout of this is a process. They aren’t expecting iPhone or iPad like sales on this, they are developing and refining this technology, I think there could be a space for this device in the near future.

 

[MilaM]

I wonder how many are YouTube "Influencers" who will return them after they do an annoying review.

I think even YouTube reviews about AVP will be a flop 😂.

 

[Catasstrophy]

Facebook and PlayStations have sold millions/10s of millions.

It’s a flop.

This is going to blow your mind but this is a failure.

Meta sold 20 Million and it’s still not a success

Meta Has Sold Nearly 20 Million Quest Headsets, But Retention Struggles Remain

Meta has sold nearly 20 million Quest headsets, but the company continues to struggle with keeping customer using VR. According to a report by The Verge, citing an internal Meta presentation held today, the company has sold nearly 20 million Quest headsets. This likely includes Quest 1, Quest 2...

www.roadtovr.com

Looking forward to see what developers do with this thing. Clearly Apple didn’t know either.

You all realize this product hasn’t even officially launched yet right? It’s an entirely new product line with the only similarity to meta quest being that you wear it on your eyes. And it is still in pre-order.

Mostly to people that want to play with it but have no intention to keep it at that price

Source?

It's a computer limited to the software in the App Store. If the behavior of the AVP apps there are insufficient, you're stuck removing the helmet to use a different device. Alternatively, you can remote desktop to a computer without onerous restrictions.

I have a complex workflow and I'm employed by a company most have heard of. No doubt there are plenty of use cases that aren't complex like mine, but this is Spatial App Store'ing, not general purpose computing.

Have you heard of iPad? Many MANY professionals in several industries use it almost exclusively for day to day productivity. What do you refer to that as? Mobile app storing?

 

[SmugMaverick]

So many returns once people have had a go on dinosaurs and Disney.

More returns for YouTubers and "journalists" who aren't brown nosing Apple.

you can still pick up on launch day in quite a few stores, Apple trying to media control and promote this as a hot product when in fact it's HomePod level sales.

 

[mdatwood]

It's hard to call a new device a flop before it's even released.

The way we'll know what Apple thinks is how quickly v2 comes out. If v2 is 12+ months later, then Apple has given up/gone back to the drawing board. If v2 comes out quickly, then it's following Apple's adoption plan.

 

[shawnforever]

Apple doesn't see a future where everyone is closed off from the real world all the time, but where they are blended (seeing a persons eyes, having the real world 'break in', etc...

Right. Total immersion will be a thing, but the blended approach is where you're likely spending most of your time in this space. Especially when the product gets smaller and lighter in the coming decades.

 

[TroyBoy30]

i doubt it

 

[GIZBUG]

I’m going to just sit here and eat my popcorn 🍿

And don’t forget saving your money. Buying first gen stuff at inflated prices….pass

 

[vipergts2207]

That is $7 billion recovered, i doubt they spend more than that on the RnD.

Umm, you might want to check your math again. You’re off by an order of magnitude. And also factor in the cost to manufacture each one. Zero chance Apple is already net positive on AVP.

*rolls eyes* I've read your other posts. You seem pretty reasonable. I know this rhetoric is beneath you.

1) It's got the potential to be way more than a "toy" and I think you know that.

2) It's not like entertainment provides zero value to people. The average houshold spends $288/mo on entertainment alone. I don't know about "most" households because the BLS report I have access to only gives the average as opposed to the median or quartile break-down, but $72/mo is still quite doable to a lot of people especially since it also has what is essentially a macbook built in which can function as much more than an entertainment device.

Note: I'm not the one who claimed it's affordable to 95% of people. I agree with you that's ridiculous. Lot's of people live paycheck-to-paycheck.

Still, I would estimate somewhere in the tens of millions of households could easily justify such a purchase.

For the consumers Apple needs to make this long-term viable, it’s a toy. That’s not intended to be an diss, it’s just the reality of it. My car is essentially an expensive toy. It’s certainly not a need, my minivan covers the ‘need’. Apple doesn’t typically stick around for long where sales aren’t meeting expectations. See the mini iPhones and original HomePod. There absolutely are business and productivity uses for this, but Apple doesn’t design products or create marketplace plans primarily around business use. At least not since they discontinued real servers years ago. Everything they do is consumer focused with business features as an added bonus. Could Apple suddenly be changing their philosophy on this? Maybe, but I’m not convinced of that at this point.

About half of Americans aren’t even prepared for a $1000 emergency, but the funds for a $3500 piece of luxury tech is there?

49% of Americans Can’t Afford a $1,000 Emergency

If a $1,000 financial emergency hit your household tomorrow, would you be prepared? The answer for about half of Americans is no.

www.lendingtree.com

I have no doubt that tens of millions of people can afford this though. The question is will they bite or will they choose to spend that money elsewhere? We’ll just have to wait and see.

I don't consider myself one of the "haters" that come along just to rag on the AVP for fun. For the record I think it's a very cool piece of tech and has the potential to be the next frontier the way the iPhone was. That being said, it's too expensive compared to others in the category and currently is simply a luxury good. I understand Apple is likely to come out with a cheaper version at some point down the road, but simply judging the product that's in front of us today, they're asking too much for it, even though the amount of tech in there might "justify" the price in some way.

 

[ryan102]

The worldwide figures will be interesting. We all know what Apple is like with Pricing so you would imagine it will be a direct swap from $3500 to £3500 (e.g. for the UK) with the EU usually getting a slightly worse deal on prices.

That is of course for the headset along but a lot of people wear glasses so you'd add another £150 onto the initial price with a further £500 for Apple Care for those that choose to take that out not to mention accessories.

With the $3500 price tag, a lot of Asian countries would consider that their salaries for at least half a year. For the likes of Japan/Dubai/Western Europe, Apple will probably sell thousands in each but I would imagine the disposable incomes outside the US are lower and the VR Headset cost higher so after the initial surge, it will be a hard sell to the public.

 

[webkit]

To put the price in perspective: In 1984 I bought an original 128K Mac for $2495. That's $7,300 in 2024 dollars. And, IIRC, I had two apps: Write & Paint, although I think Excel and Word were available pretty quickly.

There was actually a decent (for the time) amount of software available for the Macintosh when it launched in 1984, although many machines were used with only a few programs. Software/apps were a lot more expensive on average back then. Adding a printer, software, etc. could really increase the total cost.

Discounts would fairly quickly become available on the Macintosh, however. By the end of the year, 128K versions were selling for as little as $1,500 or so which is about $4,400 in today's dollars and that's still before printer, added software, etc. There were also generous education discounts for teachers, students, and parents of students.

I fully expect the Vision Pro starting price to come down this year, just as Meta dropped the price of its Quest headsets e.g., the Quest Pro went from $1,499 to $999 in about six months.

 

[laptech]

What is the betting that the majority of the headsets have been bought by social media content creators/tech creators, website reviewers and other media reviewers who will show off/review the device for a few days and then return it within the legal shipping return date for a full refund.

 

[webkit]

The worldwide figures will be interesting. We all know what Apple is like with Pricing so you would imagine it will be a direct swap from $3500 to £3500 (e.g. for the UK) with the EU usually getting a slightly worse deal on prices.

That can depend on the exchange rate at the time, plus EU, UK (and other) prices include VAT while U.S. prices do not include potential sales tax. The price differences between U.S. and other countries is not necessarily as much as some think.

 

[Wowereit]

“iPhone will flop!”….source: many many reviewers and macrumors members in 2007

iPhone is a bad comparison IMO.

1. somewhat-smart-phones were already proven to be a successful product category
2. the cost was significantly lower and subsidized by carriers later on
3. a phone has far more applications than this, if it were smart glasses you could actually wear outside, the comparison would work far better

 

[j26]

That can depend on the exchange rate at the time, plus EU, UK (and other) prices include VAT while U.S. prices do not include potential sales tax. The price differences between U.S. and other countries is not necessarily as much as some think.

Pre-tax price of a base iPad Air is actually slightly cheaper in Ireland than the US by about $5.
Tax is what kills it!

Scratch that - bad maths!

It's $110 dearer pre-tax price in Ireland vs USA.

 

[Ethosik]

Yeah, 95% is definitely not right. The income distribution in the US is incredibly top-heavy. Still, AVP is accessible to a much larger percentage of the population than a lot of people realize.

Not anymore. I know many people making $50k+ that are just living paycheck by paycheck. Why blow your savings on this anyway? It offers no real benefit for such a price.

 

[Velli]

But the early generation Apple TVs were just reusing a bunch of commodity parts Apple probably needed to get rid of anyway. The first-gen Apple TV can literally boot OS X.

Which is why I compared to 2nd gen numbers, but the point was, with the first gen Apple TV, Apple decided to put a product out into a small market, knowing that it might grow into something big at some point in the future. (I did own one by the way). With the 2nd gen, I think you could tell that Apple leaned into it and acknowledged that there was something there worth pursuing.

Also, keep in mind this product is 30 times the price.

If these are the sales numbers five years from now, of course it is a flop. But for a first-gen product at this price level, it's pretty good in my opinion. Apple Watch, at 5-10 times less, was estimated to sell about one million on the first day. iPad, which was considered a breakaway success which later tapered off, sold 300.000 on the first day, at 500USD. Vision Pro is not a "selling like hotcakes", but noone expected that at this price. I'd call it a solid launch, with a promising future. Assuming that a "killer app" actually shows up. For Apple Watch, I don't think Apple had envisioned it to be more or less a fitness device, but here we are.

 

[joecomo]

Waiting until it is officially available in Germany …

 

[Velli]

3. a phone has far more applications than this, if it were smart glasses you could actually wear outside, the comparison would work far better

I'm willing to bet that Apple has much more far-reaching visions (no pun intended) for this product, than what we see with this 1st gen. Not saying that this will be "smart glasses", but I do think they are just laying the groundwork here for something grander. There aren't that many Apple products that were mass-market succesful with the first generation, that is typically one or two generations down the line. I'd expect Apple to come out with some sort of product in this category within the next two years, which will sell at least 5x and perhaps even 10x the amount of this. But, I also don't think the vision is to reach "everyone" the same way an iPhone does. The basic concept doesn't lend itself to be that mass-market. But, if they can reach Mac-like numbers, I'd consider it a success. Even though the pundits will of course not be satisfied with anything less than iPhone numbers...

 

[drvelocity]

Only 86 scalped Vision Pro headsets have sold on Ebay so far. Granted these are preorders, but still that is a pretty bad number for Apple. I think this thing is going to be an absolute flop, but Apple will stick with the product line and improve it to the point where there will be some level of adoption eventually.

When a simple looking pair of glasses can provide full AR, it will be ubiquitous. I think we're 20 years away from that though, mostly due to battery/power issues.

 

[Velli]

I fully expect the Vision Pro starting price to come down this year, just as Meta dropped the price of its Quest headsets e.g., the Quest Pro went from $1,499 to $999 in about six months.

Knowing Apple, I don't think they will lower the price of this product. They may bring out a "Vision Air", or some other cheaper version, at 60% of the price. Similar to how the 2nd gen Macbook Air was much better and a whole lot cheaper than the 1st gen. But that won't be in 6 months.

If they struggle to sell out, of course there will be discounts through various outlets though. I imagine this is where we will see the first signs of whether Apple considers it a success - if you can buy one at 3000 USD in 6 months, it means Apple is not happy with sales.

 

[Velli]

Only 86 scalped Vision Pro headsets have sold on Ebay so far. Granted these are preorders, but still that is a pretty bad number for Apple.

Why would you buy a scalped one from eBay when there is less than a week delivery from Apple? How many scalped iMacs or iPad Pro's are sold at launch? (genuinely asking, I have no idea).

Comparing with scalped iPhones does not make sense.

 

[webkit]

Knowing Apple, I don't think they will lower the price of this product. They may bring out a "Vision Air", or some other cheaper version, at 60% of the price. Similar to how the 2nd gen Macbook Air was much better and a whole lot cheaper than the 1st gen. But that won't be in 6 months.

If they struggle to sell out, of course there will be discounts through various outlets though. I imagine this is where we will see the first signs of whether Apple considers it a success - if you can buy one at 3000 USD in 6 months, it means Apple is not happy with sales.

New non-Pro versions will no doubt be introduced at some point but it is not too unusual for Apple to lower the price of new products within a year after launch. A couple of examples include "iconic" Apple products like the original Macintosh which was reduced in price in less than eight months (retailers had been discounting them before that too) and the original iPhone which was even more quickly reduced (and ticked off early adopters!) in less than three months. Apple would need to be careful not to reduce the price too much, too quickly.