Apple Likely to Make Vision Pro Lineup More Affordable in Two Ways

rymc02 said:
You make the argument that AR glasses are the next big thing. Can I ask how? Don't these fall into the exact same niche product segment you mentioned? There aren't that many use cases that people will go out of their way to use AR devices when the watch, phone and maybe potentially Siri (if they ever focus on it) can do it nearly as well.

The most enticing features of a headset or glasses would be media consumption (gaming & movies) and that is done objectively better with immersion only attainable with a headset.

I've yet to hear any real use case that would be a "game changer" in the VR or AR space. And that is the crux of this whole thing. Just no reason to use them regardless of price.
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There are millions of useful use cases for AR glasses - i.e. regular glasses, not a big honkin' headset, that lets you see the real world, but with additional information super-imposed. Here's a simple one that applies to me: I'm one of those folks who cannot remember names at all . Imagine me starting a conversation with someone and their name pops up above their head! The other person wouldn't even know that I didn't remember their name. Another example - going to a trip to another country w. different language? Imagine menus and other text getting auto-translated.
 
twolf2919 said:
I disagree. First of all, the MacBook Pro does have 'mainstream aspirations' - and it's been selling in the millions for years. Sure, the iPad Pro and XDR and, maybe even the Mac Studio fall into the 'niche' category, but you're still comparing Apples to oranges: all the Macs can run the same software - so as an application developer the ENTIRE MAC base is my potential market. Similarly with the iPad Pro. So Apple doesn't have to worry about getting developers to adopt those devices. But with the Vision Pro, Apple clearly does and it has a chicken-and-egg problem.

Besides, Tim Cook clearly has much greater plans for the Vision Pro than it does for some Mac or iPad variant: he grandiosely talked about a whole new computing platform - spatial computing! There's no way something this grand was meant for a tiny market - Apple is a for-profit corporation, so with that much investment in R&D it clearly hopes to sell in the mass market - maybe not with the initial version, but eventually.
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You clearly have no understanding of segmentation and extremely disingenuous when those other product categories have mainstream variants while Apple doesn’t yet offer such a thing yet for their spatial computing portfolio.

Macbook Air and Macbooks are the mainstream options for laptops; Macbook Pro while selling millions is not (especially compared to the whole laptop market making your statement naive).

Also the laptop product category is a much larger and mature product category.

Cook is talking about spatial computing platform holistically—not just the Vision Pro.

He also made sure to clarify its positioning to people as yourself arbitrarily making up success metrics he and Apple doesn’t even have for the device.

Apple has historically even launched a prosumer device first before mainstream before; it seems this time with how much more prevalent social media is to give anyone with an opinion a voice a lot of insecurities are voiced about the potential prevalence of such devices or people with no need to be early adopters—which is fine and normal.

Not everything Apple releases needs to be mainstream or have mainstream fanfare.

Apple correctly doesn’t solely seek that out with their excellent series of prosumer products that often don’t have much competition for the most affluent and reliable customers of a device category.

Different product categories grow at difference paces and they certainly don’t have to be targeting mainstream users first.

Heck that was the case of traditional computing in the first place with many on here too young to remember that and don’t know their computing history despite the museums and etc that makes sure this isn’t forgotten.

Spatial computing is fundamentally more expensive, exclusionary, and harder to pull off than traditional computing. None of this push back is even a surprise to many.

Tech illiteracy is prevalent though; it is what it is.
 
Rychiar said:
that's an extreme minority in this country as a whole.
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…Do you think Apple is making this product and most of their prosumer products for the majority of the country?

Also I respectfully disagree as my story is not uncommon for those living in Silicon Valley and most of California—especially tech professionals who end up working in the industry for a number of years.

You can’t even really buy a house in the Bay Area unless you make $320,000 and the average salary of about $120,000 is needed to be even a roommate candidate of most major tech cities in the US.

Intend and fresh out of college tech professionals are paid that much accordingly to even have a realistic shot of living comfortably in such cities. I certainly had to.

Heck a one bedroom apartment in SF and NY is $4,000 a month in average knowing firsthand the struggles living in both cities.
 
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rymc02 said:
Alex Heath, a writer at The Verge was invited to Meta, along with other journalists and developers to test the Meta Quest Pro 2 a few years ago. One thing he said that I'll never forget is that it felt like the staff at Meta were "begging developers to give people a reason to use their device."

Meta has spent tens of billions and many more years than Apple working on this, even creating their own universe, and they still can't get people interested in these things outside of a bit of gaming and watching movies.
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…Meta Quest Pro unlike the Vision Pro didn’t even meet established prosumer baselines in quality and functionality. They don’t even have HDR nor premium HDR to be on par with non-VR prosumer hardware

There has yet to be a successful prosumer product from Meta.

Apple on the other hand is a prosumer favorite as a manufacturer and by no coincidence has compelled prosumer hardware manufacturers to act in this space Meta has yet to do for almost a decade in this market.

Apples and oranges.
 
Sounds like a good move.

Just off the top of my head I can think of many dozens of use cases for both personal and commercial applications.
 
lilkwarrior said:
…Meta Quest Pro unlike the Vision Pro didn’t even meet established prosumer baselines in quality and functionality. They don’t even have HDR nor premium HDR to be on par with non-VR prosumer hardware

There has yet to be a successful prosumer product from Meta.

Apple on the other hand is a prosumer favorite as a manufacturer and by no coincidence has compelled prosumer hardware manufacturers to act in this space Meta has yet to do for almost a decade in this market.

Apples and oranges.
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Cool, better screens! Still doesn't give people a reason to use it.
 
Rychiar said:
as a device you wear in your home who cares what it looks like? it's still more attractive than the competition and Young people can't afford it anyways
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If you're the only one in your home, sure, but I'm not going to isolate myself when my wife and kids are around.

I cannot think of a time in my life when I found VR/AR interesting or exciting. Everyone is different, obviously, but I just don't want to wear something on my face, and I don't want to isolate myself from those around me. I'm too social for that. I don't watch movies alone, I don't watch tv or sports alone, and I don't want to start.

Rychiar said:
VR tech is the future . the rest is slowly going the way of the Dinosaurs.
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It's a future, not the future. It's for certain people, not everybody.

Even if it is for everybody, the Vision Pro isn't what will be, or anything similar to it.
 
With AppleCare, 1TB storage, and taxes, mine cost more than $5000. It is worth every penny. Spatial computing has made me more productive, the new wrap around display for McBook is really good, and it is now difficult to watch movies, etc. on even a high-end TV. The new immersive shows are fun, but the killer app to me are the immersive/spatial videos I take myself, and the ability to turn my 2D photos into spatial photos.
 
currentinterest said:
With AppleCare, 1TB storage, and taxes, mine cost more than $5000. It is worth every penny. Spatial computing has made me more productive, the new wrap around display for McBook is really good, and it is now difficult to watch movies, etc. on even a high-end TV. The new immersive shows are fun, but the killer app to me are the immersive/spatial videos I take myself, and the ability to turn my 2D photos into spatial photos.
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Glad you enjoy it. Keep giving Tim feedback to make it better.
 
lilkwarrior said:
You clearly have no understanding of segmentation and extremely disingenuous when those other product categories have mainstream variants while Apple doesn’t yet offer such a thing yet for their spatial computing portfolio.

Macbook Air and Macbooks are the mainstream options for laptops; Macbook Pro while selling millions is not (especially compared to the whole laptop market making your statement naive).

Also the laptop product category is a much larger and mature product category.

Cook is talking about spatial computing platform holistically—not just the Vision Pro.

He also made sure to clarify its positioning to people as yourself arbitrarily making up success metrics he and Apple doesn’t even have for the device.

Apple has historically even launched a prosumer device first before mainstream before; it seems this time with how much more prevalent social media is to give anyone with an opinion a voice a lot of insecurities are voiced about the potential prevalence of such devices or people with no need to be early adopters—which is fine and normal.

Not everything Apple releases needs to be mainstream or have mainstream fanfare.

Apple correctly doesn’t solely seek that out with their excellent series of prosumer products that often don’t have much competition for the most affluent and reliable customers of a device category.

Different product categories grow at difference paces and they certainly don’t have to be targeting mainstream users first.

Heck that was the case of traditional computing in the first place with many on here too young to remember that and don’t know their computing history despite the museums and etc that makes sure this isn’t forgotten.

Spatial computing is fundamentally more expensive, exclusionary, and harder to pull off than traditional computing. None of this push back is even a surprise to many.

Tech illiteracy is prevalent though; it is what it is.
Click to expand...
Blah, blah, blah - didn't bother reading past "You clearly have no understanding of..." when you don't know me at all. A superfluous explanation of market segmentation and this and that don't detract from my point that while the AVP itself may not have been designed to be a mass market success, its "holistic" category surely is, otherwise Apple wouldn't be spending such massive resources on it. But the whole category is a niche - at least until the AVP can be made small enough to become a set of semi-affordable glasses.....another decade or so from now.
 
twolf2919 said:
There are millions of useful use cases for AR glasses - i.e. regular glasses, not a big honkin' headset, that lets you see the real world, but with additional information super-imposed. Here's a simple one that applies to me: I'm one of those folks who cannot remember names at all . Imagine me starting a conversation with someone and their name pops up above their head! The other person wouldn't even know that I didn't remember their name. Another example - going to a trip to another country w. different language? Imagine menus and other text getting auto-translated.
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I don't want to be an a$$ but how are those two things you mentioned make AR the future? You can translate with your phone and we are already seeing demos of real time translation directly into headphones using AI. That seems way better than having to read it in my glasses. And no one is going to openly allow you to see their name, the privacy issues would be a nightmare. AR might have a few niche scenarios some people want but calling it "the future" is a stretch at best.
 
twolf2919 said:
Blah, blah, blah - didn't bother reading past "You clearly have no understanding of..." when you don't know me at all. A superfluous explanation of market segmentation and this and that don't detract from my point that while the AVP itself may not have been designed to be a mass market success, its "holistic" category surely is, otherwise Apple wouldn't be spending such massive resources on it. But the whole category is a niche - at least until the AVP can be made small enough to become a set of semi-affordable glasses.....another decade or so from now.
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…Headsets and glasss will co-exist with different trade-offs with some similarities potentially like running the same OS—not unlike laptops vs desktops.

Some will only care about glasses or have spatial computing use cases only viable/compatible with glasses; some will easily justify both. Just like desktops and laptops.

The most powerful forms of spatial computing will be via headsets; just like desktops vs laptops.
 
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Armada2 said:
It sounds like someone "Tim Apple" is obsessed with making it an everyday product when the reality is it didn't sell well and it was nothing to do with the price..
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That’s speculative and laughable to conclude from a prosumer device that literally has all the specs of a typical prosumer device by Apple and the other existing prosumer devices that costs as much.

- Prosumer Dolby Vision HDzr monitors that have been in the market for over 3 years still cost $3000 as well as prosumer Dolby Vision large panels

- 5K2K prosumer monitors costs $1500-$2000 at worse quality, far worse HDR, and non-portable/standalone

- Other headsets aren’t on par with the device’s screen capabilities and standalone capabilities nor have its hardware ecosystem that obviously benefits from Apple’s closed ecosystem.

Vision Pro offers a laptop class APU vs a mobile one like Meta and far better compatibility with existing prosumer ecosystems and content.
 
jakebrosy said:
We have a headset in the office and no one will enter a space where someone is using it: the weird googly-eyes on the front makes them either nervous or nauseous. Too horror-flick inducing appearance. So those could easily go to cut costs. Perhaps even reduce the battery drain and maybe about 4 pounds of weight dragging your head forward.

As I was typing this I wandered over and checked on ours. Completely dead batteries and covered in dust and discarded usb cables. In a room full of tech enthusiasts and technologist.

Tim is right. This is an early adopter product. At this point much like the Newton or Second Life: a product in search of a market…fingers crossed a product can be created that is actually wearable AND also does more than offer a novel experience.
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…Discarded USB cables? I doesn’t have USB ports beyond one to charge the battery (and using the developer-only strap).
 
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Wouldn't even buy it for £1k and I'm the kind of guy - high disposable income, gadget mad - that Apple should be attracting.

It was dead on arrival. It will limp on (with no follow up models, yes - not even a cheap one) until Tim Cook retires (to save face) and the new CEO will scrap it.
 
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