That would require developers to believe in the product for some reason. It's not obvious that many will do.
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Apple Mixed-Reality Headset Shipments Now Estimated to 'Fall Short of 100,000 Units' This Year
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Well they are planning a consumer grade product at a cheaper price, plus you would think that as time goes on the prices will drop as technology and manufacturing improves. I get the impression this is a long game for Apple. At $1k I can see this being a decent hit for those who need a huge virtual screen on the go, that would actually be cheaper than a $3k macbook Pro and just as good if the rumors are true that it will have a M2 chip.
I'm very much against the AR and VR / AI hype cycles, but I have to admit 100,000 seems particularly low. I work at a University and am willing to bet that nearly every school at our researhc tier will be purchasing a fleet of these things- we already have HTC Vives, Quest Pros, etc. Institutions alone surely must be nearly 100k?
ETA: I work in the history department so I'm not even exposed to the actual tech side of things
ETA: I work in the history department so I'm not even exposed to the actual tech side of things
This is going to the the ultimate _DO NOT BUY THE 1ST GENERATION_ product.
Apple don't do gaming, so it won't be about games. So what will it be for?
Logic Pro?
Safari browsing?
Designers (architecture, industry etc.) - sure many use Macs, and many don't and many use really specific niche industry software. Are Ford, Jaguar, BMW going to be designing cars on some Mac specific software for an apple headset?
Will architects be designing a sky scraper on one?
Using what software?
Thing is with iPad, you had a rough idea what it would do - given we had an ecosystem of iPhone apps, and we'd seen tablets for years.
I can't think of anything I've played around with on the various existing VR headsets that apple can do and make compelling.
iMessage?
sigh.
Apple don't do gaming, so it won't be about games. So what will it be for?
Logic Pro?
Safari browsing?
Designers (architecture, industry etc.) - sure many use Macs, and many don't and many use really specific niche industry software. Are Ford, Jaguar, BMW going to be designing cars on some Mac specific software for an apple headset?
Will architects be designing a sky scraper on one?
Using what software?
Thing is with iPad, you had a rough idea what it would do - given we had an ecosystem of iPhone apps, and we'd seen tablets for years.
I can't think of anything I've played around with on the various existing VR headsets that apple can do and make compelling.
iMessage?
sigh.
I KNOW a variation of this tech will be commonplace down the line. simply because there is no-where to go with 2d screens. A flat image holds less information, and we exist in a 3d world. Ofcourse it will take off at some point. Will it be this product? Probably not.. But do you really want Apple out of the race entirely? Seems kinda shortsighted to me.
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Dude you have absolutely no idea that this is the case.
With the amount of state of the art technology in this headset, I’m surprised it’s not $5,000 price for this headset. I heard something like 12 micro-led cameras in this headset. 🕶️ 🕶️🕶️ 😎
I took it as being a productivity tool for developers. Rather than being constrained to your workspace and only have one or two monitors, you could potentially have multiple virtual monitors in front of you for code/testing/debugging.
I work in this field and use three monitors, as do most of my coworkers. Sometimes I wish I had more, but not sure that I'd want to wear a headset all day long.
So estimates range from 100,000 to 10,000,000. Got it. I still think they will sell as many as they can possibly make.
This version of the headset looks like a Lisa: expensive, interesting, used to explore new software concepts, not a big seller. I’ll be looking toward the Mac version in a year or two where we get to the consumer version that brings down the price and appeals to a larger group of people.
Seems a lot if only focused on developers. Developers hardly bother with certain devices as it is anymore. Apple Watch comes to mind.
It all comes down to what it will do for consumers. If it has a feature that makes it worthwhile in my mind I'll buy it for 3k. But the only thing I could think of was NFL live action from multiple persectives, and with no Ticket and still primitive technology, I just don't see it in the next five to ten years.
Just give me something I want to buy. Never wore a watch until the Apple Watch which stores music for my running with wireless headphones and keeps track of the data. That made me buy and I love it.
Just give me something I want to buy. Never wore a watch until the Apple Watch which stores music for my running with wireless headphones and keeps track of the data. That made me buy and I love it.
Even if this headset costs $99,999 for “a billion worlds in your head,” there will be lines around the block for years… making the PS5 supply issue look insignificant.
Get ready to hook up feeding and waste tubes to your body; once you go in you won’t want to come out.
Get ready to hook up feeding and waste tubes to your body; once you go in you won’t want to come out.
I know plenty of people who will pay $3000 for a breakthrough XR headset, including myself. It would be worth that to have a big portable, think airplane, display for work and movies. The number that can be manufactured will determine the number sold.
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
Lower them expectations! Make it seem hopeless/doomed/DOA. Then dazzle.
Ladies & gentlemen: think about your comments here. No professional developer is going to spend valuable time & money developing for a product that may or may not later have someone to buy whatever they develop. To make that concept work, you probably need Apple giving these away to developers WITH subsidizing cash to motivate development until a market can provide the motivation (revenue). Else, this would be aiming for the home-brew/hobbiest crowd at best (those with no monetary objective but some programming skills).
This is the same nonsense thinking that basically goes with: since Mx and Metal are far beyond great/best, game developers should be making all of the AAA games for Mac... as if it is the technology ALONE that motivates where developers allocate resources. It's not. Money motivates all business efforts. Few to none will want to potentially waste lots of time, money & resources on something that only MIGHT yield a ROI down the road somewhere, when they can instead put those same variables towards opportunities with known and tangible upside.
Whether Goggles, Car, Watch, Tablet, Phone, Pod or Mac, the Maker of such products needs big adoption to motivate those who can expand the experiences with such products develop for them. OR Maker needs to basically "bribe" developers to develop for them so that the very same PRIME motivational force is in play whether there is an eventual market to buy whatever is developed or not.
Logically, this speculation that developers will buy these and then invest sizable amounts of their own money developing fantastic things for them only on hope that at some point in the future, lots of consumers will buy these too so that all that time, money & effort can finally be monetized makes no sense or $en$e at all.
I suspect this is simple marketing strategy to cut expectations ahead of a big reveal... like "iPad will cost $1000."
Ladies & gentlemen: think about your comments here. No professional developer is going to spend valuable time & money developing for a product that may or may not later have someone to buy whatever they develop. To make that concept work, you probably need Apple giving these away to developers WITH subsidizing cash to motivate development until a market can provide the motivation (revenue). Else, this would be aiming for the home-brew/hobbiest crowd at best (those with no monetary objective but some programming skills).
This is the same nonsense thinking that basically goes with: since Mx and Metal are far beyond great/best, game developers should be making all of the AAA games for Mac... as if it is the technology ALONE that motivates where developers allocate resources. It's not. Money motivates all business efforts. Few to none will want to potentially waste lots of time, money & resources on something that only MIGHT yield a ROI down the road somewhere, when they can instead put those same variables towards opportunities with known and tangible upside.
Whether Goggles, Car, Watch, Tablet, Phone, Pod or Mac, the Maker of such products needs big adoption to motivate those who can expand the experiences with such products develop for them. OR Maker needs to basically "bribe" developers to develop for them so that the very same PRIME motivational force is in play whether there is an eventual market to buy whatever is developed or not.
Logically, this speculation that developers will buy these and then invest sizable amounts of their own money developing fantastic things for them only on hope that at some point in the future, lots of consumers will buy these too so that all that time, money & effort can finally be monetized makes no sense or $en$e at all.
I suspect this is simple marketing strategy to cut expectations ahead of a big reveal... like "iPad will cost $1000."
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On the other hand, if there is nothing compelling running on this device, what consumer would buy it? It’s better to give devs a head start like they did with Apple Silicon.
Kuo has been saying this. Why are you on this site if you put zero stock in rumors?
Apple Reportedly Still Planning High-End and Low-End Versions of Second-Generation Headset in 2025
Apple's second-generation AR/VR headset will be offered in high-end and low-end versions and shipments are expected to be around ten times those...
www.macrumors.com
Classic chicken and egg which is why Apple did something similar with the DTK for Apple Silicon. Yes I know there was already an audience of Mac software users so it’s not quite the same thing.
But remember the first iPhone seems very primitive compared to even a few years later.
There will be zero consumer uptake if there are no apps at all. What else could they do?
I realize this is going to be more of an uphill battle than Apple is used to but someone has to do it if we’re ever going to get this tech.
The “it’s for developers” argument is so dumb. As you said, why develop for something if there are no customers? If that really is Apple’s strategy, this thing is DOA.
For those who have pointed out the Apple Silicon Dev kit - the devs knew that all Macs going forward were going to have ASi as Apple announced that. In this case, will Apple announce that there will definitely be a consumer version (and when)? Unlikely, but we will see.