The difference here is that those are all practical, desirable products. It was easy to tell before they were released. That's not the case for a VR headset.
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Gurman: Apple Still Plans to Announce AR/VR Headset at WWDC Despite Recent Uncertainty
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It's a pretty sure bet that whatever Apple's plans - release now, or release later - they ran in parallel to any 'uncertainty' i.e. there's no cross-pollination of thinking with Apple saying "uh maybe we should cancel because Kuo has doubts?".
You are conflating different things, because the Mac is a well-established platform with over 40 years of history and hundreds of millions of units sold.
Reality has 0 years of history and 0 units sold.
Expecting developers to pay for a completely unproven SDK in a field that's known for very low sales numbers (PS VR2 pulled in just 300,000 units despite being a fantastic product) is just silly.
Except Meta Quest is still stealing our data, building the soul-sucking Horizon Worlds, releasing products with sub-Retina displays, and raising the prices on their headsets after release.
Except that's not what happened. The iPod (who asked for a thousand songs in your pocket?), iPhone (a non-mechanical keyboard? Flop.), and tablet (just a giant iPhone) were panned here at release.
History is repeating itself with Apple's upcoming AR device. I'm not shocked at all.
If I recall, AirPods were supposed to be DOA, the iPad was also memed for being a big iPhone, and the Apple Watch was not a desirable product on release. It took many years for it to be practical.
This should be required reading before every Apple product launch: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/apples-new-thing-ipod.500/
The revisionist history in here. Apple has always been met with skepticism, even while your lord and savior Steve Jobs was alive. It's nothing new to the company or Tim Cook.
We really need to bookmark these threads, because it'll be hilarious coming back in 15 years.
We really need to bookmark these threads, because it'll be hilarious coming back in 15 years.
I’m not sure why anyone expected this to change…
The original rumor was that mass production would begin in Q3 instead of Q2… and the product already needs to be announced six months or so before introduction.
Given that the biggest thing about this is going to be the development kit, which can be put in developers hands immediately, when the product actually ships is basically irrelevant as long as it’s in the next year.
The HomePod was announced at WWDC2017 then delayed after until early 2018.
The 2013 Mac Pro, the 2017 iMac Pro and the 2019 MacPro were all announced at WWDC… And then shipped at the very last possible moment.
There was an eight month gap between when the Apple Watch was announced, and when it shipped.
Most importantly, if the delays are true, it’s… Not really that much of a delay.
Q2 ends in June, Q3 begins in July.
The original rumor was that mass production would begin in Q3 instead of Q2… and the product already needs to be announced six months or so before introduction.
Given that the biggest thing about this is going to be the development kit, which can be put in developers hands immediately, when the product actually ships is basically irrelevant as long as it’s in the next year.
The HomePod was announced at WWDC2017 then delayed after until early 2018.
The 2013 Mac Pro, the 2017 iMac Pro and the 2019 MacPro were all announced at WWDC… And then shipped at the very last possible moment.
There was an eight month gap between when the Apple Watch was announced, and when it shipped.
Most importantly, if the delays are true, it’s… Not really that much of a delay.
Q2 ends in June, Q3 begins in July.
But none of the devices you mentioned had a price tag of only $4999
The iPad basically was a big iPhone when it was released. It became more lucrative as it gained functionality with further updates and iterations. It didn’t cost $3000 though. And people already used phones that had similar touch and mobile OS functionality. There’s no existing adoption of goggles.
oh people here will start it, but I don’t think Apple really cares.
They’ve already set suppliers expectations quite low, apparently they only expect to sell about 1 million units in the first year which… Is about 1/6th what the original iPhone sold
Spot on! One of the most successful and valuable companies in the world, with a billion satisfied customers, is about to release another ground-breaking product.
And people just can't stop themselves from proclaiming it a flop. I guess that helps people feel better about themselves.
But none of the devices you mentioned had a price tag of only $4999
Stop it!
Make the price even more ridiculous, say $12,999, and you get much more forum cred.
I don’t get this line of thinking at all.
The original iPhone was worked on for 2 1/2 years before its introduction.
The original iPod? Eight months.
The first Watch? Four years.
This headset? Almost eight years.
Almost quadruple the amount of time as the original iPhone, double the amount of time as the original Apple Watch, and 12X the time to develop the original iPod.
So when you say “Tim has to learn the hard way why Steve and & co. put so much attention to product development and design…” what on earth do you think they’ve been doing the last eight years if not giving the product development and design the attention it deserves?
The other silver lining here, the people in this thread complaining… get this… don’t have to buy it!
You don’t have to buy every little thing Apple makes, sometimes they can make a product that just simply does not appeal to everyone and that’s fine.
The Mac Pro? I’d never buy one, waste of my money. Why would I do that?
But I certainly don’t think it shouldn’t exist, it’s got a dedicated group of people who rely on it.
Think of this headset the same way, even if you don’t need it, you won’t use it, you think it’s stupid, not everyone does.
It’ll be the Mac pro of their mobile offerings, while the iPhone 15 pro max will be the Mac Studio.
That Ian Zelbo mock up has tainted the product for life.
That’s your opinion, plenty of comments on the original iPhone introduction of people saying it’s “not practical” and they’d “rather just use a Mac”.
People said the iPad wasn’t practical, “it’s just a big iPhone, what’s the point in that?”
In the original Apple Watch… Those comments were brutal. Same with the AirPods. People just tearing them apart.
The idea that Apple needs to launch an iPhone equivalent as the first product in a new industry is now a fallacy.
Apple started out getting their hands dirty with the PC industry and the many, many years it took for that industry to take off. Smartphones were an exception to all other technologies - they were the easiest engineering task of the last 50 years, and the easiest marketing challenge because you had an easier time explaining why this smart phone is better than this cellphone.
We're back to the hard stuff again. PCs were alien both from engineering and marketing perspectives. VR/AR are also alien in the same way. People cannot grasp the technologies without serious hands-on time with them, and the engineering tasks are incredibly difficult.
Do you know what did? The 2019 MacPro and the Pro Display XDR.But none of the devices you mentioned had a price tag of only $4999
And yet pretty much every day people on these exact same forums ask for Apple to update them.
Like the cred you have when you pretended to be an architect and then got owned and then said you were an industrial engineer and then got owned again.
It’s funny, Apple’s longest running product lineup, the Macintosh, originally was a total and complete disaster flop that sent Steve Jobs out the door for 12 years.
The first iPod was met with tons of skepticism and “meh”, it took them, lowering the price, adding more storage options, adding windows support, introducing the iTunes Store and branching out into other iPod products before it finally took off. People like to think that 2001 was the best year for the iPod but it wasn’t, it was 2005-2008, years after the first one.