Gurman: Low-Cost Vision Pro Model to Drop EyeSight and M-Series Chip

[subjonas]

I don’t see how any of these features can be significantly downgraded or discarded for the cheaper Vision without dropping below the baseline user experience that I think Apple wants to maintain for the Vision line.

Seeing obvious pixels or dealing with laggy 3D elements would be a bad experience. I think even Eyesight is indispensable, as odd and clunky as it seems now, because it’s key to keeping the user from being isolated from people immediately around them. Apple execs even explicitly stated that being core to the device.

They can only downgrade the processing power if the Pro has an abundance of power, which it might. In addition, they could probably use cheaper material, LCD, require AirPods, maybe a less sophisticated version of Eyesight, or maybe require tethering to an iPhone or Mac.

 

[Blackstick]

You sound like the hater comments when the original iPad was revealed. They said the same thing that "Apple was selling you a problem" and that it was just pointless since it was "just an upscaled iPod Touch."

In fairness, the OG iPad revealed at $499.

Different market considerations when something is 7x more expensive.

Apple has to get this product to a mass market in a hurry, or cheaper products will run around it. Same way Alexa and Google Home firmly beat the HomePod. You don’t have to be “best and most expensive”, you have to be best option considering the price.

 

[Macalicious2011]

... and in a plane you don't have enough room for moving your arms and hands.

Silly Billy. Easy problem to solve.

 

[TheNewLou]

Apple will need to find product market fit and do so quickly. Will it be in:

-Gaming: Unlikely
-Productivity: Unlikely. Csnt imagine editing spreadsheets or touch typing document being quick.
-3D style content: Likely. Apple are inverting heavily into content for apple tv plus including sports. They also have relationships with partiets and could buy rights to produce 3D style concerts.

My educated guess is that Productivity will be the least likely use for this thing. It just doesn't make sense.

The elephant in the room is that this will be primarily for gaming, and that's why people will plunk down the money for it.

Every AR/VR gaming company will want to be on this on Day One. Apple has been building its gaming APIs for over a decade, and WWDC sessions now include porting your game & using Unity (Apple would prefer you didn't, but they're realists; maybe they're working with Unity to make it faster on Apple devices?).

 

[CarAnalogy]

I just wouldn’t speculate. It is possible they would have a good reason to use a particular chip. All that really matters is how well the end product works.

Yes I think the chips especially are something the public probably doesn’t need to worry about. I was thinking more about things that people would notice, a reduction in sensors or fidelity that would reduce functionality or experience. I don’t think Apple needs to do that. They’ve already set the bar. To lower it substantially now would seem counterproductive.

 

[fwmireault]

-Productivity: Unlikely. Csnt imagine editing spreadsheets or touch typing document being quick.

Don't forget that you can connect a physical keyboard and mouse/trackpad to Vision Pro. This makes this device a lot more useful for productivity purposes.

 

[TheNewLou]

In fairness, the OG iPad revealed at $499.

Different market considerations when something is 7x more expensive.

Apple has to get this product to a mass market in a hurry, or cheaper products will run around it. Same way Alexa and Google Home firmly beat the HomePod. You don’t have to be “best and most expensive”, you have to be best option considering the price.

Alexa & Google Home cornered the billion-dollar-loss-leading home speaker device market, yes. Not sure what that proves.

Apple is going to start high, learn what's essential and what isn't (I'm sure they're testing the current model with different combinations of sensors turned off to see how they could eek by with the lowest cost/least number of sensors for a good experience).

They realized they came out with the iPad at too low a price, hence them trying to raise it with Airs and Pros.

The iPhone & the Apple Watch started high and now have SE models that most people can afford in their markets. The Vision Pro product naming gives Apple an opportunity to have a $2000 Vision and a $750 Vision SE, or something along those lines. They know what they're doing.

 

[CarAnalogy]

My educated guess is that Productivity will be the least likely use for this thing. It just doesn't make sense.

The elephant in the room is that this will be primarily for gaming, and that's why people will plunk down the money for it.

Every AR/VR gaming company will want to be on this on Day One. Apple has been building its gaming APIs for over a decade, and WWDC sessions now include porting your game & using Unity (Apple would prefer you didn't, but they're realists; maybe they're working with Unity to make it faster on Apple devices?).

That seems strange considering their entire presentation was focused 100% on productivity and 0% on games. And that they announced privacy features that specifically will make game development harder, for example hiding direct eye tracking from apps.

Maybe they just take it for granted that the games will come so they wanted to show the other uses, which is something Meta struggles with even now. Meta was putting out commercials trying to convince people that it’s good for something besides games, but the commercials weren’t very convincing and I don’t think they run them anymore.

 

[Spaceboi Scaphandre]

In fairness, the OG iPad revealed at $499.

Different market considerations when something is 7x more expensive.

Apple has to get this product to a mass market in a hurry, or cheaper products will run around it. Same way Alexa and Google Home firmly beat the HomePod. You don’t have to be “best and most expensive”, you have to be best option considering the price.

$500 back in 2010 which is $700 now adjusting for inflation (that's pretty depressing lol.) Vanilla iPads start at $329 now

If you remember the first iPhone started at $500 as well when keyboard smartphones back then were usually around $100-200. Then in under a year they announced the iPhone 3G with it's big selling point being it was half the cost of the first gen.

$3500 is insanely expensive but that's playmoney in hardcore XR land. Enthusiasts and enterprise use HMDs and setups that cost way more than that. An example is the Varjo XR3, an enterprise mixed reality headset with quality similar to the Vision Pro that costs a whooping $8000! And this isn't even considering the fact it needs a PC to even use, and the Vision Pro is over half the cost with better specs and is standalone. Introduce a $1500 Apple Vision and you got an HMD with a compelling case for purchase.

 

[CarAnalogy]

In fairness, the OG iPad revealed at $499.

Different market considerations when something is 7x more expensive.

Apple has to get this product to a mass market in a hurry, or cheaper products will run around it. Same way Alexa and Google Home firmly beat the HomePod. You don’t have to be “best and most expensive”, you have to be best option considering the price.

I don’t think that’s quite an apt analogy. The HomePod is not the best, yet it is the most expensive. People who love Apple have at best a love/hate relationship with the HomePod.

In this case I don’t think there is a particular hurry. This is more like tablets around the time of the iPad. They’ve been here, people know what they are, and they are not successful. The bar is pretty low, and it’s up to Apple to convince us why we need this thing at all.

If it becomes as successful as the iPad, is that successful? Strictly an accessory device except for a hard corps of people who bend over backwards to use it as their primary (but still not only) computer?

 

[McWetty]

Me getting one hinges completely on two things:

1.) an education discount
2.) me not vomiting from motion sickness during demo.

 

[swiftapplefan]

so if I understood correctly, a tablet that is $600 is going to have a chip more powerful than a $1500 device?

 

[bradman83]

Will the base model just be called iVision?

Nah, Apple's been moving away from iNames for new products since the early 2010s. It keeps the legacy ones around for brand recognition (iMac, iPhone, iPad) but everything new is now Apple [Blank].

Might just be called Apple Vision as opposed to the Apple Vision Pro.

 

[laptech]

With the ever increasing speeds of wifi, in my opinion the best consumer use of the Vision headset would be to have an app for the ipad, iphone and mac that interfaces with VisionOS that allows what ever is being run on the device to be displayed in the Vison headset. Once connected, hand motion gestures operate the ipad, iphone or mac thereby no need in having to touch the device.

 

[Macalicious2011]

My educated guess is that Productivity will be the least likely use for this thing. It just doesn't make sense.

The elephant in the room is that this will be primarily for gaming, and that's why people will plunk down the money for it.

Every AR/VR gaming company will want to be on this on Day One. Apple has been building its gaming APIs for over a decade, and WWDC sessions now include porting your game & using Unity (Apple would prefer you didn't, but they're realists; maybe they're working with Unity to make it faster on Apple devices?).

Gaming has drastically changed since the launch of candy crush. Today 60% of gaming takes place on mobile devices. Spontaneous bursts or play anywhere with a narrow learning curve.

Furthermore the cost of gaming developing has sky rocketed. Producers of AAA titles will unlikely be keen to develop and maintain games for a new platform with only 20-40k user base. The only exception is if Apple funds the development.

 

[TheNewLou]

That seems strange considering their entire presentation was focused 100% on productivity and 0% on games. And that they announced privacy features that specifically will make game development harder, for example hiding direct eye tracking from apps.

Maybe they just take it for granted that the games will come so they wanted to show the other uses, which is something Meta struggles with even now. Meta was putting out commercials trying to convince people that it’s good for something besides games, but the commercials weren’t very convincing and I don’t think they run them anymore.

Hence my comment "the elephant in the room" (the big issue nobody is talking about).

Apple was pushing Productivity at the debut for a few reasons:
1. The amazing gaming demos aren't ready. And if they were ready, people would want to buy it today, and Apple isn't selling it yet; you never want to do that.
2. By pushing Productivity (& cross-platform apps for iOS, iPadOS, watchOS, tvOS, macOS, visionOS), Apple is getting all their developers comfortable with visionOS and all their platforms. It's the click of a checkbox for most apps to get deployed to visionOS.
3. They're negotiating with gaming companies, probably even AAA gaming companies, to bring their products to visionOS; they had nothing to announce yet.

 

[TheNewLou]

Gaming has drastically changed since the launch of candy crush. Today 60% of gaming takes place on mobile devices. Spontaneous bursts or play anywhere with a narrow learning curve.

Furthermore the cost of gaming developing has sky rocketed. Producers of AAA titles will unlikely be keen to develop and maintain games for a new platform with only 20-40k user base. The only exception is if Apple funds the development.

Really? The most advanced VR system by far, and you think AAA gaming companies aren't salivating at this?

Behind the scenes, Apple will be showing these AAA gaming companies their upcoming processors and gaming APIs that we haven't seen yet. Maybe even an Apple TV-based gaming console for $499 with the same chip as Vision Pro? Who knows? All I know is Apple isn't dumb and neither are these AAA gaming companies.

Vision Pro changes everything. Apple is in the driver's seat if these AAA gaming companies want to be at the debut.

 

[Macalicious2011]

$500 back in 2010 which is $700 now adjusting for inflation (that's pretty depressing lol.) Vanilla iPads start at $329 now

If you remember the first iPhone started at $500 as well when keyboard smartphones back then were usually around $100-200. Then in under a year they announced the iPhone 3G with it's big selling point being it was half the cost of the first gen.

$3500 is insanely expensive but that's playmoney in hardcore XR land. Enthusiasts and enterprise use HMDs and setups that cost way more than that. An example is the Varjo XR3, an enterprise mixed reality headset with quality similar to the Vision Pro that costs a whooping $8000! And this isn't even considering the fact it needs a PC to even use, and the Vision Pro is over half the cost with better specs and is standalone. Introduce a $1500 Apple Vision and you got an HMD with a compelling case for purchase.

Well said about inflation.

A 4090 RTX graphics card is $1,799.

 

[Spaceboi Scaphandre]

Well said about inflation.

A 4090 RTX graphics card is $1,799.

Now that ain't inflation, that one is Nvidia being Nvidia. Most GPUs don't even cross the $1000 mark.

 

[jarman92]

Pretty confident Gurman just makes things up sometimes...almost none of this "report" makes any sense. Must be difficult to fill a newsletter every week with legit info.

 

[jarman92]

Samsung have arguably taken their place in the mobile space as dictating where they at least think things should go

...what? Samsung has always been the "throw everything at the wall and see what sticks" company. Apple has never been that company.

 

[segfaultdotorg]

What about the iThink Pro neural implant? Will they get to market before Neuralink?

 

[StuBeck]

This may make a bit of sense. They'll have checked consumer reaction to some of the announced features, and if that was lower than they expected, I wouldn't be surprised to see them pivoting on other features.

 

[return2sendai]

And then they will remove some software features to make sure some people will still buy the Pro. In other news, water will remain wet next year also.

Water isn’t wet. Are hydrogen atoms wet? Is an oxygen atom wet? Wetness is not a physical property of water.

 

[rosuna]

All I know is Apple isn't dumb and neither are these AAA gaming companies.

Vision Pro changes everything. Apple is in the driver's seat if these AAA gaming companies want to be at the debut.

Those companies are anxious waiting for access to a potential market of a few thousand people.