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I'm also a Software Engineer who does 98% of my work at coffee shops. I love being around strangers while I work. The downside is the palpable lack of additional monitors. This will solve that problem, and the gross amount I make doing work on the Vision Pro more than justifies the cost.

Edit: Nevermind. The Vision Pro only supports mirroring the Mac's display. Typical Apple fashion.
 
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Such a selfish device - single person centered - made for a single Apple ID - less sharing than my Macbook & iPads and Apple created at a price point that can't be shared....

Still getting one on pre-order day.... 🤣
 
I'm also a Software Engineer who does 98% of my work at coffee shops. I love being around strangers while I work. The downside is the palpable lack of additional monitors. This will solve that problem, and the gross amount I make doing work on the Vision Pro more than justifies the cost.
Supposedly this is limited to one Mac desktop screen, so I'm not sure if this really solves that problem. It sounds like it won't be possible to have something like Xcode or VS Code running on one virtual monitor and running/debugging the app on another virtual monitor. They'll likely have to be side-by-side on the Mac desktop, or switch between them...so not entirely different than working on a single MBP screen. I'd love to be wrong, considering the Quest allows multiple virtual monitors, but I don't have high hopes based on what I've read so far.

It also sounds like the Mac desktop is limited to a 4K resolution (3840 x 2160 virtual pixels), so probably won't be able to have an "infinite" or large real-estate desktop to spread out all your Mac apps on either...which some seem to think will be possible.

Your other "monitors"/screens would have to be visionOS apps (i.e. visionOS Safari, Numbers, Pages, Photos, etc. alongside your Mac desktop).
 
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the 3k price tag is almost a marketing gimmick as it gets folks talking till a reasonable priced one comes out.

I don't really know what sort of person would buy it though? My wealthy friends wouldn't even buy it for themselves or their tech kids because it's excessive and doesn't teach value for money.
 
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It is a first generation product in a totally new category, so we can think about it as iPhone 1, which was also overpriced at launch with the price reduced shortly afterwards. Once Vision devices take on, I guess their prices will come down significantly, I would expect at least two-fold, if we ignore the general inflation rate. We shall see in about a year or two from now.
 
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Assuming I had over $3000 spare, can someone please explain how Apple can justify the cost of the Vision Pro, a product competing with the new Meta Quest or even the Playstation VR costing a tenth of the price?

What am I getting for my money with Vision Pro that those other products don't offer?
You should rather ask yourself if you can justify yourself buying it. That's how it should work with any product.
 
Setting aside the capabilities of the device, now and future, “Justification” is merely what any one person is willing to spend. This is capitalism at it’s core.

As for the device, Apple is looking ahead already. Hell.. they’ve already given the iPhone Pro’s the ability to record ‘spatial’ video so they are tying in already.
 
This price never shocked me TBH. I'm much more shocked by the price of the latest Macbook Pros than the Vision Pro which includes much more tech (fancy screen x2, captors and so on).
 
Think about the amount of tech that goes in this device . The curved screen the amount of sensors and cameras . And I’m sure the build quality will be phenomenal.. Sure I will cringe once I hit buy now but coming from Apple I know it will be worth it .
 
Hmm. I have the money, but I don’t have infinite money. So is it worth it?

I think the real question is, would it make my life better? I don’t travel and I hardly watch tv, I don’t game, I work very little, I never use more than one screen, my most used device is my iPad (a little foruming, browsing and reading books).

On top of that, I have a disinclination towards virtual worlds. I feel they are fake and filled with other people’s dreams, an illusionary extension of the real world which has no rhyme, reason or end. The spiritual journey is much more interesting to me than any virtual one.

So I think I will pass.
 
A more interesting question is what the profit margin is on this device. And, how did they decide on the exact price they were going to charge?

If you want justification, just look at the marketing materials on Apple’s website. That’s their case for you spend the asking price on this.
 
Assuming I had over $3000 spare, can someone please explain how Apple can justify the cost of the Vision Pro, a product competing with the new Meta Quest or even the Playstation VR costing a tenth of the price?

What am I getting for my money with Vision Pro that those other products don't offer?
high end hardware components cost money. BOM COST on this is not cheap.
 
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Assuming I had over $3000 spare, can someone please explain how Apple can justify the cost of the Vision Pro, a product competing with the new Meta Quest or even the Playstation VR costing a tenth of the price?

What am I getting for my money with Vision Pro that those other products don't offer?
It’s the only standalone headset that is an actual computer. You’re getting near eyesight level pass thru and not grainy VHS quality. You’re getting the power of an M2 chip for computing. You’re getting the best displays money can buy. You’re getting Apple’s UI design engineers , who are the best in the business at creating UIs. Meta’s are jank.

I’d keep going but I know this is a Quest 3 fanboy post. I have a Quest 3 and I love it, but AVP makes it look and perform like a toy.
 
This question has a very clear and straight forward business reason - I feel like anyone paying attention to Apple over the years should notice the dynamic playing out here.

AR, rather than VR, is years away at any reasonable consumer price point. The AR style passthrough mode of something like Meta Quest 3 is still in largely unusable gimmicky territory. Getting over the hump into "good enough" territory is going to be expensive, and hard to scale.

The Vision Pro supposedly costs something like $2.2k to make, already past the point of reasonable or justifiable for most consumers. You can go one of two ways selling a device that expensive to make - take a loss (or just no profit), or add your profit margin on top. Selling at cost or at a loss is risky - if you can't start making it profitable in the short term, the market+boards+shareholders+your own internal politics will all start putting the pressure on to either fix it or retire it. Selling at a profit is risky - it takes an already unreasonable price point and puts it into ridiculous territory and might leave your product dead on arrival, with no buyers at all.

Apple has always been very disciplined about making money, whatever else you want to say about the company. They were never going to choose any other option besides "we want our full 35-40% profit margins, the same we get from our other devices". They've pushed their requirements the difficult-to-scale territory, so they only need to convince a tiny portion of the market to buy one. Like it or not, they have enough of a captive audience they'll almost certainly sell them. In short, they believe they're in a position to get away with selling a way overpriced device, and still make money from it - and that nobody else will be able to do so, giving them a headstart (not in terms of innovation, maybe, but in terms of locking down present and future profits).

In a year or two, competitors with a lot less to lose will test the boundaries of how much they can cheap out on this stuff and still ship a close enough approximation of the same features on sale here. Half of them probably will go for the sell-at-a-loss model, some may not survive, whilst Apple watches, learns, copies the lessons others are learning, and holds onto the coveted spot of being the only one making a profit on it.


I'm into the tech here and think it's cool - but whether the cost is "justified" or "worth it" is the wrong question. Is it a good strategy to maximise profitshare in this market, grab territory ahead of competitors, and further lock an ever-growing customer base into an ever-broadening and more expensive ecosystem? I mean, you know, it might actually be.
 
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I wish it was along the lines of a MacBook Pro or even Air with MacOS. That would be a no brainer for me.

Given it is more IOS it’s a struggle for me to get there. I would love to have it but doesn’t replace my MacBook Pro for sure. Maybe a iPad and that’s if you want to wear it whenever you need to use it.

It’s really an added device to the ecosystem and pretty sure the approach Apple has.
Completely agree with this. We're going to wind up right in the same place we are with the iPad. Apple will be screaming from the rooftops that it's a "Pro" device and you can do "Pro" tasks with it. Meanwhile it'll take them 10+ years to release their own Pro apps like Logic and Final Cut for it. As a software developer, especially one who doesn't write software for Apple devices, I cannot use an iPad to do my job, even though the hardware is perfectly capable of doing what I need. Apple has neutered iOS and its derived operating systems to prevent me from doing my job on them. The only sceanrio where an AVP will be useful in my job will be as an optional add on to a Mac.

So will I get a visionOS device some day? Sure, but only as a straight replacement for my iPad, which I only use for entertainment purposes.
 
I can't justify it but it does seem to have really good tech built into it which will always cost a premium. The build quality looks like nothing else on the market. And it's Apple.... a company that charged $1,000 for a monitor stand, $20 for a cloth, and $200 for 8GB of RAM. Plus you'll get people who buy it just because it's Apple. It's a luxury brand and Apple fans tend to have more money than sense so they can get away with it.

Wait until you see the price for the Vision Ultra ;)
 
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I'm not sure if this really solves that problem. It sounds like it won't be possible to have something like Xcode or VS Code running on one virtual monitor and running/debugging the app on another virtual monitor
solves it for me. i only need 1 screen for dev-specific, computer-run apps. i can easily fit iterm, vscode, etc on a single 4k monitor. my other screens are filled with things easily replaced by apps running locally on the AVP, like slack, browsers, notes

this should still be way better than a single laptop screen.
 
Assuming I had over $3000 spare, can someone please explain how Apple can justify the cost of the Vision Pro, a product competing with the new Meta Quest or even the Playstation VR costing a tenth of the price?

What am I getting for my money with Vision Pro that those other products don't offer?
Since people are willing to buy it, Apple justifies its business pricing.
 
People whining about the price should try price up the components individually based on other products on the market and compare.

It has an M2 in it, 16 GB of RAM, two cutting edge displays, a large array of sensors, a bespoke sensor processing chip, etc.

Its basically a high end macbook air with more tech in it, including the R1, more cameras, more advanced displays, etc.

It isn’t an oculus quest.
 
This product probably has thousands of engineering, testing, and production hours behind it

Apples deserves to make a profit on this assuming they expect a reasonable margin

My issue with buying something like this will be that it’s going to be obsolete in 1.5 years tops

This product is targeted to rich guinea pigs and developers

The 3rd generation of this product would probably be the one to buy

For us middle classers… sit back and watch the innovation explode
 
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the 3k price tag is almost a marketing gimmick as it gets folks talking till a reasonable priced one comes out.

I don't really know what sort of person would buy it though? My wealthy friends wouldn't even buy it for themselves or their tech kids because it's excessive and doesn't teach value for money.
Another thing is that considering the limited supply (at least initially), the price is designed to maximise profits. No point making it cheap (to boost demand) if the supply isn't there.
 
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