Report: Apple AR Headset With Rumored $2,000+ Price Tag to Enter Mass Production in Second Quarter of 2022

[JOLoughlin]

"$500, fully subsidized, with a plan! That is the most expensive phone in the world and it doesn't appeal to business customers, because it doesn't have a keyboard, which makes it not a very good email machine." - Steve Ballmer on the first iPhone

Not implying the speculative $2,000–3,000 price point will match the value offered but the Apple II was introduced at $1,298 (equivalent to $5,543 in 2020) (source) this is all relative and only time will tell.

 

[jz0309]

Apple has to come up with a COMPELLING use case beyond gaming, esp at that price point.
I've tried several over the years, don't see the use case for myself, my son got the Oculus, he was playing frequently at first and now a year or 2 later, hardly at all ...
So what's the killer app for AR/VR headsets?

 

[Sf844]

"$500, fully subsidized, with a plan! That is the most expensive phone in the world and it doesn't appeal to business customers, because it doesn't have a keyboard, which makes it not a very good email machine." - Steve Ballmer on the first iPhone

Not implying the speculative $2,000–3,000 price point will match the value offered but the Apple II was introduced at $1,298 (equivalent to $5,543 in 2020) (source) this is all relative and only time will tell.

Do you remember when Apple laughed at Samsung's "phablets" because 4'' was the perfect smartphone?

That Apple now selling 6.1'' as the standard phone size.

I do.

Do you remember that Apple laughing at stylus?

That Apple now selling the Apple Pencil.

I do.

Do you want me to continue?

 

[Reds622]

This isn’t the mainstream device.

The glasses are, if they even exist/ever make it to market.

Have there been any studies regarding a screen an inch from your eyeball over a prolonged period of time? Surely we wouldn’t just experimenting with our health, right?

I really don’t know the answer to that question and am genuinely curious about the answer.

 

[DevNull0]

The first iteration of Apple's AR headset may be a bit bulky in design, similar to the Oculus Rift headset, but a sleeker pair of "Apple Glasses" could launch a few years later.

...

and could cost between $2,000 and $3,000.

I don't actually believe this rumour, but if Apple actually did release such a product at such a price point, I'd still be rolling on the floor laughing when the product takes it's rightful place next to Newton and Pippin.

 

[dukebound85]

“Who could possibly want or ever need a smartphone let alone an iPhone?”….people said over and over

yea...not really applicable here

unless you like to use that argument for anything?

 

[DevNull0]

I bet this is a medical and commercial device aimed at surgeons and other similar industrial applications

Yes, because Apple is huge in the niche B2B space

Have you ever looked at the medical field? Such a device for medical use would be closer to $200k than $2k, and Apple is simply not capable of developing a stable enough product for that space. You need people who actually know how to do real-time computation. You can't have "oops, the patient died because a notification to upgrade the arOS popped up at just the wrong time".

 

[DevNull0]

I think at first it will be a very niche product, and I don't think an average user would have any use for a $2,000 set of goggles.

Apple doesn't do niche products. It's a mass-market company. They killed off the 17" MBP because they were *only* selling $150 million of them a year and it wasn't worth their while to be in such a niche space.

Look at the sales expectations at launch for the iPad and Apple Watch. Apple doesn't do niche.

That's why I don't believe this rumour.

 

[iPadCary]

Not into AR one single solitary bit, I'm a *VR* guy, but this is smart.
Reveal it in June at WWDC then release it for Christmas.
thereby building-up a months long frenzy for it, just like iPhone.
And ANYTHING that pushes XR into the mainstream,
like Apple finally deciding to get into it, I'm all for.
🙂👍🏻

 

[Aichon]

AR is the nail. Fully realized AR will be ubiquitous some day. But I don’t think the tech is even close and I think the footprint needs to be almost the same as normal glasses.

I'd argue that technically an AR wearable is another hammer, but I agree very much that fully realized AR will find a nail without issue. VR is an inherently isolating technology that walls its users off from their environment, thus significantly limiting its use cases. In contrast, AR applications are as endless as the world is big once we can get it to the point that it's in normal glasses.

I mean, seriously, can you imagine the AR use cases? Driving and walking directions overlaid on your actual view of the world. Live subtitles when someone speaks to you in a foreign language. Live translations overlaid on signs and menus when you walk the streets of a foreign country. Never forgetting your umbrella because the weather conditions are in your HUD. Live price comparisons when out shopping. Instant barcode scanning of products you add to your cart so you can skip the checkout lines. I led a team of software developers in creating apps for a different face-mounted wearable platform that wasn't nearly as "smart" as what we're talking about here (i.e. something like a ruggedized/industrialized Google Glass), so I can imagine all sorts of commercial and industrial applications for a platform like this.

I still can't justify an Apple Watch for myself, despite being a lifelong watch wearer, and I've had no interest in dropping a few hundred bucks—let alone a few thousand—on VR goggles, despite being an avid gamer interested in many of the VR games available today, but I'd give serious consideration to immediately dropping a few grand on fully realized AR glasses if they were magically available today. That's a hammer surrounded by nails.

 

[tigerstyle0]

Why? Apple isn’t a game developing company and they can barely keep Arcade alive with games from 10 years ago. What are you possibly going to do with it … measure your 40 Euro IKEA table with a 2k device? AR is a gimmick to me trying to fix an issue that doesn’t exist to simply exist itself. How often are you using the LIDAR scanner on your iPhone / iPad?

Hit the nail on the head, my friend! 🎯

 

[dc.lotus]

Cheaper just to have DORK tattooed to your forehead.

 

[tann]

“Who could possibly want or ever need a smartphone let alone an iPhone?”….people said over and over

It’s different though, an iPhone combined things we already wanted, music player, video player, camera, internet device, computer, sat nav, photo album… as it’s a general computing device. These are things many people want.

This is more like the Apple Watch, but even more niche. People pay thousands to get RID of glasses. I can see this doing well, for a VR/AR headset.

 

[VictorTango777]

Headset will be permanently molded to fit the shape of Jony Ive’s face. Display will be permanently calibrated for Jony Ive’s eyes. If anyone has issues with fit or readability, it is their fault for not having the proper anatomy to use Apple products.

 

[JosephAW]

How much you wanna bet these will require AirPods Pro or AirPods Pro Max.

 

[ElectricPotato]

Will it support colorful band options in a variety of materials? Style is important and for $2K you don't want to look like a dork.

 

[dysamoria]

$2000 for VR, obviously to be locked to Apple machines... that don’t have the gaming performance (or games) at the performance level of Windows desktop machines, the market which houses the gamers who would spend this much money for game tech. Hilarious 😆

Here I am, still debating on whether to potentially waste my savings on a used iMac to move my whole Apple ecosystem back into the realm of “sort of supported”...

 

[dysamoria]

Why? Apple isn’t a game developing company and they can barely keep Arcade alive with games from 10 years ago. What are you possibly going to do with it … measure your 40 Euro IKEA table with a 2k device? AR is a gimmick to me trying to fix an issue that doesn’t exist to simply exist itself. How often are you using the LIDAR scanner on your iPhone / iPad?

If I had a device with LIDAR, I would be trying to use it to create 3D models.

Other than that... agreed!!

 

[dysamoria]

Let me be able to extend my m1 mac to multiple ar screens that i can put on my walls and im sold. This is what i expect the goal of universal control to be for

I don’t even like wearing glasses...

 

[dysamoria]

I went to a Gruffalo event where your child goes to certain areas in a forest and find different animals from the book. My daughter was so bored after the first one and you felt disconnected from the environment every time you grabbed your phone. The kids were told to stand next to an empty space whilst parents took photos with the digital creatures. It would have been far better to just have actual 3D statues. Plus the app, which must have cost a bomb, was shockingly poor. AR is overrated.

Ah yes, the difference between marketing something that looks fun... and experiencing it for real.

 

[Nicky G]

You mean the OLD Apple? Anything not in the works when Jobs passed seems to be NOT very awe inspiring.

My Swiss mechanical watch collection might disagree, considering they've almost entirely been hidden away since I got my first Apple Watch. I assume they're very jealous -- but the Apple Watch is just too useful (and much cheaper, so if I get mugged and my watch gets stolen, I'd much prefer it to be the Apple Watch than any of the Swiss timepieces).

 

[HurtinMinorKey]

LOL! Who would buy it? Gamers certainly have plenty of other less expensive options. It's already been demonstrated that both VR and AR goggles are a niche market at best, and that most people (currently) have no need for them. What would the average user do with a $2000 set of Apple goggles? See what an Ikea table would look like in their dining room? I don't think so. Apple would have to turn their reality distortion field up to 11 in order to convince people that this is something they need.

because VR users have a high willingness to pay for the best tech. If the rumors about micro OLED screens are true, people will buy these because even at comparable resolutions, the image quality and realism will be much better (contrast is huge in VR).

these consumers are the same ones willing to shell out 1200+ for a GPU just run these things.

 

[fbadini]

Why? Apple isn’t a game developing company and they can barely keep Arcade alive with games from 10 years ago. What are you possibly going to do with it … measure your 40 Euro IKEA table with a 2k device? AR is a gimmick to me trying to fix an issue that doesn’t exist to simply exist itself. How often are you using the LIDAR scanner on your iPhone / iPad?

Couldn’t agree more

 

[deconstruct60]

Not sure what an "AR Headset" even is: if it's augmenting reality, then it can only be glasses - i.e. something that lets reality reach the human eye, augmented with additional information.

Not "just glasses"

Microsoft HoloLens

Landing page for Microsoft HoloLens.

www.microsoft.com

And price tag over $2K.

If it's a headset - especially one like the one shown at the top of this article, is obviously a VR headset, since it's opaque in the front. Any reality that it might capture via sensors/cameras and reconstitute for the human eye is, becomes virtual in the process.

The one shown at the top of the article was drawn by someone who hasn't seen it. However, 15 cameras.... instead of a semi-transparent "lens" their is big enough camera budget there to take a stream of the outside world and re-display it onto a screen with augmentation weaved in.
(possibly "beamed in" augmentation so wireless. )

 

[nt5672]

My Swiss mechanical watch collection might disagree, considering they've almost entirely been hidden away since I got my first Apple Watch. I assume they're very jealous -- but the Apple Watch is just too useful (and much cheaper, so if I get mugged and my watch gets stolen, I'd much prefer it to be the Apple Watch than any of the Swiss timepieces).

You certainly could be correct. However, Jobs passed in Oct 2011 and the watch was released April 2015. You really think Jobs had no vision or strategy with regards to the watch? I'll bet he was heavily involved in the conceptual planning for the watch. Sure the technology was not ready until 2015, but I'll bet it had been in the works for a long time waiting for the tech to catch up.