Too many moving parts in AVP. I would guess second iteration may take longer than ones in future. Apple probably would wait for initial feedback, apps, processor improvements and screens before upgrading to Gen 2. It would be interesting to see what stage Apple is on the second gen AVP. Smarter thing probably is to get as much as they can, and adjust the design, components for gen 2.
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Second GEN release date
- Thread starter rj41978
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Preorders start at 4AM EST, April 1st, 2025
Ropes will be set up at the Apple Stores for those wanting to "camp"
But what is the nonpro? Who’s it for. If they cut corners on oled or resolution it will lose movie watching appeal. It still needs controllers and a solid library of VR games to attract casual users. they need a solid Software library to go forward
I don’t think people will buy GEN three instantly. It’s really gonna take time for even a cheaper product to seep into the wild and for people to find a use for it in their own personal lives. This is going to be a longer rollout than people assume. People here are caught up in the hype and I’m glad they’re enjoying their Apple vision products, but try talking to a regular person and asking them if they want to buy a VR headset and wear it all day for $3000. Even $2000 most people would probably say no . It’s gonna take a while to prove to them why this is necessary and a lot of it is going to be cultural.
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
I'd love to see yours and anyone else's best speculation at what gets cut/reduced/slowed to get an Apple price of $3500 for this thing down to $1500.
- I hear the biggest expense is the 4K lenses, so step down to 1080p or less like the relatively "cheapies" already available?
- Slower processor?
- Less storage?
- Less or lower quality cameras?
- Plastic build materials?
- All accessories including the required ones sold separately?
- Less battery? Battery sold separately?
Best path to "cheaper" IMO goes like this (and most of these involve financing trickery):
- I suspect the eyesight feature probably goes in the next version unless it dramatically improves via software. There's certainly some savings in cost and weight by basically getting rid of that front-facing monitor... but not even close to $2000 worth of savings by itself. My wild guess is that maybe dumping this cuts $200.
- Apple could dump the speakers and leave audio to AirPods or similar. There's no actual cost savings there unless one has already paid for AirPods. I'll generously estimate this loss at $200 too. So #1 + #2 probably gets it to a retail price of $3099.
- Build a cellular option into Vpro 2, then apply the approx. $1000 cell phone subsidy to the $3499 price to cut it to $2499 (or the $3099 version to get it to $2099). Of course, that's no discount at all as one will still have the cell service contract but it creates the illusion of a thousand dollar discount vs. $3499 (or $3099).
- Offer special 24 month 0% Apple financing on that Vpro with maybe "only $300 down" to get "monthly payments" below the $100 psychological price point (an assumption of sales taxes applies to the $300 down). There's also no actual discount in that either but only an illusion of gaining "ownership" of a Vpro for $300* with "easy" monthly payments for 24 months (the very same game that makes people perceive that iPhone costs somewhere between free* and only a few hundred dollars). I'm actually surprised that Apple has not yet offered a special 36 or maybe 38-month term to make the "as is" model "under $100/month with as little as $0 down" but that may still come depending on how sales go after this initial flurry.
- Adopt the automobile game of selling relatively expensive leases instead of selling ownership. Apple services is very clearly showing Apple the very profitable business of selling rentals vs. ownership, so it should not be a great leap to sell higher priced hardware that way too. Again, present an attractive monthly payment instead of the full retail price. Apple still makes at least as much as the full price (and probably then some) and takes the device back at the end of the term to recycle. A target total of- say- $4200- in car like leases over- say- 48-60 months could then spin $70-$88 payments to posses a brand new V2 Vpro.
- Combine all of these to sell a $3099 minus cell subsidy $2099 Vpro in a lease and charge the $300 DP on Apple Pay to make that something like "only $50 down" or even make it a "zero down" proposition to walk into an Apple store and walk out with a brand new (leased) V2 Vpro for nothing out of pocket that day. That combo gets us to "Free* Vpro" pricing... just like "Free* iPhone."
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Personally, I don’t see any reason to update the hardware until an optical pass through glasses style model is possible. The cost to update for marginal gains in performance or efficiency while still stuck to the VR headset model vs the AR glasses this needs to become to take off doesn’t seem worth it. If that proves to be more than 3 years away, we’ll get another VR Vision Pro first though. Can’t imagine a “non-Pro” launching until it’s true AR. Wouldn’t put it past them to make minor tweaks like the 2nd gen iPod, or discontinuing the 4gb storage iPhone, etc level changes. Things like a drop in eyesight display improvement, finding a place for IR illumintors to add a “night vision” feature for cheap, making a functional usb/TB right strap standard, larger capacity battery pack, etc. But this thing is M2 + R1 powered for a long time to come, quite possibly until similar performance can be put into one die with much more efficiency, which probably means TSMC n2 node at least and therefore 2026 at the earliest.
All of the above surely.
Headsets needs to make it to the 'early majority' phase of the adoption cycle and even a $1500 headset from Apple would still be too expensive to gap the chasm, but it might make a dent.
That would still be 3 times the price of Meta's base model Quest 3 however - so in terms of componentry, Apple does have headroom. Design can be hand-me-down from the AVP, so no significant outlay there either in terms of development.
I would ignore the AVP as a point of reference here regardless. If Apple or anyone else wants to pull off AR/VR/Spacial they know that the network effect is key from all practical perspectives.
The AVP is a flagship product. I wouldn't get too hung up on that.
Apple plans iPhone features 3 years ahead
When supposed features of the iPhone 14 leaked out in early September, some complained that the iPhone 13 wasn’t even out at the time. But an Apple VP
www.cultofmac.com
Grass is also green. Suggesting a company scraping 3 trillion market cap doesn't have a far reaching release schedule is just contrarian.
I’m sure they will take a year break before yearly cycles like they did with the first Apple Watch if I recall correctly.
The rest of world have yet to get access to it. And that would be a bummer for those once it becomes available and the second gen comes out
#1 is the only viable point. The rest are not. Dump eyesight because it's awful and save some $$.
Leases, financing, etc. That doesn't change the price point.
Apple plans iPhone features 3 years ahead
When supposed features of the iPhone 14 leaked out in early September, some complained that the iPhone 13 wasn’t even out at the time. But an Apple VPwww.cultofmac.com
Grass is also green. Suggesting a company scraping 3 trillion market cap doesn't have a far reaching release schedule is just contrarian.
I’m not disagreeing with your point about future planning, but what does their market cap have to do with that particular point?
I suppose it goes something like this:
Planning is important for success.
Apple is successful. (high market cap)
-> Apple is planning
Marques Brownlee speculated that it would be at least a 2 year upgrade cycle in one of his videos.
If the VP were primarily computer bound then an upgrade might make sense as new Apple Silicon Chips come out. However the existing M2 seems to be providing sufficient computing power so not much value in an upgrade. A much improved R1 might be important but so far it seems to be doing its job just fine.
Significant changes in the other included technologies - cameras, sensors, displays, etc. would likely be the driving factor. I suspect that it will take a couple of years before the improvements are significant enough with these other technologies for a new Pro model.
If the VP were primarily computer bound then an upgrade might make sense as new Apple Silicon Chips come out. However the existing M2 seems to be providing sufficient computing power so not much value in an upgrade. A much improved R1 might be important but so far it seems to be doing its job just fine.
Significant changes in the other included technologies - cameras, sensors, displays, etc. would likely be the driving factor. I suspect that it will take a couple of years before the improvements are significant enough with these other technologies for a new Pro model.
Interesting that so many expect the V2 release to be, if not quite imminent, then at least not far beyond 6 months to a year…
I reckon that to be rather optimistic.
Another of Apple's over priced head wearables, the AirPods Max, hasn't been updated since its V1, 2020.
I am sure people will disagree, but Apple need to go beyond just tweaking the weird eyes and ghostly personas for a V2 to have more impact than the V1.
Would not surprise me at all to see global release only happening with V2.
But, as always, this is just IMO.
I reckon that to be rather optimistic.
Another of Apple's over priced head wearables, the AirPods Max, hasn't been updated since its V1, 2020.
I am sure people will disagree, but Apple need to go beyond just tweaking the weird eyes and ghostly personas for a V2 to have more impact than the V1.
Would not surprise me at all to see global release only happening with V2.
But, as always, this is just IMO.
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
Yes, that's the point. I see NO path to go from $3500 to $1500 pricing without significant cuts to hardware.
So the only way to mostly keep the higher quality elements IS financial spin... like payments, maybe the cellular service subsidy (with contract), longer-term financing, etc.
Too many seem to think that some hypothetical Vision NOTpro can mostly deliver the same for- in this example- about 58% lower pricing. What none seem to do is call out what they want cut from the experience/product to deliver such a steep cut in MSRP. For 58% off, it would almost have to be a different product, dropping most of what makes it stand out from competing products already priced down at those levels or lower.
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For the AVP itself? At least 2 years. They've been working on this version/form factor of the AVP for over 4. Scuttlebutt was they came to a "Cancel, re-engineer, or SHIP IT" moment last year and they went with the last option. So in June they made the decision to ship as is and began the process of building out the tooling for mass production and contacting suppliers. I'm guessing the next move if they decided to keep pressing the Spatial Computing angle would be a non-Pro version. Ditch the eyesight screen, maybe lower-res displays, plastic/polymer frame, a SoC more focused on media consumption, etc.
If they end up coming to the same conclusion Microsoft did with the Hololens ("what were making isn't a consumer device, lets focus on enterprise"), my personal hope is that they pivot to something closer to the Vitrue and Xreal glasses. All most consumers want/need from a HMD from Apple is a light and comfortable pair of "glasses" that show them video, text messages, etc. I'd pay $1000-1500 for an Apple interpretation of a wearable screen that plays media from your iPhone...and I bet a LOT more people would for it to over a $4k "computer" on my face that I need to buy another computer to do real computer work on.
V2 of the Pro, for me, just needs to be light and comfortable, which should have been one of the priorities for V1 if they want people to wear it for hours upon hours a day. I don't work for Apple but as soon as I saw how transparent OLEDs were going I'd have scrapped the AVP for a true AR HMD where you didn't have to engineer a system to re-render reality, you just let it LITERALLY pass-through the screen.
If they end up coming to the same conclusion Microsoft did with the Hololens ("what were making isn't a consumer device, lets focus on enterprise"), my personal hope is that they pivot to something closer to the Vitrue and Xreal glasses. All most consumers want/need from a HMD from Apple is a light and comfortable pair of "glasses" that show them video, text messages, etc. I'd pay $1000-1500 for an Apple interpretation of a wearable screen that plays media from your iPhone...and I bet a LOT more people would for it to over a $4k "computer" on my face that I need to buy another computer to do real computer work on.
V2 of the Pro, for me, just needs to be light and comfortable, which should have been one of the priorities for V1 if they want people to wear it for hours upon hours a day. I don't work for Apple but as soon as I saw how transparent OLEDs were going I'd have scrapped the AVP for a true AR HMD where you didn't have to engineer a system to re-render reality, you just let it LITERALLY pass-through the screen.
AirPods Max are not an entire platform, they’re an accessory audio product. Not a good analogy. That being said, I expect 18-24 months before the next revision of AVP.