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Tim Cook Admits Truth About Vision Pro Following Lackluster Sales

peripatetic said:
An anecdote that Tim Cook often shares about how he uses the AVP — laying flat on the sofa watching shows — is just not a possible use case for the vast majority of people. If you're single, sure. If you're retired, sure. But for most people who would have the means to afford an AVP, when does one have time to cut off the outside world and lose yourself in a show while taking up the entire sofa? Good luck with that with kids -- or a wife or a husband. It's a neat idea by Tim. But it's not doable by most of us. Can't Tim come up with a better scenario that we could all imagine using it for?
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The ratio of singles (30% of adults) and of retirees (20% of the population) is increasing steadily, that alone wouldn’t be my worry.
 
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This
webkit said:
You can't compare the two as the original iPhones were much more affordable. The iPhone launched with a starting price of $499 (with AT&T contract) which is around $760 in today's dollars. The Vision Pro is over 4.5 times more expensive. Whether VP is "overpriced" or not, the $3,499 price tag makes it much less attainable than iPhones were/are. Also, cell phones/smartphones weren't nearly as new of a concept for most people in 2007 (most had already owned one) compared to AR/VR headsets today.
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Hmmm...makes you think Apple KNEW it wouldn't be a mass market product. Today. Why so many of you keep insisting that it must sell like the original iPhone or else it's a failure is beyond me.
 
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"Cook said Apple Intelligence makes the experience of using Apple products "profoundly different."" - how so? I've been using the 18.1 beta since the beginning and aside from a slightly less (and only very slightly less) lobotomized Siri, there's nothing anywhere near "profoundly different" about my iOS use. If anything, with its summaries at the top my Inbox it's more annoying than "profound".

Yes, there's a bunch of AI-aided new features, but they're for pretty esoteric things like "object removal" in Photos or text summaries/rewrites. Stuff that most people don't need on a daily basis.
 
vertsix said:
We all knew it wasn't a mass market product. But glad he is acknowledging it.

I am a Vision Pro owner, and I've been decreasingly "excited" about the product line as a whole. I have mixed feelings. On one hand, it's an amazing device with top of the line technology, but on the other the App Store and content situation has not improved and has gotten worse in some ways. A lot of apps have been abandoned, a lot of critical ones are still missing, and many barely get updates. It's incredibly nice for occassional media consumption (such as immersive video) - of which Apple TV+ still lacks a lot of!

Ultimately, the success of Vision Pro is heavily dependent on the App Store and content. Price as well, but I'd argue it's less so. Content was the inflection point with the iPhone and the iPad. I hoped to see some of that progress, but I am disappointed to not have seen it. And Apple's hostile relationship with developers in recent years is of no help.
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This is the real "truth" about the Vision Pro: It's amazing hardware with great potential stymied by being based on iPadOS and limited to only running apps from the App Store. Sounds like another Apple product we all know and love to hate on.

As much as people love to remind that Ballmer laughed about the iPhone, I like to remind about the other thing he's famous for: Developers Developers Developers Developers.

As much as Windows has fallen out of fashion on the client side, it's firmly entrenched in the enterprise for that reason. He was right about that one. Apple still doesn't seem to take the developer situation seriously.
 
klasma said:
...(and well-off enough) to buy one.
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This meme that only the rich can afford one is silly.

People have different needs and different priorities. Was I wealthy when I bought my first mac classic II and an Apple printer for about $7500 in today's dollars? I was a junior in college, and took advantage of an offer of a student loan to buy it. One of the best purchases I've ever made.

I also took advantage of 12 months, interest free financing on my AVP. It's been worth every penny.

I'm curious, all of you who laughingly keep trying to paint the AVP as a wealthy-person's toy...what did you spend on your car?
 
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Hey Tim, it would certainly help with sales if the Vision Pro could at least be easily purchased from any place where Apple has an Online Store. "Early adopter" here from Austria – I would like to order one from apple.com – but unlike basically all other Apple products, the Vision Pro simply isn't available here. Why?

C'mon, please just make it available for purchase in the full EU, not just select countries! Promised, I'll up the sales by +1!
 
The copium is pretty strong in this thread, from all the usual subjects.

Somewhere, in the distance, a HomePod and an AppleTV sit lonely by a fire in the darkness, trying to stay warm.
 
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klasma said:
One has to see this in the context of the size of Apple’s user base. The iPhone user base is around 1.5 billion. That means roughly 1 in 3000 iPhone users was interested enough (and well-off enough) to buy one.
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No, it is not "in the context of the size of Apple’s user base." It is simply sales of a proof-of-concept device really. Like some of us (me) have said since day one, it is more like the very-important-to-Apple Newton was.
 
If something was always very clearly the policy of the company, a policy made obvious by the price and the sales-support process, can talking about it really be considered an "admission?"

"Porsche admits Cayman GTS 'not for everyone.'"
"Space tourism 'still early adopter product'"
"Skydiving discovered to have 'niche appeal'"

And what is the value in treating it as such? Apple does not need a quick win here, they have mountains of cash to fund R&D. What the Vision Pro does well is staggering; that it is not immediately a must-have product is not surprising. The real killer app for such a device remains unidentified, and I don't think it would BE identified if the design language was more limited or the hardware of lower quality -- think traditional VR devices.
 
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anthogag said:
From day 1 everyone knew it's not "mass market". Apple is working on a cheaper version for mass market.

Developers should get their act together and use this opportunity to build a great app for Vision Pro. Then, when Apple releases a less expensive mass market version developers would have a better app for the mass market. Not a piece of crap put together at the last minute.
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Even a $2K version wouldn’t sell well. It’s uncomfortable and I don’t see any killer app for it being released anytime. It’s also too isolating and could have some negative consequences from a social perspective.
 
Hkfan45 said:
This is why you need a tech visionary in the first seat not a marketing guru.
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Haters just making stuff up gets really old. Cook came from OR and was one of the world's best supply managers, not "a marketing guru."

Not that there is anything wrong with competent marketing gurus.
 
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One day in the next few years, Apple will release a model of Vision Pro that will capture many of you. At that point, so many of you nay-sayers will say "See! Apple finally released the 'right product' and it is a success finally!"

...not realizing that in order to get to that product they had to start with this product.
 
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Timo_Existencia said:
Really? The "real truth?" There's no such thing as a "real truth" about anything.
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That's why it was in quotes. The article makes just as bold a statement. Without quotes, even.

There is absolutely such thing as objective real truth, but this is all opinion we're talking about here.
 
Timo_Existencia said:
Hmmm...makes you think Apple KNEW it wouldn't be a mass market product. Today. Why so many of you keep insisting that it must sell like the original iPhone or else it's a failure is beyond me.
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I can't imagine how anyone would've expected VP to be a "mass market" product early on, or sell like the original iPhone.
 
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dampfnudel said:
Even some early adopters seem to be disappointed in their decision to purchase it.
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Some early adopters were disappointed with their decision to buy an iPhone too, especially after prices were dropped 33% to 40% in less than three months. Apple tried to appease them by offering a $100 gift card.
 
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CarAnalogy said:
That's why it was in quotes. The article makes just as bold a statement. Without quotes, even.

There is absolutely such thing as objective real truth, but this is all opinion we're talking about here.
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Right. So then why did you call it "truth" above?
 
dampfnudel said:
Even a $2K version wouldn’t sell well. It’s uncomfortable and I don’t see any killer app for it being released anytime. It’s also too isolating and could have some negative consequences from a social perspective.
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Y'all need to look beyond the mass consumer market. Some OR surgeons, for instance, use the AVP quite successfully
 
My god, how I had to defend myself when I warned before the release of the AVP that it would not be a mass-market product but only for enthusiasts.
Now, we know that Apple's messaging at the time was somewhat deceptive.
 
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