Judging by what a lot of people are saying, people don't understand cost at large scale or the fact that tech overall just lowers in price rapidly and quickly.
Actually people do. What you say is broadly true... but it doesn't tend to apply at Apple. Apple's game is to keep prices about the same or raise them over many generations while the underlying technology improves. Example: I purchased a Powerbook G4 Laptop about 2X years ago for about the same price as a comparable MBpro is today. The guts of that MBpro is substantially better than that PBG4 but out of pocket price is the same.
We could spin off into a conversation about inflation & such and then argue that today's MB is cheaper by applying inflation to that PBG4 but me in 200X vs. me in 2024 is still seeing about the SAME come out of a wallet for about the SAME relative product: a great laptop computer from Apple.
Yes, the tech guts in Vpro will likely decay in costs to Apple... but Apple has little record of bringing pricing down as that happens. Instead, relatively OLD Apple stuff tends to still have the same price as launch day- Apple just pockets the savings. That's one great way to become the richest company in the world.
People saying they will strip out the whole experience lol really? And waiting more than 2 years to update them?
Stripping out more expensive guts- particularly the 4K lenses- is the obvious path to significantly cheaper. One of the biggest differences between Vpro and various competitors slung around that are so much cheaper is perhaps this most important part: resolution. If Apple steps down to their resolution levels, cost of that part will be more like the cost those competitors pay- maybe less for Apple since they can buy in bigger volume... but then complicated by Apple demanding highest margin in the industry.
Yes, you are right, Sony and others could ramp up production of those lenses so that Apple would pay less for them and then would have the option of passing through that savings to consumers. But see "since Apple will no longer be paying the Intel premium, that can lead to cheaper Macs." You offer a few examples of Apple rolling out cheaper pricing in subsequent generations. Now put on the
other hat and see if you could make the case the
other way... as there are
plenty of examples of subsequent generations RISING in price. Were your examples oddballs or is Apple significantly price-cutting more typical? Did you fine 3 examples against maybe 30 or 60 that went the other way?
Note also that Apples long-term target margin was a dazzling 37%-40%. Now it's up around 47%. How did it fatten up even during the great Covid downturn. Cost savings stayed with Apple WHILE pricing persisted or rose. Basically, Apple had it's cake and ate it too. It doesn't seem like it will be long before margin is at 50%! FIFTY!
I am confident that a Vision product will come out at the $2k or less price point within 2 years (or specifically within the year of 2026) that doesn't compromise on the main experience of the AVP1, as the AVP1 must be the lowest common denominator going forward, maybe the screen tech is slightly worse, build quality cheap out somewhere, etc, but even at $2k it is an incredibly expensive product. That is of course if the Vision Pro is very successful. So save this thread, I'm sticking with $2k or less (dependent on if the product does well or not).
I agree. I suspect the path to Vpro Jr. at $2K sacrifices key tech like 4K per eye, some of the cameras or camera quality, EyeSight, etc. And then like the cheapest iPhone vs. the Pro MAX one, the crowd interested in this will want the "good" one... with the
latest technologies, instead of the cheap one with "old" and "gimped" technology.
If it ends up just kind of fizzing out, has no developer interest (it needs developers to survive and at $3500 it can't survive for over 2 years) then I'll say never mind to the idea but if history is any indicator it will get steep reductions in price of entry.
What history had "steep" reductions in price of Apple computing tech? You offered 3 examples that I wouldn't consider steep. What your talking about here is having "steep" measured at a reduction of 43% or more. Only that iPad example barely fit that much of a drop.
Your other examples of 20%-25%? I could see that. I could foresee a non-pro branded version with some fairly meaningful tech & build cuts, some near essential stuff sold separately and maybe leaning on the cell phone subsidy (with 2 year contract requirement) helping Apple be able to show a price of maybe around $2499.
To get on down to sub $2K- which I fully agree with you would be conceptually great for driving more uptake- it seems it would need all of the same plus even bigger cuts to the hardware and thus experience... OR this model needs to get a generation or two old and maybe the last of its inventory is blown out through other channels for as little as that. But, by then, it's basically the iPhone 12 or 13 proposition vs. iPhone 15 being "latest & greatest."
I like ALL of your thinking. We all want basically THIS exact model for about half off pricing or more. But that's the same with iPhone pricing as high as $1600 when smart phones from others can be had for $200... or MBs at north of $4K with chrome books can be had for < $200 and iPad at north of $1200 while Fire tablets can be had for $100. I want all of Apple's best stuff for 43% or greater off current pricing. Now how do we get Apple to accommodate that?
I just don't see Apple being able to do it as appealing as you hope. Something would likely have to give: either your targets like price compromising UP towards existing pricing or Apple making very significant cuts to the thing to get down that low... or Apple waiving up to all of their margin to basically give them away for at or very near cost.
