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Apple’s Vision Pro Is a $3,500 Ticket to Nowhere

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Re: Apple’s Vision Pro Is a $3,500 Ticket to Nowhere

#91

Post by Brendinooo »

chrisco255 wrote: post #85
Brendinooo wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I spent too long tracking down a figure and didn't come up with anything definitive, but > smart phones / camera phones were a valid market feels revisionist. Something like 70% of Americans had a feature phone in 2007 but smartphone market share was probably in the single digits before the iPhone launched. I had a Palm m100 back in the day; PDAs and early smartphones weren't all that great, and it wasn't obvious to…

>> smart phones / camera phones were a valid market > feels revisionist. Not revisionist. I worked in mobile phone retail from 2002-2007. There were popular, successful camera phones and smart phones even then. However, in the early 2000s, the U.S. wireless market was much slower to deploy 3G than Japan and many European markets. There were a number of powerful handsets that couldn't even be practically offered in th…

Okay, you're making a good enough case that the phone was a more proven segment in 2007 than VR is in 2023. I could nitpick some details (most notably that "[t]here were popular, successful camera phones and smart phones even then" would probably have been on a scale similar to what Apple is hoping to accomplish with the Vision launch) but that NBC News article is a great citation.

My interest in this vein of discussion is to make sure people realize just how game-changing the iPhone was; so much of what it accomplished looks obvious and inevitable in hindsight but really was new and magical in that keynote.

Anyways, I think that if the Vision succeeds it'll take a path more like the Watch:

- Expectations were sky high. People talked about how the iPhone cannibalized the iPod and were speculating how a watch might do the same, while noting that the iPhone was one of the most successful products of all time (in terms of revenue) and it was going to be a tough act to follow, particularly as the first big Tim Cook launch.

- There wasn't a super obvious smartwatch market either. Everyone knew that health and fitness was a reason to get a Fitbit or Garmin but they were either specialized for limited use or cheap-looking.

Apple shipped, figured out how people were using it, and iterated. The biggest difference is that their first-gen price was pretty reasonable, so it was easier to buy one impulsively. That won't be the case with Vision.

Re: Apple’s Vision Pro Is a $3,500 Ticket to Nowhere

#92

Post by allenu »

Invictus0 wrote: post #27
Brendinooo wrote: post #3

Commentary feels a bit lazy. Seems to operate on the assumption that it's not different than previous AR/VR offerings in any way. If they can find a million people to watch movies on flights and/or use it as a monitor replacement, and if it works well for those use cases, then Apple will net $3.5B of revenue and have a solid foundation to build on. I don't think the first generation needs to do a whole lot more than…

Is the flight use case real? Are people going to feel comfortable playing sound from an un-enclosed speaker with people sitting an inch away? The battery life is only 2 hours, so any flight longer than New York to Charlotte is going to require you to have multiple batteries or some other entertainment device. 2 hours isn't even long enough to watch movies.

The thing is, people already use their laptops to watch movies... or they use the in-flight entertainment. Why bother strapping on a headset when you have a solution already?

Re: Apple’s Vision Pro Is a $3,500 Ticket to Nowhere

#93

Post by camillomiller »

brk wrote: post #13
camillomiller wrote: post #2

I’ve been in tech and business media for over 15 years. These articles appear, identical and similarly framed, every time Apple launches a product in a new category. They’ve always been rubbish, written mostly by people who haven’t tried the product. This piece pertains exactly to that sub-genre of punditry. Wasted bytes is all.

Your observation is certainly true, but it is also based on the premise that Apple never makes a wrong move, which seems statistically unlikely. I think this could be considered the first major post-Jobs product launch. We are coming up on 13 years since Jobs' death, and what truly major things have Apple released in that time? Mostly we have seen new phones, tablets, computers, and some smaller things like Airpods.…

That wasn’t my point. Apple makes wrong moves like any other company, and I’ve written my share of criticism, but always only after being briefed, or touching first hand. What I was lamenting is the custom of writing long pensive pieces of punditry with absolutely no previous expertise on Apple, not knowing the company well enough to go past the marketing smoke screen, and, above all else, with no direct experience whatsoever of the product you’re criticizing.

Edit: by the way, it’s maybe not a product per se, but the switch to Arm with Apple Silicon is a feat no other company has ever achieved with this degree of complexity and with this degree of success. If I had to pick a move defining the legacy of post-Jobs Apple, the transition is certainly up there.

Re: Apple’s Vision Pro Is a $3,500 Ticket to Nowhere

#94

Post by chrisco255 »

Brendinooo wrote: post #91
chrisco255 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> smart phones / camera phones were a valid market > feels revisionist. Not revisionist. I worked in mobile phone retail from 2002-2007. There were popular, successful camera phones and smart phones even then. However, in the early 2000s, the U.S. wireless market was much slower to deploy 3G than Japan and many European markets. There were a number of powerful handsets that couldn't even be practically offered in th…

Okay, you're making a good enough case that the phone was a more proven segment in 2007 than VR is in 2023. I could nitpick some details (most notably that "[t]here were popular, successful camera phones and smart phones even then" would probably have been on a scale similar to what Apple is hoping to accomplish with the Vision launch) but that NBC News article is a great citation. My interest in this vein of discuss…

Yeah, I will reserve judgment for something like the 3rd edition. Just commenting that yeah, the killer use case is much less obvious.

Re: Apple’s Vision Pro Is a $3,500 Ticket to Nowhere

#95

Post by ghusto »

gls2ro wrote: post #88
ghusto wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who is buying those, and what for? I'm genuinely curious.

I dont know but if you thinking there is no market, the numbers are telling a different story: Apple made 9 billion in revenue in Q1 2023 from iPad. I think that is a lot of market.

I believe you ;) I'm just curious about who it is, and what they buy them for.

I can mostly get my head around the iPad. My guess is that it's people who don't want (to get out / have) a laptop. In fact, this is the device the average person should probably have instead of a laptop.

The Apple Watch though? I can't fathom where these sales are coming from. It's been years, so it's no longer novelty of a new Apple product.

Re: Apple’s Vision Pro Is a $3,500 Ticket to Nowhere

#96

Post by charcircuit »

Brendinooo wrote: post #86
charcircuit wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If they can find a million people to watch movies on flights and/or use it as a monitor replacement A million people who are willing to pay ~12 times more than a Quest 2 and 7 times more than a Quest 3 when those devices also can let you watch movies or use them as a monitor replacement.

This idea assumes that the Vision Pro offers the same experience as those devices. My iPhone can let me watch movies and can be a monitor replacement, but it's bad at those things, so I don't do it. I snooped around a bit online for something along the lines of "VR headset as a monitor replacement" - I'm not seeing any kind of consensus that these devices are up to the job. If Apple's product is, then it's a game cha…

>the Vision Pro offers the same experience as those devices.

It doesn't have to be the same it just has to be good enough that the increased price of the Vision Pro isn't worth it.

>I'm not seeing any kind of consensus that these devices are up to the job.

You are not going to get a consensus even with the Vision Pro. There will be people who find wearing a headset to be inconvenient. I have used Immersed to use a Quest Pro as a screen replacement and I found it fine. Most people who work in VR use either Immersed or Horizon Workrooms from what I've seen and you will be able to find testimonials from proper who successfully use them as screen replacements.

>A little under two-thirds of Americans have one Apple product, how good is the Quest at integrating into that ecosystem?

It depends on what you mean. There is a Quest app that you can use to control your headset, cast your headset to, and sync notifications from your phone to your headset.

>headset weight

The headset weight doesn't sound special.

>refresh rates

90/96 Hz. The Quest Pro is at 90 Hz and the Quest 2 supports up to 120 Hz

>AR concerns

The Quest 3 will be improving the MR capabilities on the Quest side.

>pixelation

Pixelation isn't really a problem in VR. There is SDE which means your optics are too sharp and there is blur which means your optics are too blurry or the displays are too low resolution.

Re: Apple’s Vision Pro Is a $3,500 Ticket to Nowhere

#97

Post by fundad »

CmdrLoskene wrote: post #65
microtonal wrote: post #20

I think it's really too early too tell. If this article turns out to be wrong, we'll deride it and put it in the same bin as Steve Ballmer's iPhone bashing moment (or 'less storage than a Nomad'), if fails we'll laud it for cutting through the hype. Apple has the integration and hardware expertise to have a good shot at this. But only time can tell if people want it if it is good enough, or whether it turns out to be…

Spot on. The question is whether Vision Pro is the next iPhone or the next Newton, and I have no clue.

The Newton was no iPhone but what killed the Newton was Apple killing it. Apple killed it by zeroing out the budget. Vision will be around as long as their’s budget.

Re: Apple’s Vision Pro Is a $3,500 Ticket to Nowhere

#98

Post by kcplate »

ghusto wrote: post #95
gls2ro wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dont know but if you thinking there is no market, the numbers are telling a different story: Apple made 9 billion in revenue in Q1 2023 from iPad. I think that is a lot of market.

I believe you ;) I'm just curious about who it is, and what they buy them for. I can mostly get my head around the iPad. My guess is that it's people who don't want (to get out / have) a laptop. In fact, this is the device the average person should probably have instead of a laptop. The Apple Watch though? I can't fathom where these sales are coming from. It's been years, so it's no longer novelty of a new Apple prod…

I can answer to my own reasoning. I have MacBook, iPad, iPhone, and Apple Watch.

- MacBook is my workhorse for work. When it retire this device will be the first to go. - IPad Pro used for all manner of media and content consumption, mainly personal use and because it’s cellular enabled and portable enough it tends to go with me when I need to do work in a “device light” manner. This device of all would be my favorite piece of tech I have used in a near 40 year career in tech. - IPhone is my phone, main audio player, occasionally used for browsing content consumption in a pinch. - Apple Watch is probably the one I could live without the easiest, but it’s handy for health tracking, paying, and this may sound ridiculous…but the biggest value I get from it is walking up to my MacBook and not having to log in or type in a password.

Re: Apple’s Vision Pro Is a $3,500 Ticket to Nowhere

#99

Post by fomine3 »

danpalmer wrote: post #47
bluescrn wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When did Apple pricing ever trend downwards over time?

The iPod, the iPhone, the Mac... All started with a high priced offering and introduced lower priced options over time, at least accounting for inflation. Individual Apple product lines trend upwards, seemingly faster than inflation although I'm not actually sure that's the case. However they regularly introduce cheaper product lines to open up to new markets.

iPad, iPod, iPhone, etc were affordable for average joe without much hassle if they want to buy. It's not the Vision Pro case.

I think only Macintosh is the case but it's too old days. It was quite expensive but price declined. Newton is another case for expensive but it was dead end.

Re: Apple’s Vision Pro Is a $3,500 Ticket to Nowhere

#100

Post by pzo »

chrisco255 wrote: post #89
pzo wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First iphone didn't have gps, didn't have selfie camera it event didn't have a flashlight, gyroscope or compass. Also only 2g and wifi g Not to mention app store was launched 1 year later. Based on that first generation wasn't that much useful. Mass appeal was maybe starting with 3rd generation. This is just first generation

The first iPhone not only had GPS, it had Google Maps built in. Here's the timestamp of Jobs's 2007 presentation, showing the feature: https://youtu.be/vN4U5FqrOdQ?t=2207 Selfie camera was out by the following year. Flashlight was implemented as an app very early on after app store came out. The original version most definitely had gyroscope and compass. Mass appeal was very much already there when iPhone launched. B…

Check wiki regarding iphone history and specs. Flashlight sensor was added in 3rd generation, gyroscope was in iphone 4 or 3gs - Steve Jobs was showing it off. Selfie camera definitely not yet in second generation. App store was launched with 2nd generation, gps and compass added with second generation. Google maps maybe was in gen 1 but without gps and compass - only for manually browsing maps. First gen iphone camera didnt even record video, or didn't have voice recorder, copy paste didn't work and couldn't send files via Bluetooth as other phones could back then.

My point is many people could see that iphone is gonna be game changer in next year or two but I wasn't that much useful with first generation. In similar way some people also see vision pro will be a game changer in next few years.

Edit: link to wiki iphone spec https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone_(1st_generation)

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