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Apple plans a slow, appointment-only rollout of Vision Pro

bloomberg.com

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Re: Apple plans a slow, appointment-only rollout of Vision Pro

#171

Post by smoldesu »

giantrobot wrote: post #157
smoldesu wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meta has neither of those things and still managed to sell 15-20 million Quest units. If Apple is projecting less than a million units sold this year, they're going to have a hard time catching up to Meta's install-base, let alone their MAU count.

RIM and Palm sold 15-20 million units this year. If Apple is only projecting selling a million iPhones they're going to have a hard time catching up to Palm and RIM's install base.

Yep. You left out the part where Palm ate Apple's lunch for 15 years, to the point that Apple was forced to abandon the Newton platform in order to compete. Spot-on recounting otherwise though.

Re: Apple plans a slow, appointment-only rollout of Vision Pro

#172

Post by WheatMillington »

giobox wrote: post #21
goosedragons wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Conversely the fact that you need special fit lenses and a store appointment means its going to be hard to test out and hard to buy. You're probably not going to be able to wander past the Apple store in the mall and take a quick peek in and play with the Vision Pro like you can with their other products like the iPad. Nor will testing your friend's necessarily be a good experience. Plus even in the U.S Apple Store's…

> Plus even in the U.S Apple Store's aren't that common There are 270+ Apple stores in the US, I don't have the figures to hand but an overwhelming percentage of the country's actual population live within an hour of an Apple store. They are common, frankly. I'm not defending the decision to require a store visit here, but lets not paint a picture of Apple store availability that doesn't exist. The number of people w…

My nearest apple store is 3 hours away.

Re: Apple plans a slow, appointment-only rollout of Vision Pro

#173

Post by evandale »

WastingMyTime89 wrote: post #153
user_named wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, they didn't

They absolutely did. Smartwatches were mostly seen as tacky before the Apple Watch. That’s part of why they chose a different form factor and partnered with luxury brands for bracelet. For Apple to make wearing them seems normal was not a given at all.

The Moto 360 was out before the Apple watch. I know that for a fact because I got one on the release date. They were pretty hard to find when they came out.

Apple was late to the game with smartwatches and didn't do a single thing to convince people to wear them.

Re: Apple plans a slow, appointment-only rollout of Vision Pro

#174

Post by nocontextpls »

drewg123 wrote: post #136

This product has opened my eyes to "AR" glasses in general, but I think its way overkill for what I want to do.. My use case is being able to code with a giant screen anywhere (plane, hotel room, etc). I just want a few giant editor windows and terminals open. I don't care about gaming, AR gimmicks, etc. From what I understand, there are a number of sub $500 options. (xreal air, rokud air, TCL NXTWEAR, etc). However…

[dead]

Re: Apple plans a slow, appointment-only rollout of Vision Pro

#175

Post by BoppreH »

I'm very confused by Apple's strategy. As an owner of the original HTC Vive headset, its word-of-mouth power was off the charts. It was a blast at parties, and many of my friends bought their own $700+ devices after trying it.

Here's what won them over:

- Being able to try it themselves with little preparation ("put this on your head, tighten it here, and click these buttons on the controller"). You could even use it over glasses.

- Games that you play by grabbing things with your hands. The heavy hitters are Beat Saber and Half-Life: Alyx, but Climbey and UltraWings also got fans, and all the combat games where you punch cartoons or reload guns realistically.

(seriously, if you've never tried, the jump from mouse+keyboard to hand tracking is like going from arrow keys to mouse+keyboard)

Meanwhile, here's what Apple seems to be doing:

- Customized accessories, to the point that you need a face-scan and to send them your glasses prescriptions.

- Eyetracking and gesture-only interactions. I haven't seen a single demo where somebody picks a virtual object up.

How is that going to work? Do they expect to make up for all the lost word-of-mouth with marketing campaigns? Also, did they give up on VR games?

Re: Apple plans a slow, appointment-only rollout of Vision Pro

#176

Post by justinhj »

hospitalJail wrote: post #150

Maybe this is cynical, but my marketing class taught us to look at everything Apple does under the view of the best marketers in the world. The marketers told them to go for the 'exclusive club' vibe by doing in-store appointments. Wonder if there is some messaging by the Apple leader at the appointment that explains how this is cool, exclusive, luxury. Reinforcing the purchase decision. Need to make the barrier to e…

I think this is true. I'm sure there are practical reasons for a slow rollout, but this kind of exclusive rollout to flagship US stores will lead to a lot of coverage of people lining up get the device. It will generate worldwide demand for a product that many probably don't even know what they will do with it.

Very reminiscent of the rollout of Facebook which had an exclusive, Ivy league only presence, that eventually expanded out to everyone and their grandparents.

Another thing I just noticed in this release is how the device looks like ski goggles; an item already associated with 'coolness' and extreme sports but also wealth and exclusivity.

Re: Apple plans a slow, appointment-only rollout of Vision Pro

#177

Post by NikolaNovak »

drewg123 wrote: post #158
hordehamhill wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what about this product opened your eyes that the previous 15 years of VR/AR did not? Just Apple's marketing power? Or is there something specific about this device that made it click for you?

I had always looked at things like Oculus as a "gaming" accessory. And I demoed Google Glass about 10 years ago, and it didn't present a virtual screen. When seeing the Apple goggles, it clicked for me that this was basically a mac environment, and I started thinking how amazing it would be to run terminals in it, then I started googling for any options that were available now..

Fair but I think that's more about you being one of today's lucky 10,000 [1], than anything to do with Apple or Vision Pro :)

1 : https://xkcd.com/1053/

Re: Apple plans a slow, appointment-only rollout of Vision Pro

#178

Post by bee_rider »

scarface_74 wrote: post #126
bee_rider wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it is just a weird coincidence, but in this thread price and share-ability seem to be negatively correlated. Consoles, AppleTV, and iPads are at the lower end of the price range here, right? (Well, you can get an expensive iPad of course). Laptop are expensive but personal, phones… definitely personal, tend to be a little more expensive maybe? I dunno, it isn’t a straight line correlation but I don’t think th…

I agree. I’m much more likely to allow someone to borrow a $329 low end iPad than my $1300 iPhone 12 Pro Max.

Your comment is greyed out as if it was downvoted a bit, which seems quite bizarre to me.

I think we’re pretty clearly talking about a small number of contrary data points, here? I’m not trying to prove a general trend at least, just point out that we should at least double check the assumption that expensive implies shared.

If someone is really invested in that idea I’d love to see an argument for it, rather than silent downvotes.

Re: Apple plans a slow, appointment-only rollout of Vision Pro

#179

Post by post-it »

BoppreH wrote: post #175

I'm very confused by Apple's strategy. As an owner of the original HTC Vive headset, its word-of-mouth power was off the charts. It was a blast at parties, and many of my friends bought their own $700+ devices after trying it. Here's what won them over: - Being able to try it themselves with little preparation ("put this on your head, tighten it here, and click these buttons on the controller"). You could even use it…

They're going for the same approach they always do. You don't need word-of-mouth if you have every product placement slot.

People won't get hyped on the Vision Pro by their best friend, they'll get hyped on it by their favourite YouTuber.

Re: Apple plans a slow, appointment-only rollout of Vision Pro

#180

Post by bstar77 »

BoppreH wrote: post #175

I'm very confused by Apple's strategy. As an owner of the original HTC Vive headset, its word-of-mouth power was off the charts. It was a blast at parties, and many of my friends bought their own $700+ devices after trying it. Here's what won them over: - Being able to try it themselves with little preparation ("put this on your head, tighten it here, and click these buttons on the controller"). You could even use it…

Apple probably wants to tap into the "Apple Watch Edition" crowd that will spend absurd money for the exclusivity and not complain much.
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