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Apple Vision Pro U.S. Sales Are All but Dead, Market Analysts Say

gizmodo.com

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Re: Apple Vision Pro U.S. Sales Are All but Dead, Market Analysts Say

#91

Post by lagniappe »

dawnerd wrote: post #39
ProfessorLayton wrote: post #23

"...analysts have noted that many who bought one were confused by its more complicated setup and what they were supposed to use it for in their daily lives." There's the root of the problem right there. Apple's best successes had a very clear purpose in mind from the beginning: - iPod: 1,000 songs in your pocket - iPhone: A phone, an internet communicator, an iPod - iPad: Media consumption AVP didn't have a clear pur…

I returned mine. It was amazing, but very uncomfortable like all other VR head units. I spent an entire workday in it. The next day got half way through the day before getting a massive headache. My neck was sore for a week following. Apple store employees said I wasn't the only one. They need to focus on weight, them making it have the glass front+screen and being made of metal was a terrible idea.

>My neck was sore for a week following.

neither here nor there, and I know you didn't ask, but from one tech worker to another, this isn't normal and unless you had some condition before you should be addressing this with exercise.

Re: Apple Vision Pro U.S. Sales Are All but Dead, Market Analysts Say

#92

Post by LordKeren »

gizajob wrote: post #28

I’ve said it before on this forum: Tim Cook needs to go for this.

I’m not sure many influential people at Apple would be looking for Tim Cook to resign over this— especially given that Apple is now sitting at a 3.5 trillion dollar evaluation under his leadership.

Re: Apple Vision Pro U.S. Sales Are All but Dead, Market Analysts Say

#93

Post by anakaine »

zamadatix wrote: post #44
skilled wrote: post #6

The thing costs a bazillion dollars, what did they expect… people to suddenly wear this for day to day tasks? I said it on the day they first announced it, as soon as the media hype was over, no one would ever mention it again. Other than price, not sure what else they could do to make it appealing.

I don't think the price itself is the root problem. I mean don't get me wrong if it were $350 it'd sell a lot more than $3,500 but the point is it still wouldn't sell well anyways so why only ever talk about how it costs a lot. To me the problem with the Vision line is it doesn't give any compelling reason to want it now or in the imminent future, even if it were priced similarly to lower end headsets, to really driv…

When the price is higher than many people's average monthly post tax income, and its not a must have device like a fridge or washing machine, it's definitely a pricing problem.

In 2022 the US median personal income was $47,000. That's pre tax. Consider approximations with averages and marginal tax rates and take out 12% for tax, and you have $3445 per month median personal income.

The apple headset is $3500.

Take out average rent of $1350. Average credit card debt per consumer is just over $6300 in 2024, which seems high, but is also nearly twice monthly post tax income (holy crap). Average car payment for used vehicles is just over $500. I've not discussed food or utilities.

Given the above are for the average consumer, I'm not at all surprised a luxury and discretionary niche item such as the AVP has had next to no sales.

Re: Apple Vision Pro U.S. Sales Are All but Dead, Market Analysts Say

#94

Post by stcredzero »

Sir_Twist wrote: post #35

I wonder whether the behavior Apple has exhibited around their developer relations (especially their EU / notorization related troubles) has had a chilling effect on people's willingness to support a new platform like this. Without the raw number of users that something like the iPhone has, does Apple make it worthwhile to create apps / games for their platforms? I'm not a developer, so maybe there is a more technica…

Or, maybe it isn't Apple-specific; maybe there simply isn't enough users, or VR/AR as a software paradigm is currently too far removed from how companies design their applications, and it is just a matter of time until they adapt. Like I said, I am not a developer, so maybe I'm missing something obvious here.

Long term, here's what I suspect may happen. Robotics+AI is going to eat the lunch of VR. VR is only used when it's not economical to have the actual stuff, but the realm of nifty real world stuff is going to expand tremendously.

This may well result in a societal bifurcation, where the rich have a bunch of robots, and the poor have to settle for VR.

Re: Apple Vision Pro U.S. Sales Are All but Dead, Market Analysts Say

#95

Post by bitwize »

jdmoreira wrote: post #37
ProfessorLayton wrote: post #23

"...analysts have noted that many who bought one were confused by its more complicated setup and what they were supposed to use it for in their daily lives." There's the root of the problem right there. Apple's best successes had a very clear purpose in mind from the beginning: - iPod: 1,000 songs in your pocket - iPhone: A phone, an internet communicator, an iPod - iPad: Media consumption AVP didn't have a clear pur…

Headphones for your eyes. That's the product and its inevitable in some form or another. Its just too early

> Headphones for your eyes.

"I need a SinoLogic 16, Sogo-7 data gloves, a GPL stealth module, one Burdine intelligent translator, and Thomson eyephones."

Re: Apple Vision Pro U.S. Sales Are All but Dead, Market Analysts Say

#96

Post by GeekyBear »

Leaks of Apple's attempts to create a cheaper consumer version of this tech in an eyeglasses form factor go back to around the time of ARKit's release in 2017.

Every time they restart the effort, they eventuslly come to the conclusion that the tech just isn't there yet.

Currently, the short term plan (now that developers have something they can work with) is to produce a lighter/cheaper version of the shipping headset, while they continue long term work on an eyeglasses form factor for the consumer market.

Re: Apple Vision Pro U.S. Sales Are All but Dead, Market Analysts Say

#97

Post by lancesells »

wrsh07 wrote: post #51
ProfessorLayton wrote: post #23

"...analysts have noted that many who bought one were confused by its more complicated setup and what they were supposed to use it for in their daily lives." There's the root of the problem right there. Apple's best successes had a very clear purpose in mind from the beginning: - iPod: 1,000 songs in your pocket - iPhone: A phone, an internet communicator, an iPod - iPad: Media consumption AVP didn't have a clear pur…

I'm not sure that's right. Apple launched the watch thinking "apps like iphone" A few versions in, they settled on "watches are for health and fitness" Ben Thompson discusses the AVP as an immersive iPad, and that's kind of the problem. It's too locked down to be my productivity device (something that could justifiably command a premium price), and my entertainment budget isn't that high for one person (I already hav…

And a TV can be viewed by other people at the same time. And you can get up and answer the door, or use the bathroom, or watch it out of the corner of your eye while you cook dinner.

Even watching the VR sports that they are trying to make happen, you'll be doing that alone. For a lot of people watching sports is a communal experience and you'll never get that with the Vision Pro.

Re: Apple Vision Pro U.S. Sales Are All but Dead, Market Analysts Say

#98

Post by lylejantzi3rd »

haunter wrote: post #41
Sir_Twist wrote: post #35

I wonder whether the behavior Apple has exhibited around their developer relations (especially their EU / notorization related troubles) has had a chilling effect on people's willingness to support a new platform like this. Without the raw number of users that something like the iPhone has, does Apple make it worthwhile to create apps / games for their platforms? I'm not a developer, so maybe there is a more technica…

>maybe I'm missing something obvious here. It's an expensive gadget for a niche [0] market. $3500 is an incredibly high price for what it is. 0, https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/ 1.75% of Steam users have a VR headset as of June this year which is lower than the people who are using Linux for gaming (2.08%). So you can see how small the VR market is. And the top alternatives are $500 (Quest 3) and $1000 (Valve…

> It's an expensive gadget for a niche [0] market

With an interesting chicken and egg problem. There aren't enough users to justify making content for it and nobody wants to buy it because there isn't enough content.

Pretty much all of the VR headsets have this problem. So did the Amazon Echo devices.

Re: Apple Vision Pro U.S. Sales Are All but Dead, Market Analysts Say

#99

Post by crooked-v »

Jack000 wrote: post #83

It's heavy and the extra encumbrance is not great for general purpose computing, though I never felt the need for extra screen real estate while I'm coding, watching youtube, sending emails etc. That said I still use my AVP regularly, it's a great home theater system for 4k HDR content that's portable for travel. I've owned other headsets like the valve index but the novelty of 3d gaming wore off pretty quickly.

VR gaming is in a weird state because a lot of devs still haven't gotten over the hill of trying to design everything almost exactly the same as PC games despite the fundamentally different paradigm.

For an example of what I mean, compare a game that actually embraces the medium like Gorilla Tag to the endless numbers of "PC FPS, but in VR with nausea-inducing stick movement" shooter games that don't.

Re: Apple Vision Pro U.S. Sales Are All but Dead, Market Analysts Say

#100

Post by ericmay »

stephc_int13 wrote: post #29

I remember having conversations here on HN about how the launch of this device would change everything in the field, because only Apple knows the magic sauce, and they always win, or something along those lines. Well, I think they confused Apple with Steve Jobs, yes Jobs had almost a Midas touch regarding product design, especially when given the time to reflect on competition mistakes, and people forget that he also…

> Tim Cook is a different character, his special ability is his uncanny focus on squeezing the supply chain and keeping the money printer churning.

Apple Watch, AirPods, Apple Silicon… plenty of great products and services have come out under Cook’s time as CEO.

In my lifetime it has been exceedingly rare for Apple to launch a failing product. The company tends to be pretty conservative in what new features and products it launches to protect the brand equity. It’s not impossible, but I would be hesitant to consider Apple Vision Pro and their AR/VR efforts to be a failure unless you are negative on the entire AR/VR industry and future applications.

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