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

gizmodo.com

141–150 of 223 posts

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

#141
This is really not a shock. If you wanted one, you bought one already. But the number of people who wanted one is fairly minimal: Super early adopters, those with more money than sense, and developers.

It's too expensive for the every-person to buy, too early for even most early adopters, has very little practical uses so far. And those who know, know this device is effectively a devkit in retail clothing.

The first iPhone sucked. The first Apple watch wasn't great (and quickly lost support). The first iPod was probably one of the better "firsts" because it was better than what was out there, same with the iPad. But it generally takes even Apple a couple generations before their products really get going. Just wait till the AVP2 or 3.

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

#143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The entire VR market, including budget headsets, sold somewhere near 8 million units globally last year. In the US alone over 15 million new vehicles were sold at an average price greater than the personal income you quoted. Individual luxury car models even sold more than 100k units in the same timespan. One can get a good new vehicle for significantly less than $47,000 so there are clearly tens of millions of Americans willing to pay thousands of dollars for more premium products.

The problem isn't that the price of this particular VR headset was too high for average people to hope to afford it's that there is no compelling reasons for average people to buy VR headsets like this in the first place. Particularly when that company is just entering the market. Put another way: Even if a person were given a Vision Pro for free at launch I doubt they would have spent 100 hours in it by now. Is that not at least worth mentioning instead of just deferring to price when talking about why nobody wants it?

And, again, if the headset were targeted towards the budget market there is still no reason to expect it would have sold particularly well. E.g. there is a cheaper (~$550) but similar headset from an already established VR company with a lot more compelling a marketplace/ecosystem for an already existing line of products. They're (Meta, Quest 3) in the same ballpark with total revenue and less than a million units on their latest headset in a similar time period despite all these advantages and having the "right" price.

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

#146
It’s important to note that predicted numbers for the whole year are limited to The report says they will sell under 500K units in the year, which matches that.

It also says they’ve sold around 100K units within this most recent quarter . Which if you divide by the number of months since its launch, is also completely inline with the linear projection of the number of units that could have been manufactured for that period.

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

#147
post #22

The hype on VR dying so fast does not bode well for gen AI. Unfortunately, C-suite brass will continue to insist that everyone, deep down, wants it. If they don't think they want it, it's only because they haven't had it shoved in their face nearly enough.

How are VR and gen AI related?

They're not particularly related technologically, but they share the characteristic of reaching insane valuations because of whizz-bang sci-fi coolness and neophilia being mistaken for actual utility. The tech industry has been through a few of these.

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

#148
post #10

What if Zuck made the Meta Quest Pro as a psy-op to get Apple to make a pro headset and waste resources, simply to get back at them for clamping down on user tracking?

There could be an insurance angle. IF VR took off, Apple wanted something to point to. Welcome to the age of trillion dollar companies peacocking each other.

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

#149
post #36
post #18

no developer wants to waste their time developing apps for a product that nobody other than the .001% will ever use

Someone should make an app that flashes “I AM RICH” on the front screen and plays a klaxxon as you walk around Dubai with your Vision Pro.

The APIs are extremely limiting. You can't do interesting things like draw to the external display.

Things like reading QR codes or accessing the camera feed are "enterprise" features that require Apple's permission to even access.

The docs also suck and too much information is only available in WWDC videos

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

#150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt developer relations have anything to do with this at all. There's no users, no plan to scale to lots of users, and therefore no developers. It might be partially because of the size of the VR/AR market, but Apple's approach with Vision Pro was never to try to capture all of it. It seemed mostly to gain experience in manufacturing and start to see if anything actually materialized. In many ways it's a very ant…

> It might be partially because of the size of the VR/AR market, but Apple's approach with Vision Pro was never to try to capture all of it. It seemed mostly to gain experience in manufacturing and start to see if anything actually materialized. Did they say this, because otherwise I'm calling ... you know what. This is a failed product by Apple.

The price was $3500. With pretty much zero killer applications.

I do agree that it's a failed product, but I also don't think they had any plan for "success" with it.

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