Apple Vision Pro U.S. Sales Are All but Dead, Market Analysts Say • Hacker News Board

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

#161

Post by secstate » Thu, Jul 11, 2024, 9:19 PM UTC

taeric wrote: post #151

crazygringo wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yes, I think it has some good uses for health/fitness. I can't bring myself to think it is the driver for people buying it. I think you're just mistaken, then. Health and fitness absolutely is the driver. They tried to market it as a fashion purchase in v1, and then gave up on that. It can still be fun with different straps, but I don't know of anyone who considers it a fashion purchase.

I'm comfortable disagreeing here. Watches are, by and large, a fashion piece. Even without getting custom bands. To the point that it is not at all uncommon for people to have a watch on that is dead. Happy to see data proving otherwise. I'm also more than willing to believe a lot of people will use some of the asserted benefits as a reason to justify getting the fashion item. But even the enthusiasts I know that get…

I think you're exactly right here. It's not that people don't think of it as a health device, and that probably helps sales via justification. But most people I know who have it, when asked, have no F-ing clue what about their health they're tracking.

And yeah, if you do care that much (amateur or pro athlete training) there's no way the A-watch is the primary device for you. Garmin is the king of the hill in that market.

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

#162

Post by JeremyNT » Thu, Jul 11, 2024, 9:22 PM UTC

anakaine wrote: post #77

walterbell wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apple is probably going to have to light a gigantic stack of cash on fire to try to course correct this. Or they’ll cut their losses and write it off entirely Much cheaper: ship a bug that allows OS jailbreak to run VMs. See what unshackled creators develop. Add official interfaces to support those use cases. Rinse & repeat.

There's still the cost of hardware problem. With so few sales it's unlikely that even this functionality would tip the scale.

Yeah, there's a recurring meme that all VR/AR needs is some "killer app" to show up and suddenly break through to the mass market.

The device is simply far too expensive. No software is going to meaningfully change the value proposition relative to its competitors.

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

#163

Post by bhj » Thu, Jul 11, 2024, 9:23 PM UTC

zamadatix wrote: post #138

schmidtleonard wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It's a dev kit for those willing to spend on early access to Apple's AR/VR ecosystem" was always the sane take, it was really weird watching so many people convince themselves that it was a mass-market product and then convince themselves that the failure of a mass-market audience to materialize was some kind of a disaster. I have no visibility inside Apple so I don't know if they drank their own kool-aid on this on…

Apple has no problems clearly announcing dev kits as dev kits, just look at the Developer Transition Kit hardware they released for the PowerPC->Intel and Intel->Apple Silicon transitions. These kinds of things are not only clearly labeled as dev kits they have required paying to join dedicated dev kit programs which expressly forbid getting the (loaned, not bought) device for non-porting or non-development related w…

> how Apple announcing they've cancelled the next Vision Pro to work on a lower cost version is squared up

Apple's made no such announcement, and the presence of the "Pro" moniker implies that a non-Pro version has always been planned.

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

#164

Post by wkat4242 » Thu, Jul 11, 2024, 9:26 PM UTC

> The true test for Apple’s spatial dreams may rest on the rumored (slightly) cheaper headset.

They're gonna have to do a lot better than "slightly" there. At least to make it a success in more than just the US.

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

#165

Post by wkat4242 » Thu, Jul 11, 2024, 9:27 PM UTC

lurking_swe wrote: post #106

autoexecbat wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd happily buy one for $500, but $3500 is way too much

considering it has a CPU that is as powerful as the MacBook Pro, I find your target price extremely optimistic. hopefully once the display tech becomes cheaper, the overall price will come down quite a bit. But $500? unrealistic expectations IMO. Maybe in 10 years.

Does it really need a CPU as powerful as a MacBook Pro though, I wonder. It certainly doesn't offer the same capabilities as one.

This looks like one of the primary targets to start cutting.

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

#166

Post by wkat4242 » Thu, Jul 11, 2024, 9:29 PM UTC

bastien2 wrote: post #59

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…

It's more that VR/AR is a high-cost solution still in search of a problem that makes it profitable. So far the only market for VR is niche entertainment. VRC is fun, but VR games have been arounds for decades and never gotten past novelty. AR has value as an accessibility tool because it can get around the high cost of some infrastructure changes. But like all accessibility tools, profit-focused eyeballs see it as a…

> So far the only market for VR is niche entertainment.

That's not true. VR also thrives in corporate. Niches, yes. But it does do well there. Training and simulation scenarios in particular. There's some tools like uptale and arthur that capitalise on this.

And VR games are really really good and add a lot of immersion. I don't like to game without it anymore.

I don't think VR is for everything and everyone but there certainly are usecases for it.

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

#167

Post by wkat4242 » Thu, Jul 11, 2024, 9:30 PM UTC

adastra22 wrote: post #124

crazygringo wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have lower back pain from sitting in a chair with bad posture for decades, it's a godsend. When you're "in the zone" programming on a screen or writing a book or editing a movie, it's not like you're particularly aware of your environment anyways. And like I said -- not building up the lower back problems that will haunt you later in life.

I already work reclined. But not strapped into goggles that isolate me from my environment and the people around me.

When I'm in the office, isolating me from the people around me is a feature, not a bug. Especially since this hotdesking/flexworking crap when I sit beside randos from other departments I have nothing to do with.

In fact the only reason I still come there is because sometimes I have to. Not because I want to or because it adds any kind of value.

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

#168

Post by SapporoChris » Thu, Jul 11, 2024, 9:36 PM UTC

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…

https://backlinko.com/steam-users 132 million active subscribers. So perhaps 2.3 million VR sets on steam. Any VR producer capturing 10% of the market has 230k VR sets sold. Doesn't seem like that small of a market.

But I completely agree, the high price for a VR set without good support is absurd.

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

#169

Post by schaefer » Thu, Jul 11, 2024, 9:39 PM UTC

I fancy myself a "VR for productivity" enthusiast. I own a PCVR setup, an Areo by Varjo[1]. And I do not use it. My cost out the door was higher than the cost of the Vision Pro and I learned some very painful lessons:

1) For VR productivity, I need my desktop application windows to run native in a VR 3d window manager. So far, all I've found are variations on the following: you get to remote into your existing desktop window manager which is projected as a 2d plane into your 3d space. This is practically useless. To actually use VR for productivity... I need to have my task windows not be co-planer.

2) Last time I checked up on this, practically no one [2] is working on this, I have stopped even watching the VR space. The hardware is here, but no one is making the software I want.

3) Vision Pro (as I understand it) is not a productivity VR headset. It's an ipad on your face that can remote into your desktop - but not in a way that integrates into the 3d window manager.

[1]: https://varjo.com/products/aero/

[2]: Okay, techincally SimulaVR is working on a native 3d window manager, but they opened preorders years ago and still don't have a ship date.

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

#170

Post by foldr » Thu, Jul 11, 2024, 9:46 PM UTC

lagniappe wrote: post #91

dawnerd wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Seems pretty normal after spending an entire day with a weight attached to your head? Your neck muscles obviously won’t be adapted to the additional load.