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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

#191

Post by nox101 »

My feeling is, if most of Apple's employees are almost all not using the thing then it's a failure. I suspect 98% of all Apple employees use a iPhone, a Mac, and probably an iPad, and an Apple TV. I bet To take that further, one dream of AR (and maybe VR too) is it's supposed to make you more productive. Maybe it's having 2, 3, 6 screens instead of one. Maybe it's 3d manipulation instead of mouse, touch. Maybe it's 2 hands instead of a finger. Maybe it's no computer needed because virtual displays.

If a device actually made you more productive then Apple would buy every employee that device. It would be stupid not too. Clearly the Vision Pro is not that device.

I'm pretty confident Meta has the same issue. They pushed using Quest for meetings, for productivity, and now their new commercials are pushing it for better instruction. But, I'm pretty confident, none of their employees use it for those purposes and if they don't, why would anyone else?

The Quest at least as a bunch of games, some of which are worth the experience I know several of their employees that play those games so that's the one thing they are actually using the device for themselves.

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

#192

Post by lolinder »

adastra22 wrote: post #115
lagniappe wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

How old are you? Once you get of a certain age, doing anything new or different to your body leaves it aching for a week. You’re right that you address it with exercise though.

Where "a certain age" is no later than 30. Peaking physically at 25 is no exaggeration.

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

#193

Post by zamadatix »

bhj wrote: post #163
zamadatix wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Apple's made no such announcement

They're plenty of reports they announced that change to hardware partners. I wouldn't hold my breath for a press release if that's what you're referring to though.

> and the presence of the "Pro" moniker implies that a non-Pro version has always been planned.

What's this to do with the price of tea in China? Apple halted work on the next Pro version to work on the lower cost version. This doesn't say Apple just now invented the idea of releasing a non-pro version. It does say Apple has realized the initial market tier they were developing for was the wrong one to start with and they need to stop any more work on that tier for now to instead work on getting said lower tier model to market next.

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

#194

Post by zamadatix »

SkyPuncher wrote: post #159
zamadatix wrote: post #44

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…

I think the price is a massive problem. I have the Xreal Airs. They run $300 for a 1080p screen. Apples screen is much better, but not 10x better. Apple really needed to come in the $1k price range for this to be viable.

One could say the same thing about TVs where in 2023 the average price was $400. While the screen on a $4,000 TV is not "10x better" any more than the screen on the Vision Pro is "10x better" manufacturers don't have any trouble at pushing 100k units of TVs in the latter price range because whether the screen is 10x better isn't the whole story on premium purchases.

Again I'm not saying the high price was the optimal value, I'm saying the high price is far from the whole story on why the device didn't sell well and that a downmarket version still would not have sold well, even compared to existing peers in the lower cost space.

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

#195

Post by wrsh07 »

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'm not sure you're wrong about "apple watch as fashion" (my gut is to disagree), but it's worth noting that apple greatly increased the size of the watch market.

That is to say: while they converted some existing watch wearers, they greatly expanded the market.

What I'm not certain of is "why". Fitness is an easy answer (that's something an apple watch does and my Seiko doesn't), but fashion is also a reasonable answer (apple is a premium brand)

I think the true answer might be "defaults are powerful"

Airpods are generally not the best sound quality you can buy, but they're well-integrated with the apple ecosystem. You can assume they'll just work. I would be surprised if they are a fashion piece, but I suspect their dominance looks similar to apple watch dominance

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

#196

Post by karmakaze »

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.

Not all VR head units. Check out the Bigscreen Beyond.

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

#197

Post by adastra22 »

crazygringo wrote: post #160
adastra22 wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't actually because my laptop screen is sufficient :) I could see what you say being true if I was young, single, and lived alone. I have a wife and kids though and explicitly don't want to be isolated from that.

I think we're talking about two different things. Sure you don't want to be isolated from your family while you're checking e-mails or watching a movie together. That goes without saying. But most people I know with a partner and kids lock themselves in an office anyways while they're doing serious work in order not to be constantly distracted. If they are lucky enough to have a dedicated office at home. And there's…

We're really not talking about separate things. I have a home office, but I keep the door open and have moments of interaction throughout the day.

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

#198

Post by elabajaba »

wkat4242 wrote: post #165
lurking_swe wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

VR needs a more powerful CPU and GPU than a MacBook Pro needs if you're trying to break into the VR gaming market (not saying you need a faster CPU than an M3, but VR is extremely demanding and will use all the CPU and GPU you can throw at it to maintain 90+fps with multiview rendering), especially since Apple keeps pushing Metal and not supporting Vulkan. (Metal tends to have higher CPU overhead vs Vulkan, and means you have to add an additional rendering backend for existing VR games)

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

#199

Post by ocodo »

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…

> just an astronomical ~~difference~~ waste of money.

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

#200

Post by TulliusCicero »

elabajaba wrote: post #198
wkat4242 wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

VR needs a more powerful CPU and GPU than a MacBook Pro needs if you're trying to break into the VR gaming market (not saying you need a faster CPU than an M3, but VR is extremely demanding and will use all the CPU and GPU you can throw at it to maintain 90+fps with multiview rendering), especially since Apple keeps pushing Metal and not supporting Vulkan. (Metal tends to have higher CPU overhead vs Vulkan, and means…

> VR needs a more powerful CPU and GPU than a MacBook Pro needs if you're trying to break into the VR gaming market

No, it doesn't. The Quest series has done well for itself with boosted smartphone chips.

Surely, that means simpler graphics, but the graphics aren't really the thing holding VR back right now. Ease of use, comfort, weight, eye strain, motion sickness, physical feedback, these are all bigger issues imo. (Though I'll admit that larger FoV would help, and that's tied to graphical power)

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