Apple Ramps Up Vision Pro Production, Aiming for Launch by February

I really can’t unsee the ski goggle look lol

Honestly, ngl it's kinda an improvement over current VR headsets. Tbh I think it's pretty cool because iirc it does a bunch of stuff that other current VR headsets don't do yet, it just sucks that it's so expensive. Maybe the next version will be cheaper though.
- Oh, agreed. Most headsets are obnoxiously large and bulky. It just looks so much like Oakley ski goggles, as a former ski instructor, it's kind of jarring haha.
Eh ski goggles are cool. A lot better than the competition's VR look!
Scuba Steve!

Something Apple totally missed with this was the gaming industry. If Apple had put more effort years back to make Mac Gaming a thing, they could have easily reeled in VR ports of so many cool games. Even with their current catalogue of games, it's meagre compared to what Windows has.

This is changing quickly.

Exactly how many people do they think are going to fork out 4 grand for one of these things? Don’t get me wrong, I really want one. But like hell paying that much for it. I’m gonna wait a while until the price comes down.

The first iPhone was unreasonably expensive for really not much usability. Edge network only. No webapps designed yet. No app store. Not even a compass.

The first one of these will be like that, then if it catches on at all there will be a "worse" model that doesn't have as nice of a casing but is more usable and maybe comes with some sort of phone plan or something. I'm hoping this actually does catch on because VR is already so cool, but is waiting for that "connection" with others to happen.

For an example, the best connection experience I have had in VR was the zero gravity sports game Echo Arena, specifically in the lobby. They did such a good job with the 3d sound it actually felt like there was someone above me talking. But since there is no eye tracking, eye contact cannot be a thing. If they nail that though, work meetings in a virtual environment COULD be a thing. Spending time with family from hundreds of miles away COULD possibly work okay. Not as good as in person but a reasonable substitute.

But they have to nail it. Right now that one or two experiences is the best I have had. The rest just felt like halo on the Xbox 360 over Live. Cool, but not like they were sitting in the room with me.
- I had the original iPhone. it was $500, which is about what I paid for my original Razr ($400), but it did 1000x more. only in retrospect was it clunky and awkward to use— at the time, it was like magic! Everything else at the tie was far, far inferior. it did far more than anything else in it day than most people had ever seen, and it was so much easier to use. and, as far as functionality, that came quickly later. also, the edge network was just about as good as anything else, as not that many people even had access to 3G yet. but even $500 isn’t $4,000. that’s a huge leap and not really a solid comparison considering that the Vision Pro isn’t really a mobile device at all— it’s a VR Mac with a full-on M2 chip and an R1 co-processor for all the VR stuff.
  
  But, even considering the high-end optics and so on, it should only cost about $2k-$2,500 before offering processor and memory upgrades based on the pricing of their other Macs.
  
  edit: for $4k, it should have an M3 Pro, 64GB of RAM and 2TB of storage.
It’s expensive (and too expensive for me), but if you put it next to a MacBook Pro with a few upgrades it’s the same price and those get bought without thinking about it.

To become more mainstream it definitely has to be cheaper, but there’s something bothering me about how all the other prices are acceptable.

MacBooks are more of a working device and the upgrades are optional, the starting price is cheaper, I know. Still, these price points aren’t unheard of for Apple.
They were selling $999 monitor stands. Apple customer are easily milked.

Apple is alot of things I don't like, but stupid (from a profit/business standpoint) isn't one. Apple sell alot of products that I think are hot garbage and would be embarrassed to own, but they're not for me as a consumer, and they tend to sell a bazillion of whatever it is and make a ton of money.

Even trying to put my biases aside though, I cannot fathom what their gameplan with this is though. Even if it was a good deal and great product, a pretty huge proportion of VR headset purchasers are PC gamers, and that generally isn't a demographic that is Apple leaning. So the buyer for this is a person who uses VR regularly (probably a PC gamer), but also someone who is Apple leaning enough to get this vs. an Index or Vive, who also is willing to pay an A.B.S.U.R.D price premium for it (it is pretty impressive hardware to be fair, but not 3-4 times the cost impressive).

My guess is that they're intentionally taking a loss on this, putting it out as a halo product that gets talked about a ton (that's already happening because of the price, like they did with the mac pro wheels), and generally get a ton of attention on this without selling many (but just enough to get user data and hardware information to iterate on) and THEN in a suitable amount of time they'll release one that will genuinely be competitive, at a big price drop, and sell a ton.

I think you got the target audience wrong, this isn’t a PC gaming headset. It doesn’t even have or support VR controllers.

This is more of an iPad replacement, second screen, productivity and consumption device. And it’s going to be the first one that actually has a big library of regular apps from the very start. Arguably the bigger market, not just for gamers.
- And seriously, while you can ignore the pixels on the vive/index in action well enough, they're there, and they're extremely obvious and unpleasant on text. There are a couple third party options that get in the neighborhood on resolution, but shockingly, they're also really expensive.
- You're correct that the target audience will be media consumption; the miss - if I'm reading the GP correct (and, for the record, I tend to agree) - is that the majority of VR focused activities are game-based. There is certainly a contingent of health/fitness apps out there, but that market and content is trivially small by comparison. Could Apple come out with some really killer app? Sure - there's always the possibility of a twist. Looking at the intersection of user input and iOS-style apps, you're back to (mostly) passive consumption. I'm a huge believer that VR/AR is the future, but I'm struggling to see how these are going to function as an iPad replacement, second screen (primary screen, like Immersed, in special cases I can see), and productivity are going to find a foothold, given the limitations of the OS and lack of connectivity outside of the ecosystem.
- That would be a bigger market, IF non-gamers had interest in VR. You make fair points, but I really really don't see the average person putting on a VR headset to consume content, even at a lower price. The "weirdness" alot of people who aren't in the tech or gaming space about buying/using a VR headset I think is a huge hurdle for Apple with a product like this.
The game plan is the same as the game plan for the Mac, but they're going to run it in a fraction of the time because they already have the playbook. Apple's not in the business of "intentionally taking a loss," Apple is in the business of slowly iterating products into platforms over strategic time spans. That's exactly what they'll do here.

The OLED displays are severely supply constrained; I doubt Apple can produce more than one or two million in 2024. With so few units available, there are more than enough dyed-in-the-wool Apple fans and die hard VR geeks with $4k to burn to guarantee that it will be sold out until 2025.

This first million will create an ecosystem for the platform in the form of third-party software and enthusiast communities. The successful launch will entice more suppliers to make the OLEDs, increasing availability and reducing cost. That paves the way for a sans-Pro Apple Vision for $2,500 sometime in 2025 or 2026. The cycle repeats: more users, bigger community, more evangelists, more word of mouth, more software, cheaper components, and then Apple ships Apple Vision Air in 2027 or 2028 for $1,500. Then in 2030, Apple Vision Air 2 comes out but the original is still for sale at $999.

Now we're looking at Apple's standard good/better/best product matrix that they use for the iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, and Mac, and we're also looking at a relatively Mac-like price range starting at a grand but with options running well above $5k.

The original Mac sold for $2,495 in 1984 which is about $7,000 adjusted for inflation. Apple's kicking this new platform off for half the entry price. No one knew what the heck the Mac was supposed to be for in 1984 either, but the entire desktop computing paradigm was forged in its image. We're now looking at a second Mac.
- Agreed, when I said "intentionally taking a loss" that was referring to the short term. In the long term, like you said they're fairly likely to build this into a large lucrative platform. Great comment, you've made excellent points throughout, thanks for the good discourse :)

I still don’t get what the compelling use for these is supposed to be. There’s nothing they’ve shown so far that doesn’t seem more awkward and intrusive than it is beneficial, unless maybe if you exist in true isolation at work and at home.

They sell tens of them!