Apple Vision Pro launches in UK, Australia, and more
The overseas rollout of Apple Vision Pro has continued with it now being available in Apple Stores in five more countries.
An early buyer of the Apple Vision Pro in London. (Source: BBC's Zoe Kleinman on Twitter)
Two weeks after it had its first release outside the US, the Apple Vision Pro is now on sale in the UK, Australia, Canada, France, and Germany. Alongside the existing China, Japan, Singapore -- and the US -- this means Apple Vision Pro is in Apple Stores in nine countries.
From first reports, it appears that in each of those nine countries there were people waiting outside the stores, but not many. Unlike any previous Apple product except perhaps the Apple Watch, the Apple Vision Pro really needs an in-store visit, and most buyers are booking appointments.
Small crowd, mostly men, gathered outside Apple Store in Regent St on the day the Vision Pro launches in the UK pic.twitter.com/9DQYblo25T
-- Zoe Kleinman (@zsk)
So rather than a queue as the store doors open, it appears that first-day buyers will be arriving at intervals for their appointments.
There is some inconsistency in social media reports with ones from London's Regent Street store showing only either a "small crowd," or from a few minutes later, "a solitary customer."
L'Apple Vision Pro est disponible en France !
Une dizaine de personnes dans la file, d'autres qui ont reserve et arriveront tout au long de la journee indique Apple. pic.twitter.com/vTTmZmki83-- Nicolas Lellouche (@LelloucheNico)
In France, there were reportedly 10 people waiting outside a store. Though again, Apple reportedly said that it would be seeing people throughout the day for their pre-booked appointments.
Similarly, in Australia, which was the first to open its doors, there was just a small crowd.
#sydney #applevisionpro Launch day Apple Vision Pro Australia. pic.twitter.com/zkqkNcPyTJ
-- BLENDER SUSHI X - 24/7 Blenderian (@jimmygunawanapp)
The international rollout comes months after the February launch of the Apple Vision Pro in the US. Since then, international customers have flown to the States to buy a headset, although some then had them confiscated by their countries' customs agents.
There has also been the typical slowing down of demand for the device following its initial launch period. The most recent estimates of Apple Vision Pro sales claim that Apple will not break 500,000 sales in 2024, not even with this international expansion.
Read on AppleInsider
Comments
https://www.cultofmac.com/479113/today-apple-history-first-100-days-mac-roaring-success/
Steve Jobs left Apple because of this, he wanted to lower the price to help improve sales and they couldn't or they'd make a loss:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/randalllane/2013/09/09/john-sculley-just-gave-his-most-detailed-account-ever-of-how-steve-jobs-got-fired-from-apple/
"“Steve went into a deep depression,” Sculley said. As a result, “Steve came to me and he said, ‘I want to drop the price of the Macintosh and I want to move the advertising, shift a large portion of it away from the Apple 2 over to the Mac.”
The successful Mac was the iMac, which launched at $1299 ($2449 adjusted for inflation), which they got down to $799 ($1500 inflation adjusted) the following year:
https://www.theverge.com/23830432/imac-twenty-five-years-ago-saved-apple
The most successful companies in the world are mostly made up of mass-market businesses - retail (food, clothing, shopping), health, transport, banking, insurance, telecommunication, utilities and personal computing.
Apple's success doesn't come from luxury but mass-market luxury. The iPhone is a premium product but it starts at $429 and ASP is under $1000. The Mac ASP is around $1300.
They sell Macs over $3000 but it's easy to see from the revenue that this represents < 5% of their Mac sales and the Mac represents < 10% of their total sales. Sales over $3000 are < 0.5% of their customer base.
If Apple wants this product to become a platform, it needs a lower entry price and this will happen when the manufacturing costs come down but a more cost-effective design would reach it faster. They build a premium iPad Pro with M4 that sells for $999, they can build a premium headset that sells for under $2000. Apple would be able to sell 5 million+ headsets per year at $1500, when the display manufacturing capacity is there.
But a tech product from 30+ years ago is so far diminished at every level compared to what tech products of today offer. A more accurate assessment would place today's tech products at a massively higher value compared to tech from 30 years ago. There is no real way to compare the two because today's tech products are so amazingly inexpensive from a price/performance and price/value perspective compared to any time in history. We often scoff at what we now consider "too expensive" without fully realizing the full extent of what we're actually getting for our money today.
Of course everyone has their own perception of value, utility, and what they are willing to spend (price comfort). That's fine because we've never had so many choices available to us. I don't think Apple ever had dreams of every Apple customer jumping on a Vision Pro 1.0. They absolutely understand their customer demographics and have always leaned towards making products that appeal to those with more discretionary income while not forgetting customers who have less discretionary spending flexibility. But the often start with the latter buyers first.
I think Apple has always looked at their customers being distributed across a wider spectrum that just the high rollers and those with a generous amount of discretionary income or wealth. I also think that Apple tends to push the limits on totally new products like Vision Pro because they want to hit the market in a big way and build excitement. Later on they'll come up with ways to attract buyers at lower price points but will do so while still pushing the limits on the high end stuff. I don't see Apple trying to make the Vision Pro the Model T of spatial computing. They will probably come out with lower spec models but will keep pushing the higher spec stuff with increased vigor. Like they've done with iPhone and iPad they will probably use previous generation higher end models to provide more choices for in-betweeners.
How do I say it ... if the current Vision Pro seems out of reach for you it's probably because Apple didn't build it for you. This isn't a value or worthiness statement, it's marketing 101. But at at some point they will build a version for you and me, or perhaps like the iPhone, they'll come up some creative financing arrangements to spread the cost over a longer period of time, a la carrier subsidies. We're just not there yet and may never get there. But I am still very optimistic on the spatial computing concepts and implementations, most of which are still in their relative infancy compared to their full potential.
The iPod, iMac, IBook, iPad took that base to new heights and more people no doubt about that. The iPhone took Apple from a very successful to a Rockstar company but without the base they wouldn't have a platform to push from.
Yes vision as a platform needs its "iVision" at some point (agree by about 2030) but it doesn't need it today to be called a win for this stage.
They have so far:-
- lots of people talking, planning, dreaming.
- somewhere between 1/4 and 1/2 a million people using the device.
- A massive pool of developers from AppStore development
- A highly accessible set of API and OS systems for crafts people to try something disruptive.
Will it succeed who knows but if people want even IPad like sales in the first year is just missing the bigger picture.