do you really think that vision pro is different comparing its competitors and will go to re invent the computer, i think this kind of article only try to convince to buy it and justify the price 'cause isnt novelty, is good but too expensive, in few months google and friends gonna sell the same concept for "less",
Same concept doesn’t equal the same quality or experience. Meta Quest is also the same concept. Do you think that Meta Quest is just as good?
Of course, people like you made the same comments about the iPhone, iPad, AirPods, Mac, and iPod. Pretty much every big product by Apple already existed in concept in the market but Apple didn’t better with many not understanding how synergy between OS, HW, and UX make an iota of difference to the customer.
never said anything about meta and $500 for an iPhone isnt 3500 for the mass public, sorry if i hurt your feelings, your comment is the perfect example, you think 'cause is apple means success, no sir, you wrong, in this case, the price is the biggest problem, people like me, you are so sad,
The price will not matter, the only thing that matters is does it work and how much software will be available at launch, since the AVP has a M2/M3 in it almost all of the software will work on day one. To the consternation of the competition.
Glad that you are in a better spot. I too would be curious to hear more about the question regarding the must have app for vision
Immersive movies (and eventually games). Once people experience that, regular TV will seem like radio. Sure Meta has that to some extent, but you can be sure Apple (and their entertainment division + industry connections) are doing it on a whole new level.
The bottom line is that Apple will need to have the apps to justify the need and the price for the Vision Pro.
Daniel is great at his “Roughly Drafted” articles that are great at gushing for Apple, but lack the reality check of some of the shortcomings that our beloved company needs to be shown.
The iPhone was a great innovation, but it wasn’t until it was heavily subsidized that it took off. The iPad was successful because it didn’t use a different OS like Apple’s competitors did by using android to a PC user or a scaled down shittier version of windows. The watch started out as a device without a purpose until Apple found out that the health and activity sensors were popular with customers.
For the Vision Pro to survive, it has to have a justifiable purpose. Apple has a lot of people working on the software for it, but the big question is will it and other secret 3rd party support be enough to survive a launch and a STARTING $3500 price tag.
We will see by May.
1) The iPhone started off subsidized.
2) There were massive lines of people all around the world. It was a hit from launch.
3) I guess that means you are correct.
According to my memory, and a Vox article correcting Steve Ballmer’s quote on the reason the iPhone was successful was it was subsidized, it actually wasn’t. From the article: “It was iPhone, actually, that first broke the mold of having pricey smartphones subsidized by the carrier in exchange for customers agreeing to a two-year contract. Apple decided that rather than make AT&T offset the cost of the phone, it would instead seek a cut of the monthly bill.But, sensing that its $600-plus price tag was limiting the market, Apple decided to shake things up with its second-generation phone. With the iPhone 3G, Apple got AT&T to agree to a large subsidy by dropping the part of its deal that called for Apple to get a chunk of each month’s service fees.To be fair, the subsidy for the iPhone was larger than that given to other phones, but BlackBerrys and other smartphones were already being subsidized by carriers when the iPhone debuted.In short, it was the power of the iPhone, not its pricing, that made the phone a hit. If anything, you could say Apple blunted its initial appeal with a high price and then fixed that by going with the already popular subsidy model.“
The bottom line is that Apple will need to have the apps to justify the need and the price for the Vision Pro.
Daniel is great at his “Roughly Drafted” articles that are great at gushing for Apple, but lack the reality check of some of the shortcomings that our beloved company needs to be shown.
The iPhone was a great innovation, but it wasn’t until it was heavily subsidized that it took off. The iPad was successful because it didn’t use a different OS like Apple’s competitors did by using android to a PC user or a scaled down shittier version of windows. The watch started out as a device without a purpose until Apple found out that the health and activity sensors were popular with customers.
For the Vision Pro to survive, it has to have a justifiable purpose. Apple has a lot of people working on the software for it, but the big question is will it and other secret 3rd party support be enough to survive a launch and a STARTING $3500 price tag.
We will see by May.
Apple has 527 stores across the world where people can get a demo for free, the only thing that counts is does it actually work, is it compatible with the existing ecosystems, the price is the price and it won't ever be less that two thousand dollars it is a M2/M3 MacBook Pro with second R1 co-processor and 12 camera's on your head, many iPad Pro users will get the Apple Vision Pro instead I know I will.
AVP will almost certainly run most Mac/iOS/iPad software on day one. There are many forward thinking developers who have already bridge that gap right now between iOS and Mac OS, Affinity Photo, Affinity Designer, Affinity Publisher, Notability, Molecules, Elements, Cat in the Hat etc.... (iPad programs that work on the Mac)
Sure but is that enough to sustain it?
To bring your apps to the VP is not the same as making apps for it specifically. Just like all of the apps that first appeared on the watch. They’re mostly all gone now. Chase had a banking app, Uber had an app, so did others and they slowly discontinued them.
They have to be rich and robust and take advantage of the VP’s interface and natural way to interact with them which means they’ll need more than a year to get them ready to make people abandon buying a MBPro.
I'm biased as a former Amiga owner, but I'm going to say that the failure of the Amiga was not because it was a poor copy of the Mac, but because of poor business skills by Jack Tramiel and the leadership of Commodore. The Amiga was in fact far more capable than either the IBM PC (which was the industry standard at the time) or the Apple Macintosh. At a time when the IBM PC was pretty much limited to 16 colors and the Mac was black and white, the Commodore Amiga was capable of 4096 colors, had four voice stereo sound AND had a TRUE preemptive multi-tasking operating system which neither the PC or the Mac would have for another FIVE YEARS.
Former Amiga owner, the Amiga was ahead hardware wise from 1985 to 1994 at the collapse, Commodore had a great OS and even better hardware and that is a big reason Apple Silicon is so good it's designed in house with the OS, most who have never experienced that type of vertical computer system just don't appreciate the significance, (makes Apple a screaming buy/hold) I switched over to Mac's from the Amiga when I heard about 0SX, used Microsoft computers (Autodesk) for work but never personally owned one. The Amiga also had some great game software at the time and was much bigger in the UK, Germany, and Australia.
Note: many Amiga game titles are better game play-wise to many of the titles on both platforms which makes Apple game performance even more anemic, in the end I'm afraid Apple is going to need to roll up it's sleeves (as usual) and create at least two optimize titles for their hardware to show what the hardware is really capable of.
do you really think that vision pro is different comparing its competitors and will go to re invent the computer, i think this kind of article only try to convince to buy it and justify the price 'cause isnt novelty, is good but too expensive, in few months google and friends gonna sell the same concept for "less",
Same concept doesn’t equal the same quality or experience. Meta Quest is also the same concept. Do you think that Meta Quest is just as good?
Of course, people like you made the same comments about the iPhone, iPad, AirPods, Mac, and iPod. Pretty much every big product by Apple already existed in concept in the market but Apple didn’t better with many not understanding how synergy between OS, HW, and UX make an iota of difference to the customer.
never said anything about meta and $500 for an iPhone isnt 3500 for the mass public, sorry if i hurt your feelings, your comment is the perfect example, you think 'cause is apple means success, no sir, you wrong, in this case, the price is the biggest problem, people like me, you are so sad,
The price will not matter, the only thing that matters is does it work and how much software will be available at launch, since the AVP has a M2/M3 in it almost all of the software will work on day one. To the consternation of the competition.
The bottom line is that Apple will need to have the apps to justify the need and the price for the Vision Pro.
Daniel is great at his “Roughly Drafted” articles that are great at gushing for Apple, but lack the reality check of some of the shortcomings that our beloved company needs to be shown.
The iPhone was a great innovation, but it wasn’t until it was heavily subsidized that it took off. The iPad was successful because it didn’t use a different OS like Apple’s competitors did by using android to a PC user or a scaled down shittier version of windows. The watch started out as a device without a purpose until Apple found out that the health and activity sensors were popular with customers.
For the Vision Pro to survive, it has to have a justifiable purpose. Apple has a lot of people working on the software for it, but the big question is will it and other secret 3rd party support be enough to survive a launch and a STARTING $3500 price tag.
We will see by May.
1) The iPhone started off subsidized.
2) There were massive lines of people all around the world. It was a hit from launch.
3) I guess that means you are correct.
According to my memory, and a Vox article correcting Steve Ballmer’s quote on the reason the iPhone was successful was it was subsidized, it actually wasn’t. From the article:
“It was iPhone, actually, that first broke the mold of having pricey smartphones subsidized by the carrier in exchange for customers agreeing to a two-year contract. Apple decided that rather than make AT&T offset the cost of the phone, it would instead seek a cut of the monthly bill.
But, sensing that its $600-plus price tag was limiting the market, Apple decided to shake things up with its second-generation phone. With the iPhone 3G, Apple got AT&T to agree to a large subsidy by dropping the part of its deal that called for Apple to get a chunk of each month’s service fees.
To be fair, the subsidy for the iPhone was larger than that given to other phones, but BlackBerrys and other smartphones were already being subsidized by carriers when the iPhone debuted.
In short, it was the power of the iPhone, not its pricing, that made the phone a hit. If anything, you could say Apple blunted its initial appeal with a high price and then fixed that by going with the already popular subsidy model.“
The original iPhone was subsidized (supported financially) by AT&T. To get the exclusivity to the iPhone in the US they agreed to pay Apple a portion of their take from all iPhone subscribers to their network. This is stated in what you quote: "Apple decided that rather than make AT&T offset the cost of the phone, it would instead seek a cut of the monthly bill." What it wasn't was the typical subsidization which we usually saw as a 24 month prorated contract for the customer until the device is paid off, although this duration could vary from handsets and carriers.
subsidize| ˈsəbsəˌdīz | (British English also subsidise) verb[with object]
- support (an organization or activity) financially: it was beyond the power of a state to subsidize a business. - pay part of the cost of producing (something) to reduce prices for the buyer: the government subsidizes basic goods including sugar, petroleum, and wheat.
Someone will need to give a more detailed account of why VisiOn and VisiCalc failed. Lotus 1-2-3 was simply the better spreadsheet and was about to wholesale take over VisiCalc sales, resulting in the quick implosion of VisiOn? Lotus simply was better in getting deals with IBM and enterprise? The office automation war between Lotus and MS was pretty storied too. I don't recall if there was a 3rd player. Bourland? Did they have Office apps, or was it just an IDE?
I continue to believe that only reason Apple was the lone non Wintel survivor is because Microsoft Office was available on the platform. If MS stopped shipping Office for MacOS 9/X in the late 1990s and early 2000s, I think Apple goes out of business before they can ship iPod, retail stores, iTunes. Once iPod became a force, it begat iPhone, gave Apple headroom to go Intel, and the rest is history.
Atari, Amiga, Commodore, IBM DOS, IBM OS/2 (DOS 2 and 3?), all the non MS DOSes, SGI, DEC, Sun, Be, NeXT obviously couldn't make it. Xerox even gave it a try, but nobody had any hopes for them. NeXTSTEP turned into Mac OS X, and iOS, watchOS, etc, but its UI was dead by 1996.
I had an Archos before the iPod came out. Upgraded the hard drive on it and couldn't bear to part with it. Never got on board with the Apple ecosphere until now. Just picked up an iPhone 15 to record spacial video. I intend to fly to LA or NYC if necessary to get a VisionPro. Looking forward to content creation and my daily work. Investigating ideas for mounting an iPhone to a drone to record spacial video in flight.
Great article. It’s been interesting to watch how Apple has built the business. I think your observation about putting in the effort up front and the level of detail is spot on. Now it’s an entire ecosystem and greater than the sum of its parts, because of that detail.
One thing that stands out from the comments is that the Vision Pro is too expensive, but isn’t that the same complaint about everything they make? But there is a market regardless. Look at how many wear AirPods Max which are probably the least differentiated product Apple make. As a designer working in 3D for retail this hardware will be relatively cheap if it delivers a compelling experience. But yes it’s an expensive way to watch TV so depend on your use case. Mac Pro would be the same.
All your topics sound interesting so don’t hold back. The one for me is Has Apple failed on this scale before? Apple Car anyone?
I’m wondering how the Apple Vision Pro will play out with users due to its inherent ability to isolate the wearer from the rest of the world. I know that wearers of the device can interact with people nearby who are not wearing a face helmet, but what will the experience be for them? It may be unbearable to attempt to interact with someone who’s wearing scuba gear on their face, googly eyes or not.
But maybe that’s the whole point - totally isolation from reality. The real world is kind of a scary place these days. Mom’s basement, in stark contrast, is always warm and inviting. Free cookies. Free laundry service. When in your own cyber cocoon, free of stress and devoid of other unnerving life forms, everything is always good. Total nirvana.
I’m wondering how the Apple Vision Pro will play out with users due to its inherent ability to isolate the wearer from the rest of the world. I know that wearers of the device can interact with people nearby who are not wearing a face helmet, but what will the experience be for them? It may be unbearable to attempt to interact with someone who’s wearing scuba gear on their face, googly eyes or not.
But maybe that’s the whole point - totally isolation from reality. The real world is kind of a scary place these days. Mom’s basement, in stark contrast, is always warm and inviting. Free cookies. Free laundry service. When in your own cyber cocoon, free of stress and devoid of other unnerving life forms, everything is always good. Total nirvana.
I'd argue that the existing world of many people who sit in front of their television (or phone), safe in the cocoon of curated news which reinforces a worldview formed without any real interaction with most of that world, and commercials which give them objects to pursue isn't so different. The invention of the car, then the suburbs, then television created this path of social isolation for those who choose it a long time ago. Only the medium of delivery is changing.
Dan - I know I'm a little late but -- welcome back. A few weeks ago I was wondering if I'd ever be able to read you ideas once again. I am so glad to be able to do so as I've problem read every post you've ever made over the last 15 years.
I'm really just waiting for your old catch phrase; "They're wrong. Here's why." :-)
I’m wondering how the Apple Vision Pro will play out with users due to its inherent ability to isolate the wearer from the rest of the world. I know that wearers of the device can interact with people nearby who are not wearing a face helmet, but what will the experience be for them? It may be unbearable to attempt to interact with someone who’s wearing scuba gear on their face, googly eyes or not.
But maybe that’s the whole point - totally isolation from reality. The real world is kind of a scary place these days. Mom’s basement, in stark contrast, is always warm and inviting. Free cookies. Free laundry service. When in your own cyber cocoon, free of stress and devoid of other unnerving life forms, everything is always good. Total nirvana.
I'd argue that the existing world of many people who sit in front of their television (or phone), safe in the cocoon of curated news which reinforces a worldview formed without any real interaction with most of that world, and commercials which give them objects to pursue isn't so different. The invention of the car, then the suburbs, then television created this path of social isolation for those who choose it a long time ago. Only the medium of delivery is changing.
I don't disagree with anything you're saying.
From a new product perspective, and especially when something is dramatically new and different like Apple Vision Pro, it takes a bit of time for some people, myself included, to see it for what it really is, and then more time to understand what it could do in my personal life. I can totally understand how logically and intuitively the Apple Vision Pro can serve specific jobs and use cases, some of which I have performed many times. I've even done some research within my line of business and job function to see how vision based AR products, specifically Google Glass and Microsoft Hololens, could be used as to provide visual assistance and clues that help individuals and teams of workers perform certain jobs. Using AR and MR for highly practical use cases has always felt very compelling and even an obvious next step ... but so far they have mostly come up short when it comes to implementation and deployment.
I'm hopeful that Apple will be the one to get over that last hurdle and find a way to bring AR/MR into mainstream applications in a natural way, beyond simply gaming and entertainment. Sure, I like being entertained as much as anyone, but limiting Apple Vision Pro to entertainment alone doesn't seem like enough to me, unless Apple really wants to go after the game console and streaming makers with a solution that costs 5X as much. Perhaps starting down the entertainment route will allow Apple to work out all of the kinks and impediments that have been primary hurdles that keep AR/MR out of the mainstream. Presently, I believe the main impediments around AR/MR are with the AR/MR devices themselves being seen as too large, too heavy, clumsy, requiring unnatural workflows, power/duration limitations, lack of social acceptance, loss of situational awareness, isolation effects, etc., which Apple is hoping to change with Apple Vision Pro. If the biggest problem with AR/MR is the devices, it totally makes sense for Apple to knock out that part of the problem first.
I'm excited to see where this goes with Apple Vision Pro, but I do not have any preconceived notions of where that might be, much less seeing it having the potential to disrupt the tools and methods to coming up with solutions that I'm currently using. But Apple has a history of turning skeptics into believers, so I'm keeping my non-virtual eyes, ears, and curiosity open to change.
do you really think that vision pro is different comparing its competitors and will go to re invent the computer, i think this kind of article only try to convince to buy it and justify the price 'cause isnt novelty, is good but too expensive, in few months google and friends gonna sell the same concept for "less",
Same concept doesn’t equal the same quality or experience. Meta Quest is also the same concept. Do you think that Meta Quest is just as good?
Of course, people like you made the same comments about the iPhone, iPad, AirPods, Mac, and iPod. Pretty much every big product by Apple already existed in concept in the market but Apple didn’t better with many not understanding how synergy between OS, HW, and UX make an iota of difference to the customer.
never said anything about meta and $500 for an iPhone isnt 3500 for the mass public, sorry if i hurt your feelings, your comment is the perfect example, you think 'cause is apple means success, no sir, you wrong, in this case, the price is the biggest problem, people like me, you are so sad,
The price will not matter, the only thing that matters is does it work and how much software will be available at launch, since the AVP has a M2/M3 in it almost all of the software will work on day one. To the consternation of the competition.
the price will no matter, hahaha, dream on
The price will only matter to the usual Apple complainers who will say Apple needs to sell it at a loss for 500 dollars. They have been crying for 25 years....
Once again the Apple Vision Pro is a M2/M3 MacBook Pro computer with a R1 co-processor SOC with 12 camera's and will never be under 2,000 dollars anytime soon.
Thanks for the thoughtful article, Daniel. I personally believe that Vision Pro will be as revolutionary as the Mac was in 1984. The “killer app”, as many claim doesn’t exist yet, isn’t an app — it is the environment.
For me, the most interesting is the crux of the second question, "... Apple is learning. But what?"
This question could be applied to the Apple silicon experience. I think there is a lot of confusion with regard to the cadence of the silicon and the timing of product releases. M3 seems to mark a shift away from the initial M1/M2 framework, toward something Apple has been aiming for. I'm just not sure what that is. What is the long-term payoff for their sustained, disciplined focus on energy-efficient power and performance?
In general, I think the thing the tech journalists (and just people who are not listening in general) often lose sight of is the mantra that Apple keeps repeating: that they make whole systems. Apple silicon is aimed at specific products. It begins and ends that way. The iPhone and iPad grew from that approach for a decade before Apple silicon came to macOS. Now we've got spatial computing and visionOS, nearly here. It hardly seems coincidental that the graphics power and performance of A17 Pro and M3 are already here.
Apple’s modus operandi is to go from the outside in. IOW, figure out the customer experience and then build the hardware and software to do it. Don’t ship until the minimum viable experience can be provided.
There’s this notion that Apple needed a few iterations to figure out what worked for the Watch, implying the initial features were wrong. I think that is wrong, and Apple basically got it right at the beginning just like they did with the iPhone.
What form it took evolved and was iterated upon - it matured - with the core tenets remaining. With maturity comes great products. The Watch was advertised as a time piece, a glancible information device and an activity device. That holds true today.
The VisionPro was presented as a spatial computer with big canvasses for apps for work, mobile and home; and, providing immersive experiences inherent to XR from games to photos. The hand and eye tracking combined with the R1 and microOLEDs is what really makes it possible.
So I see it as a computer with which you do anything you want with it. Apple has to bring its Pro apps over as well as enabling macOS like abilities. You have to be able to do everything that you do on Mac, iPad, iPhone with it.
Oh, they have to solve the nausea issues with it. The number of people who get motion sick has to be a fraction of a fraction of the nausea issues current goggles have.
do you really think that vision pro is different comparing its competitors and will go to re invent the computer, i think this kind of article only try to convince to buy it and justify the price 'cause isnt novelty, is good but too expensive, in few months google and friends gonna sell the same concept for "less",
Same concept doesn’t equal the same quality or experience. Meta Quest is also the same concept. Do you think that Meta Quest is just as good?
Of course, people like you made the same comments about the iPhone, iPad, AirPods, Mac, and iPod. Pretty much every big product by Apple already existed in concept in the market but Apple didn’t better with many not understanding how synergy between OS, HW, and UX make an iota of difference to the customer.
never said anything about meta and $500 for an iPhone isnt 3500 for the mass public, sorry if i hurt your feelings, your comment is the perfect example, you think 'cause is apple means success, no sir, you wrong, in this case, the price is the biggest problem, people like me, you are so sad,
This is the milk of comments. We’re wrong, it’s all about price, a short shelf-life comment that already tastes sour.
Apple’s modus operandi is to go from the outside in. IOW, figure out the customer experience and then build the hardware and software to do it. Don’t ship until the minimum viable experience can be provided.
There’s this notion that Apple needed a few iterations to figure out what worked for the Watch, implying the initial features were wrong. I think that is wrong, and Apple basically got it right at the beginning just like they did with the iPhone.
What form it took evolved and was iterated upon - it matured - with the core tenets remaining. With maturity comes great products. The Watch was advertised as a time piece, a glancible information device and an activity device. That holds true today.
The VisionPro was presented as a spatial computer with big canvasses for apps for work, mobile and home; and, providing immersive experiences inherent to XR from games to photos. The hand and eye tracking combined with the R1 and microOLEDs is what really makes it possible.
So I see it as a computer with which you do anything you want with it. Apple has to bring its Pro apps over as well as enabling macOS like abilities. You have to be able to do everything that you do on Mac, iPad, iPhone with it.
Oh, they have to solve the nausea issues with it. The number of people who get motion sick has to be a fraction of a fraction of the nausea issues current goggles have.
Your comment comes closest to what I intended to write.
Apple Watch is illustrative of why I think Vision Pro will be the most successful among all offerings in its market, despite its higher price.
When Apple Watch came out there was already Fitbit and, at around the same time, there was Microsoft’s fitness wearable. Both those products were entirely focused on the app that everyone now says was the killer app for Apple Watch, which Apple only realized later.
But Apple Watch was created as an extension of the enormous and tightly integrated ecosystem that only Apple provides. Apple is a platform building monster, with products built on top. So when the Apple Watch initially shipped, with potential to provide a vast array of functionality, it was only natural for the market, and pundits, to cast about seeking a killer app beyond what the purpose-built fitness trackers provided. After all, with so much potential, so much technology packed in there, surely there must be something more to it than only fitness tracking.
And there was/is. There’s information at a glance, timers, stopwatch, hotel room access (virtual keys), walking directions, etc, AND great fitness tracking. Once the world, and Apple, figured out that fitness tracking as a central capability was the killer app, Apple won the day, because its combination of high-end hardware, ecosystem integration, build quality, elegance and ability to also do so many other tasks trumped its shorter battery life and higher price relative to the far less capable competition with minimal and fussy ecosystem integration.
Shorter battery life and higher price, yet highly capable and tightly ecosystem integrated, built upon a massive collection of technology platforms. That’s exactly what the Vision Pro brings. History rhymes, as does the history of punditry who bring forward the same objections, yet again.
Battery life Price No clear killer app.
Okay, but when a killer app emerges for this form factor, perhaps even from the development labs of other goggle makers, or from their developer community, it’s not hard to imagine that app making its way to Vision Pro, and when it does, who’s going to offer it with the best experience? Yup, the high-end, gorgeously designed, most powerful, most well integrated ecosystem Apple Vision Pro. And then it’s all over but the wimpering for those competitors without the software ecosystem, without the many underlying interconnected technology development platforms, without their own class-leading and energy-efficient silicon, without their enormous user base to sell into.
Comments
The price will not matter, the only thing that matters is does it work and how much software will be available at launch, since the AVP has a M2/M3 in it
“It was iPhone, actually, that first broke the mold of having pricey smartphones subsidized by the carrier in exchange for customers agreeing to a two-year contract. Apple decided that rather than make AT&T offset the cost of the phone, it would instead seek a cut of the monthly bill.But, sensing that its $600-plus price tag was limiting the market, Apple decided to shake things up with its second-generation phone. With the iPhone 3G, Apple got AT&T to agree to a large subsidy by dropping the part of its deal that called for Apple to get a chunk of each month’s service fees.To be fair, the subsidy for the iPhone was larger than that given to other phones, but BlackBerrys and other smartphones were already being subsidized by carriers when the iPhone debuted.In short, it was the power of the iPhone, not its pricing, that made the phone a hit. If anything, you could say Apple blunted its initial appeal with a high price and then fixed that by going with the already popular subsidy model.“
To bring your apps to the VP is not the same as making apps for it specifically. Just like all of the apps that first appeared on the watch. They’re mostly all gone now. Chase had a banking app, Uber had an app, so did others and they slowly discontinued them.
Former Amiga owner, the Amiga was ahead hardware wise from 1985 to 1994 at the collapse, Commodore had a great OS and even better hardware and that is a big reason Apple Silicon is so good it's designed in house with the OS, most who have never experienced that type of vertical computer system just don't appreciate the significance, (makes Apple a screaming buy/hold) I switched over to Mac's from the Amiga when I heard about 0SX, used Microsoft computers (Autodesk) for work but never personally owned one.
Note: many Amiga game titles are better game play-wise to many of the titles on both platforms which makes Apple game performance even more anemic, in the end I'm afraid Apple is going to need to roll up it's sleeves (as usual) and create at least two optimize titles for their hardware to show what the hardware is really capable of.
subsidize | ˈsəbsəˌdīz | (British English also subsidise)
verb [with object]
- pay part of the cost of producing (something) to reduce prices for the buyer: the government subsidizes basic goods including sugar, petroleum, and wheat.
I continue to believe that only reason Apple was the lone non Wintel survivor is because Microsoft Office was available on the platform. If MS stopped shipping Office for MacOS 9/X in the late 1990s and early 2000s, I think Apple goes out of business before they can ship iPod, retail stores, iTunes. Once iPod became a force, it begat iPhone, gave Apple headroom to go Intel, and the rest is history.
Atari, Amiga, Commodore, IBM DOS, IBM OS/2 (DOS 2 and 3?), all the non MS DOSes, SGI, DEC, Sun, Be, NeXT obviously couldn't make it. Xerox even gave it a try, but nobody had any hopes for them. NeXTSTEP turned into Mac OS X, and iOS, watchOS, etc, but its UI was dead by 1996.
It’s been interesting to watch how Apple has built the business. I think your observation about putting in the effort up front and the level of detail is spot on. Now it’s an entire ecosystem and greater than the sum of its parts, because of that detail.
As a designer working in 3D for retail this hardware will be relatively cheap if it delivers a compelling experience. But yes it’s an expensive way to watch TV so depend on your use case. Mac Pro would be the same.
But maybe that’s the whole point - totally isolation from reality. The real world is kind of a scary place these days. Mom’s basement, in stark contrast, is always warm and inviting. Free cookies. Free laundry service. When in your own cyber cocoon, free of stress and devoid of other unnerving life forms, everything is always good. Total nirvana.
Can’t wait to buy one.
I'm really just waiting for your old catch phrase; "They're wrong. Here's why." :-)
From a new product perspective, and especially when something is dramatically new and different like Apple Vision Pro, it takes a bit of time for some people, myself included, to see it for what it really is, and then more time to understand what it could do in my personal life. I can totally understand how logically and intuitively the Apple Vision Pro can serve specific jobs and use cases, some of which I have performed many times. I've even done some research within my line of business and job function to see how vision based AR products, specifically Google Glass and Microsoft Hololens, could be used as to provide visual assistance and clues that help individuals and teams of workers perform certain jobs. Using AR and MR for highly practical use cases has always felt very compelling and even an obvious next step ... but so far they have mostly come up short when it comes to implementation and deployment.
I'm hopeful that Apple will be the one to get over that last hurdle and find a way to bring AR/MR into mainstream applications in a natural way, beyond simply gaming and entertainment. Sure, I like being entertained as much as anyone, but limiting Apple Vision Pro to entertainment alone doesn't seem like enough to me, unless Apple really wants to go after the game console and streaming makers with a solution that costs 5X as much. Perhaps starting down the entertainment route will allow Apple to work out all of the kinks and impediments that have been primary hurdles that keep AR/MR out of the mainstream. Presently, I believe the main impediments around AR/MR are with the AR/MR devices themselves being seen as too large, too heavy, clumsy, requiring unnatural workflows, power/duration limitations, lack of social acceptance, loss of situational awareness, isolation effects, etc., which Apple is hoping to change with Apple Vision Pro. If the biggest problem with AR/MR is the devices, it totally makes sense for Apple to knock out that part of the problem first.
I'm excited to see where this goes with Apple Vision Pro, but I do not have any preconceived notions of where that might be, much less seeing it having the potential to disrupt the tools and methods to coming up with solutions that I'm currently using. But Apple has a history of turning skeptics into believers, so I'm keeping my non-virtual eyes, ears, and curiosity open to change.
The price will only matter to the usual Apple complainers who will say Apple needs to sell it at a loss for 500 dollars. They have been crying for 25 years....
Once again the Apple Vision Pro is a M2/M3 MacBook Pro computer with a R1 co-processor SOC with 12 camera's and will never be under 2,000 dollars anytime soon.
This question could be applied to the Apple silicon experience. I think there is a lot of confusion with regard to the cadence of the silicon and the timing of product releases. M3 seems to mark a shift away from the initial M1/M2 framework, toward something Apple has been aiming for. I'm just not sure what that is. What is the long-term payoff for their sustained, disciplined focus on energy-efficient power and performance?
In general, I think the thing the tech journalists (and just people who are not listening in general) often lose sight of is the mantra that Apple keeps repeating: that they make whole systems. Apple silicon is aimed at specific products. It begins and ends that way. The iPhone and iPad grew from that approach for a decade before Apple silicon came to macOS. Now we've got spatial computing and visionOS, nearly here. It hardly seems coincidental that the graphics power and performance of A17 Pro and M3 are already here.
What form it took evolved and was iterated upon - it matured - with the core tenets remaining. With maturity comes great products. The Watch was advertised as a time piece, a glancible information device and an activity device. That holds true today.
Oh, they have to solve the nausea issues with it. The number of people who get motion sick has to be a fraction of a fraction of the nausea issues current goggles have.
When Apple Watch came out there was already Fitbit and, at around the same time, there was Microsoft’s fitness wearable. Both those products were entirely focused on the app that everyone now says was the killer app for Apple Watch, which Apple only realized later.
Price
No clear killer app.
Okay, but when a killer app emerges for this form factor, perhaps even from the development labs of other goggle makers, or from their developer community, it’s not hard to imagine that app making its way to Vision Pro, and when it does, who’s going to offer it with the best experience? Yup, the high-end, gorgeously designed, most powerful, most well integrated ecosystem Apple Vision Pro. And then it’s all over but the wimpering for those competitors without the software ecosystem, without the many underlying interconnected technology development platforms, without their own class-leading and energy-efficient silicon, without their enormous user base to sell into.