canukstorm

And so we try to pick things that are in their springs. And if you choose wisely you can save yourself an enormous amount of work versus trying to do everything.

... Sometimes you just have to pick the things that look like they're going to be the right horses to ride going forward."

-- Steve Jobs, June 2010 (Has Apple, Inc. Been Betting on the Wrong Technology All These Years? | The Motley Fool)

Apple, in the last 10 years bet on the wrong horse.  They bet on autonomous systems while the world was heading towards generative AI.  That said, I still think Apple should have made a go in the EV market even if it only had Level 2 autonomy.  Like the rest of their product lineup, they could iterate over time.  I would be more interested in seeing an Apple Car than a Vision Pro.

PauloSeraa said:

It amazes me the lengths these guys will go to build a fantasy around something in hopes that people believe they are committed to it. In truth Apple will drop Vision Pro entirely if it doesn't sell well enough. Presale data isn't good, and Tim's continued experiment to see how much he can convince people to pay for something is starting to unravel. Apple simply does not do low volume products. They either cancel them entirely, or they let them die on the vine for ages while the 8 customers who bought into the idea are left hanging in the wind. Given the general feeling toward VR headsets on the market, the presale numbers most likely reflect a huge chunk of the people even interested in buying a Vision Pro, leaving day to day sales from here out to be scarce. If Apple can't even sell half a million units in the first year, their interest in the category will quickly diminish. Everyone assumes that version 2 is a given, but that's a bad assumption. Apple does not throw good money after bad, and they've already spent exorbitant amounts of money on the development of something that has amounted to an iPad for your face that costs $3,500, and requires wearing an objectionable piece hardware that is heavy, uncomfortable for any length time, nausea-inducing for most people, tethered to the wall, and completely world-isolating. What other Apple product even comes close to having that many negative tradeoffs? There is almost nothing good that you can say about this product that isn't outweighed but its downsides.

Apple has said that AR is the future, and I agree. So they go and build a VR headset, something no one anywhere thinks is the future, and try to do AR with it.

AR is all about the view finder. We already have the ability in software to do amazing things with AR, but they're nothing more than a tech demo until we get the view finder right. And a VR headset is not it. No more closer than holding an iPhone up to your face and looking through the lens of the camera. Apple knows this, and knows that glasses are the wearable of the future, and that everyday glasses that can be powered by iPhone to project AR into your world are a game changer. They also know that the technology to do this well is still several years away, and Tim Cook knows he won't be CEO by the time that comes around. He wanted spatial computing to be part of his legacy so badly that he pushed a product onto market years before it was ready, bolstered by his successes with overcharging customers in the last several years. Things like raising the price of products every time a new feature is added is a Tim Cook invention that customers have rewarded him for, and it has led to some poor decisions...Vision Pro's release being the pinnacle.

9secondkox2 said:

Unfortunately, this article is an example of the VP problem. 

If you need miles and miles of text to evangelize the product and “explain” why all the stuff thrown at the wall is somehow collected into a killer app, then none exists. “Oh, the killer app is everything all together!” Nope. Sorry. Doesn’t work like that. 

This has been the problem even in internal testing. Apple’s own staff had concerns. Now, outside of fanboys or developer evangelists,  it’s a big question mark and rightly so. 

Downplaying customer price concerns over a non essential product is also troublesome - especially during inflation. 

The VP HAS POTENTIAL and can become something great - if Apple can figure out why they made it to begin with. 

So far, they’ve simply just built a better headset. Will it be enough to actually become a viable “platform?” We will know in two years, after the initial early adopter phase is over. 

iOS_Guy80 said:

And why would I want to do this?