Rogue01

applebynature said:

Yup, we've known about the required facial scanning for proper fit since June.
I'm curious how big of a fiasco it's going to be to go into an Apple Store to demo a unit. They should do it by appointment with a required face scan before the appointment so everything is ready for you to try out. If they're just allowing everyone to come in to wait around in the store for one of the scarce demo units to be available, then having to go through a fitting and set up process along with being trained how to use it, man that will be a disaster with the time involved and so many waiting around to try it. But on the other hand, I can see people going to the store to try it out and being told, oh you have to make an appointment, the next one is in 3 weeks, and that not going over too well with customers either, so who knows.

At $3,500, no one is really interested in this at all.  So probably won't be any lines of people waiting to try it because people would rather spend $3,500 on anything else.  This product does not solve any problems and AR/VR has never been a popular item for decades.  People don't want to wear googles to run apps or watch movies.  The battery is about 2 hours unless you are physically tied to a power source.  Apple created something that no one really has any desire for.  Maybe super rich people that have nothing better to spend money on.  No one bought iPod Hi-Fi, and that was only $349.  No one bought the $10,000 Apple Watch Gold either and Apple said you had to have an appointment to see it.  The iPhone captured the smartphone market.  This captures no market at all.  Big difference.  I love Apple and have been using Apple products since 1989, but you have to wonder why Apple even made this product when consumers are not really into that product category at all.  Very few consumers use AR for games.

And remember, most consumers wear prescription lenses so another $150 for special lenses will a big deal breaker, especially when prescriptions typically change year after year for people that do wear glasses.

Everyone keeps comparing this to the iPhone or Watch launch.  You can't.  The iPhone and Watch were sub-$500 products, significantly less than the $3500 starting price of the VisionPro.  Both solved a problem, the iPhone much more than the watch.  That's why the iPhone was far more popular than the watch.  It solved the 'broken' smartphone market with bad smartphones.  No one asked for VisionPro and no problem exists to be solved.  VR/AR is such a minimal consumer product, and has been that way for decades.  Even back in the 90s, VR never took off.  Why?  No one wants to wear goggles for hours on their head.  3DTV failed because no one wants to wear glasses to watch TV.  So Apple's ridiculously expensive $3500 headset is so far out of reach from most consumers, especially with high inflation, that it won't be a popular item.  

This is the best part of the article - Kuo then warns that the novelty and demand could wear off.  That is exactly what is going to happen.  The novelty will wear off and people will go back to using their iPad to run the iPad apps (VisionPro runs iPad apps) and watch their big screen TV to watch movies.  And the battery only lasts about 2 hours.  That is the reality.  The majority of consumers are not going to spend $3500.  Maybe that is why it is $3500, because it has 16GB of RAM, and Apple cannot even ship Macs with 16GB of RAM as the standard config.

It will be interesting to watch this launch.  Remember iPod Hi-Fi?  That was $349 and no one bought it.

If Apple offers a 1TB option, they charge 4x the industry standard for 1TB of storage, so now you are looking at $4,000 to run iPadOS apps.  

Apple really needs to stop with their extortion tactics for memory and SSD prices.  It was better when you could upgrade memory and storage on your own, because no one bought the Apple upgrades.  Similar to the printer market in which the ink cartridges sometimes cost more than the actual printer.  Now Apple has the consumer over the barrel and they know it and charge ridiculous prices.

blastdoor said:

This is a new product category. Buyers aren’t in a good position to know how much storage they need. Apple should sell a single configuration and make it well equipped for the early adopters willing to plunk down $3500. This isn’t the time to squeeze extra profit for an extra 500 GB of storage. 

It is not really a new category.  It runs iPadOS apps.  People would already know storage requirements based on what apps they want to use.  And the battery life is only about 2 hours, so not much use from it.

sdw2001 said:

nubus said:

lmasanti said:

it is best to begin from the top… and then easily go down… than begin from the bottom and then try build upon a clunky design. See Quest. (Tesla copied this business model!)

Apple did in the past launch a few products at the top only to massively restructure things. Lisa ended up in part rebranded as Macintosh XL and part in landfill in Utah with Mac being 75% cheaper! Watch 1st Edition - top price of $12000 - and then series 1 had the top price reduced by 90%. iPhone... Apple launched it at $599 and then dropped it two months later to $399 (33%). Apple should slash the price to $2000 and launch an M3/Wifi 7 version this summer for $2500.

That may happen, but not because it “should.”  It happens due to market forces.  The iPhone sold way above expectations, so they could justify dropping the price.  The Lisa was severely overpriced and it didn’t sell.  The Watch had that one option but most were far cheaper.  

Apple did not drop the price of the first iPhone.  They reached a deal with AT&T to subsidize the price down to $199 so Steve Jobs could get the phone out to more people.  But you paid more each month to cover the cost of the phone, but you did not have to pay the full price of $499 or $599 up front, but you were charged sales tax for the full price of the phone at the time of purchase, along with the $199 subsidized price.

And the Apple Watch 1st Edition was $10,000 for the 14K gold model.  It was not reduced 90%.  Nubus has no clue what they are talking about.