Rogue01

According to the first picture, they claim PCalc is going to make Vision Pro worth buying???  A $3500 calculator?  Really?

There is no such thing as spatial computing.  That is Apple's marketing spin for AR.  Look up the definition of AR and that is exactly what Vision Pro is.  Apple will really have a hard time claiming their device is not AR, when it actually is AR.  "Augmented reality is an interactive experience that enhances the real world with computer-generated perceptual information."  That is exactly what Vision Pro does.  Another article had the best description for Vision Pro - It is an answer looking for a question.  The AR space is dead, always has been.  Plenty of surveys have been done and once the novelty wears off, the goggles sit in a bookshelf.  No one wants to wear goggles for hours.  No one wants to spend $3500 for a pair of goggles to run iPadOS apps, or PCalc.  No one will put on goggles to create a Word or PowerPoint document.  This is a product that doesn't solve any problems because no one has any interest in AR.  And that is Apple's marketing problem.  They won't be able to convince anyone that it is a 'needed' product.  It is not an iPhone solving a problem with bad smartphones.  For $3500, I would rather buy a Mac Studio and a Display and do so much more with it.

The killer tech at CES was the transparent Micro LED TVs.  Those demos were incredible.

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.