debonbon

amarkap said:

slow n easy said:

mark fearing said:

I find it hard to believe that Apple thought that this first version would sell like gangbusters. They MUST have people connected to the real world who realize a $3,500 toy is off limits to the majority of the population. So I take it they went the Mercedes route - knowing they would sell less (Than Ford), but still have a good idea of how many would sell. Now the bigger question is - does anyone care about goggle based VR? And having tried them out for many years, I suspect it's a really tough sell to the vast majority of people. And the device rather quickly becomes an afterthought.  But hey, I'm open to being wrong here. I don't know. But my guess is Apple MUST have had a pretty solid idea on sales and that the 'shifting' to a cheaper set isn't a sudden thing, but part of the plan. 

I’m not sure why you even had that thought. Of course Apple didn’t think that it was going to sell like gangbusters. This product was never marketed as a mass produced product that many millions of people would buy. It was mainly marketed to developers so that when they did have a mainstream product, there would already be an ecosystem in place for it.

This product was never marketed as a mass produced product that millions of people would buy?  Are you sure about that Mate?  Around the time of its release, I recall going to the Apple website and there it was...the very first thing you see...the AVP.   I'm sure there were hundreds of thousands of regular (non-developer) customers that visited their website back then.  Further, I recall I could even purchase the product using my iPhone and I'm hardly a developer.  Not to mention about a month ago I went to our local Apple Store and guess what?  The sales person asked me if I wanted a 20 minute in-store demo of the AVP (which I took part in).  That demo was designed for regular users not developers.  Again, my point it Apple 100% marketed the AVP as if it was a mainstream device for them.  Never once did I get the feeling it was only just for developers.  Between you and me, obviously at a price close to $4K with everything added in...the regular Joe was hardly going to impulse buy this or even think about giving it as a Xmas gift...but Apple sure tried (and failed).