ranson

eightzero said:

There is not a Vision Pro offered for sale. It is planned, debut, and has not yet been offered for sale...and there is no indication it will actually sell sufficiently. iPhone did not first appear on the stage with Steve in anything other than one model. Only long after it was adopted and was perhaps the biggest consumer hit in...well...world history...did the versions start showing up. I agree the use of the label "Pro" here by Apple is inconsistent, as there is no alternative. And I don't expect one any time soon. Perhaps some years down the line, as is the pattern by Apple. 

Yes, Ultra appeared ~10 years after Apple Watch debuted. I am not sure why you point that out.

At this point I'm not sure what the argument even is? Yes there is a Vision Pro. No one said it was for sale yet. But Apple has shown it off, the media and developers have tried it out, developers are actively making apps for it, and any developer can go to Apple HQ and try one out whenever they'd like. And as my post also rightly stated, it "will be" for sale. So there is no disagreement here? I pointed out the Watch Ultra, because you stated there was currently no Pro watch; so I wanted to make sure you were aware that the Ultra already serves that audience.

The article here is relaying reliable rumors that a non-Pro Vision product is planned. Again, that is a no-brainer to anyone paying attention. Because it makes perfect sense that there would be, given that the excessive price point of the Vision Pro is, by a country mile, the biggest hurdle to Apple dominating the Headset market. They must launch a price-conscious model to be successful as a mass market device. I'm sure Apple understands the urgency of this and it will be sooner than "some years down the line."  Perhaps 3y at most (for reference, the AirPods - Apple's first in-house foray into bluetooth headphones - introduced the Pro line after about 3 years). In the case of Vision, remember, they are not working on upgrading a regular device to a Pro device with entirely new features and technology. Rather, they are looking at going from a Pro device to an entry-level device by jettisoning non-critical advanced features. Going that direction is far easier to do from an R&D perspective.

So what are we arguing about, exactly?

eightzero said:

 Yes, "...since the iPhone 11..." IOW, in a highly developed, flagship product of the world's largest corporation. Rolling out a new product, in a completely new category, is different than a multi-billion dollar one 10 years into its existence had has hundreds of millions of items in use worldwide. 

Apple did roll out versions of the Apple Watch on launch day, but different materials (including rose gold at $14k!) and sizes. But the watch itself has no "pro" version 10 years later. 

Sure, but there is already a Vision Pro. Whenever Apple has released a "Pro" product, there has always been an accompanying non-Pro version with lower specs - going all the way back to the 2006 MacBooks. Vision Pro will be the first "Pro" branded product Apple will launch seemingly without an entry level alternative. But surely everyone understands that this current branding for Vision is indicative of plans for a less powerful entry level.

And you are correct that there is no "Pro" watch, but they do offer the "Ultra" which serves pretty much the same purpose and is in its second generation already. So, I am not sure of your point.

harrykatsaros said:

They shouldn't compromise on anything. If they start making compromises the Apple Vision ends up just becoming the Meta Quest with a different logo slapped on it. Just wait it out and let the Gen 1 Vision Pro become the lower cost entry level option when component prices drop as Gen 2 and Gen 3 devices get released. They just need to follow the same pattern they've been using with the iPhone where the older gen device evolves into a lower entry cost phone as the new iPhone is released. It's a proven strategy so why fix what isn't broken.

What are you even talking about here? Since the iPhone 11, they've released Pro and non-Pro versions of the iPhone every year at the same time. The non-pro version comes with a less powerful screen (60hz max without ProMotion), a less powerful camera array that lacks telephoto zoom and lidar, a less powerful cpu/gpu, and a slower modem. These are consistent differentiators between the pro and non-pro lines every year. Why would they not do the same w/ Vision?

The EyeSight feature provides no benefit to the user/wearer of the device. It's nothing but a shiny bell, requiring a custom, curved oled screen and multiple sensors, that is unnecessary for an entry-level device. Removing it would make the headset not only cheaper, but thinner, lighter and less power-hungry. When they showed off EyeSight in the launch video, I literally rolled my eyes at how much more expensive the device would cost for such uselessness, and mused that I'd happily pay for a cheaper version that didn't include it.

Apple's primary goal is profit. You make profits by selling in high volume (to the detriment of your competition) at excellent margins. You can't do that when a product is too expensive because you've baked in bells and whistles that few users would actually care about, thus diminishing demand for the product. Apple is likely discovering through their own consumer research studies that, while EyeSight is a killer feature, it is not enough of a draw for people to justify spending an additional $3K over just buying a Valve or Meta headset.

There are other opportunities for Apple to save here too, by farming out some of the built-in features of Vision Pro Gen1 to other parts of the Apple ecosystem. For example, consider the sensors that are constantly trained on your hands to detect finger taps. You may recall that the latest Apple Watch now detects the same gesture.  So they could remove those sensors from an entry level Vision device, and allow the user to instead wear an Apple Watch to enable the feature. At the same time, this would address some of the reliability issues of that feature on Vision Pro when the hands might be obscured from the cameras.

clexman said:

The headline should be, "Person comes in 2nd, wants the same trophy as the person who came in 1st." Says, "Rules are not fair and shouldn't be followed."

I disagree here, because the circumstances are highly unusual. The reasons the Apple employee was not first to report the vulnerability are listed out in the article. In simplest terms, it boils down to someone who does not work at Apple and was not involved in discovering the vulnerability having effectively overheard the Apple team talking about their discovery during the hackathon and submitting the form first. The reporter likely just provided the steps to reproduce the attack to Google, all while the original discoverer was still working to author a deep technical description of the vulnerability and identify any similar or derivative methods of exploiting it.

Imagine physicist who makes an amazing discovery, or an astronomer who discovers a new asteroid or dwarf planet. And now imagine someone else who witnessed the discovery actually going to publication with details about it before the discoverer. That would be the death knell for the ninja's career because it's plagiarism.

When someone makes a novel discovery, everyone else should provide space and deference for the discoverer to confirm their findings and report them properly and completely. In the case of cybersecurity, this is especially important because denying someone a bounty for finding a vulnerability (much less, awarding it to someone completely disconnected from the discovery) will only encourage the discoverer to stop participating in the bounty program going forward. And since they are the one actually finding the vulnerabilities (and not the ninja), we absolutely want them to continue in the program, so as to ensure the most secure products that the vast majority of the world is using every day of their lives.

AppleInsider's "Unlikely" rating for this rumor is spot-on.  If this were true, Apple certainly would have made it a major talking point as part of their big reveal last month, given the general lack of substance around Day 1 content and app offerings.