How do you imagine AR/VR future with that hefty price tag?

[slplss]

When the first iPhone launched, it was priced competitively against Nokia N95 and other brand flagships. Since then, they made several advances, and the price naturally grew with them to the point we are at now. It still holds up against other brand flagships.

Apple has grown into position when they feel confident and comfortable to launch their AR/VR glasses. With their ecosystem, market share they were in a great spot to "One more thing" us and make a room for a device that would become as ordinary to use as touchscreen smartphones are today.

The feel I got after watching their presentation is that it’s more of a next level social/entertainment device, with some pro use. $3499 price tag tells you a completely different story, though. With that I don’t see every household to have one or ideally more of these glasses now or anytime soon. To kickstart AR/VR revolution for the masses, incorporate them into everyones lives, they’d need to make their glasses competitively priced. They missed that mark by several counts.

I don’t expect 2nd gen of their Pro model to get any lower either. The prices only go up. Or am I wrong?

MicroLED is still fairly new tech, I don’t think I’ve seen it in any consumer AR/VR glasses yet. They could release "lite" version with OLED panels, M1 chip. Still, would it cut it by $2000? Because $1500 is the bare minimum to sell it for if they’d want to be competitive, to have the smallest chance to change the way people will communicate, consume and work in the future.

What do you think, a good rant? Some truth in it? Had to get this out of my head.

 

[zakarhino]

It's the first version of a brand new product type -- it will be expensive. Even with the iPhone they were using technologies that were already established in the industry and had experience with building that kind of device form factor before (iPod). Really the only new iPhone hardware was multi touch and even that was building on top of LCD tech.

Vision Pro has more new technology and is more of a new paradigm that basically any Apple device prior. Apple want people to know that the frustration with the $3500 price has already been factored into their strategy by labeling this the "Pro" version.

There will obviously eventually be a much cheaper version somewhere in the 1000-1500 range. I think that's at least 3 years away at minimum.

 

[KPOM]

Apple clearly is aiming high in terms of capabilities. This has an M2 chip and micro-OLED displays. The cheapest device Apple sells with an M2 is $999, and this is a lot smaller.

My guess is that this remains a low volume niche product for the first 3-5 years, but Apple doesn’t see anyone else really taking over in that time. By 2027-2029, they can get the price down to a more consumer-friendly level. Think the original MacBook Air. It was $2999 with a 64GB SSD at launch, but within 3 years was $999 with a 128GB SSD. This might not be as dramatic, but once this gets below $1,999 or even $1,499 I can see this taking off.

 

[F27]

If VR takes off this is going to be no different to flatscreen TV’s going from thousands to hundreds. In 10 years you will probably have headsets more capable than Vision Pro at $350.

 

[Onelifenofear]

If VR takes off this is going to be no different to flatscreen TV’s going from thousands to hundreds. In 10 years you will probably have headsets more capable than Vision Pro at $350.

10 years!? Hell the next-gen 2024 Apple Vision Air will be ( speak like Tim ) 4x as fast as last gen and $999

This is a M2 laptop with an infinite screen. That's the way I see it. At some point all laptops will become something like this.