The fact that Apple is still using a difference of 256GB storage to jump the price $200 is really funny to me. This is already a wildly premium device, but they just can't resist trying to scrape a little bit more.
"It’s a V1 Apple product. It’s a new category, for them, and by far the most ambitious headset on the consumer market."<p>Well, all other V1 Apple products weren't half-assed, or at least when they were, they offered something more than the competitors.<p>Meta Quest 3 is better on everything, despite eye tracking(for a reason, it sucks for many things, I'm sure Meta can have just as good, if they wanted to, but they likely think it isn't a good idea) and the image quality(because it's expensive as hell).<p>I had much higher expectations. Apple made it clear to me that they've released this device mostly out of fears of phones becoming irrelevant and not having a device to replace it.<p>Also, to show that Tim isn't resting & vesting his stocks, and both are terrible ways to approach innovation, the kind of innovation Apple used to have with that fruitarian CEO that gave us the iPad, iPhone, iEverything...<p>Apple needs a new CEO ASAP, Tim is John Sculley, at first sales go up, profits are up, but then after a few years you are stuck and other companies are eating your lunch.
> The other usefulness problem is visionOS’ iPad heritage. Maybe a completely locked-down computer for $1,000 is OK, but for a geek who likes to tinker, and at this price? It’s too much of a content consumption device at the moment. I love watching a movie or TV show, but I want to do stuff beyond the walled garden.<p>> $5,013<p>Man does this really cut to the heart of it. It has a Mac chip, it costs as much as a high end Mac, but it’s an iPad with AR/VR strapped to your face. That’s pretty much what I’ve distilled it down to following all the reviews and discussing it with people. The technology behind that iPad with AR/VR strapped to your face is amazing, but an iPad with AR/VR strapped to your face is still just an iPad.
Any product that has to be defended by "this is just V1, wait for it to get more mature before it can be useful" is doomed to fail, and this is the most common line in every Vision Pro review I have read.<p>Every successful Apple product to date has been indispensable from the moment it is first launched. On the other hand if people aren't able to extract value out of a $3500 piece of tech in front of them today then no future version is going to be able to fix that.
> When we price out things in the USA we pretend sales tax doesn’t exist, but it does, hoo boy it does, and most of us pay it.<p>The price breakdown in this article was probably the most useful part. There was a slim chance I would have considered a product like this for $3700, but $5000 is simply too much for my budget.
Most people are dreaming of currently-impossible lightweight AR glasses.<p>I think this is a product trap, trying to skip too many steps.<p>It is like trying to build a smartphone in the 70s.<p>They should go for a helmet.<p>And I don't mean even bulkier ski-goggles, but a real full face helmet, fighter-pilot or biker style. Full of high-tech hardware but balanced in a way that makes it useable for more than 20 minutes.<p>It is niche, but there is a market for that, the high-end simulation dudes are already forking good money into hardware. And that could also be useful as an actual tool.<p>From there, they could build the most important part: the software, and slowly improve the form factor.
One of the challenges is that a lot of his complaints are things that you can EASILY see being addressed -- most other VR headsets benefit from 3rd party straps that make a hugely significant difference in comfort, the app ecosystem hasn't even begun since folks. haven't had a device available, so hopefully there'll be many more use cases, Apple internally already has mirroring of multiple screens, etc. Yet my fear is the quality, speed, and assuredness of these improvements are kinda correlated with how well or how badly the market for this device does. My fear is that it doesn't reach the scale necessary for Apple and others to make the kind of investment in it we'd like to see, and for many years we'll have this go the way of those esoteric Macs of which they might make one or a couple, and leave it at that.
On comfort and price:<p>Apple should have sold the strap separately and partnered with different manufacturers so that 3rd party options were available from Day 1.<p>For example, this looks less beautiful than Apple's version, but is more comfortable and functional and from what I've read by others, results in a larger FOV (since you can size down on light seal or... remove it): <a href="https://twitter.com/Azadux/status/1757469190095781900" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/Azadux/status/1757469190095781900</a> -- And that's a hacked together version, not the official version being worked on.<p>And while Apple would have gotten criticism for nickel and dime-ing folks by them having to buy more stuff separately, I actually think it would have resulted in a cheaper set for folks buying 3rd party. Not enough to put it in a different price category or anything, obviously, but cheaper nevertheless.
This product will go the way of the Touch Bar in a couple of years. The original iPhone launched at roughly $742 adjusted for inflation. Apple Vision Pro starts at nearly <i>five times</i> that amount and from what I understand that's not factoring in much if any margin. If that is indeed the case Apple has a long, long road ahead before they can price this thing anywhere near a level where it makes sense for the average consumer or even the above-average enthusiast.
Even if this product were lightweight and had a 10-hour battery life and didn’t cause eye strain, I still don’t think it would be an improvement over the real world.
I think the $5000 price tag <i>could</i> make sense if it was genuinely good enough to replace a high-quality large external monitor (or several such displays). But as far as I can tell, it is not.<p>Until then, there are cheaper ways to wear a strap-on.
> "1. It’s uncomfortable"<p>for AR to be useful, it has to be something seamless, comfortable and easy to integrate into your daily life.<p>if it's giving you neck pains or eye strains, then as others said, actual reality will always be the better choice.
The AVP feels very much like a product with enormous, as-yet undelivered potential. Anyone not willing to take a gamble and wait it out ought not to be an early adopter. Future generations will reduce or eliminate the pain points, lower the price, etc. For the foreseeable future, I expect that even most people who <i>like</i> it won't use it as much as they hoped.<p>I'm very bullish on its potential, but I haven't put my money where my mouth is. There are other, more important, more immediately useful things I can and should spend those thousands on. I've been telling myself that if my bonus is at least $4k bigger than I expect, I'll buy one. Truthfully, I'm not sure if I will even at that point. We'll see (hopefully).
>2.It’s not there yet
>3.It’s not useful
>4.It’s very expensive<p>Are any of these surprising? I'm a AR/VR skeptic so maybe I have a more negative view than most but these things seem self evident to me.
I suspect Meta understands its users a little better: If people are gonna strap something to their face, it's because they want to be immersed in some alternate reality.<p>Right now there just isn't a killer app. But I suspect Generative AI is the path to one- fully immersive, hyper-realistic, real-time generated worlds will be killer, and something only VR can really immerse you in.
He talks a few times about looking forward to future generations, but if too many people pass on this generation, will there be future generations? I guess Apple has deep enough pockets that they could fund future generations even if they never make their money back.
> The endgame in a few generations, ignoring physics, is a pair of eyeglasses<p>Vuzix AV920 is closer to that, and many years earlier...<p>I've been using VR since Quake and Descent came out in the 1990's. The tech still isn't there yet. I'm not sure why there's any new buzz over this old-n-busted "Now in 3D" tech from 3 decades ago. I prefer the slimmer form factor of Vuzix's (albeit older) offerings -- I simply WILL NOT strap a toaster oven to my face when I know that I don't have to do that just to get 3D imagery in my face.<p>Disclaimer: I've been developing a 3D GUI that doesn't use glasses.
One thing I just think is interesting re: the complaints about the price. First, I wholeheartedly agree - I can't imagine paying that much for something like this.<p>But it also highlights how <i>ridiculously</i> cheap consumer electronics have become, and how much our expectations are baked into that. This reviewer paid a total of $5,013, including sales tax, for the Apple Vision Pro. The original Apple IIe, released in 1977, was priced at $12,740 in 2022 dollars for the max RAM model, not including tax.
This is your regular reminder to read <a href="https://disconnect.blog/apples-vision-pro-headset-deserves/" rel="nofollow">https://disconnect.blog/apples-vision-pro-headset-deserves/</a><p>> Tech companies want us isolated and constantly staring at screens because it drives profit<p>> the tech industry has been incentivized to push our society in the direction of isolation because it serves their business models.<p>Even The Verge admitted the Vision Pro is isolating<p><i>this</i> is why you shouldn't buy one or if you did, you should return it.
First generation Apple products are always pathfinding devices and they always suck in many ways. The first gen Apple Watch was borderline unusable. I understand people will be pessimistic about this but Apple does have a track record of greatly improving upon the initial experience, so we'll see what happens.
>The external cameras kind of suck. It’s a compromise. There are limits imposed by physics.<p>The other criticisms aren't unsurprising, but I'm curious what he means by this.<p>The cameras on my Samsung phone are very tiny and still very high res. I'd expect that to be one of the last problems on an Apple device.
Must feel nice to be able to return opened devices for a full refund. In this part of the world you can only return it if the device had manufacturing defect and that too for a replacement device. Sometimes you can't even return that, you have to contact the manufacturer for warranty.
This is not a regular product. It's a prototype. The goal is not to sell a lot of units nor compete with existing VR sets.<p>They probably want:
- Get feedback
- See how the end consumer use it
- See what programmers can built<p>In other words, it's the Apple version of a MVP. Minimal Viable Product
I may be in the minority, but having been disappointed by how the world has been impacted by pretty much all new gadget since, and including, the smart phone, I can't see myself ever getting any VR headset.<p>Apple might not be the worst, but do companies ever consider the long term negative consequences their business strategies? E.g. I'm never signing up to a social media platform ever again, strictly as a result of Facebooks and Twitters behavior. Knowing how much I struggle to limit the usage of my smart phone, why would I ever get yet another device that will remove me further from the real world?
I still can’t believe there is a huge battery attached to it that you have to keep in your pocket. How awkward is that? Meta’s headsets are totally wireless.
The Vision Pro is Apple's new 1984 Mac: costly, near useless, and absolutely at odds with how we use computers today. But it will change the world.
This was never intended to appeal to broad consumer base. It's a v1, innovative and cutting-edge technology that Apple decided was ready enough to put in the hands of some early adopters and developers. It's priced out of the consumer market range and isn't intended to meet all the goals of a device ready to appeal to the broad consumer base.<p>They want to get feedback from early adopters and developers to iterate on their software and marketplace, while they continue to drive down weight and cost and refine the hardware side of the device. The expectations for devices right now is pretty high given the decades of development we're accustomed to, but as an early adopter of the first iPhone itself, I remember how limited it was.<p>If the iPhone v1 was released in the environment we have tooday, it'd be lambasted as being limited. No app store, no app switching, no notification center, etc. It took time and work with developers and users in the real world to start fleshing out the product. Same thing will happen with the Apple Vision.<p>I can appreciate people reviewing the product and saying it's not for them, it's too heavy, it's not ready for mainstream use - but to me, they simply miss the point. It's a showcase device, only geared to those with money to burn, who are early adopters or developers. It shows a ton of promise, but it will be a generation or two before they fill in the product category under the "Pro" designation, and have an Apple Vision Air, Apple Vision, and Apple Vision Pro, with specs that appeal to broad audiences. It's coming, and their strategy to get the device in the hands of users and get feedback and folks developing on it, is a good one.
Weak reasons. One reason is good enough, eyes hurts. Or not fitted. Or whatever.<p>Is it a keeper if $ was lower, etc. let’s play a game of switching the order of reasons around, reverse and flip it.<p>Not sure I see an intent to buy and keep it except to try it.
It’s first gen tech. I do agree its usefulness at the moment is not there.<p>Maybe it’s the lack of apps that take advantage of the tech. Or the overall usability (in this case, significant eye strain/fatigue, heavy headset in the authors point of view m).<p>I was expecting more augmented reality rather than a simple block of an app and the ability to move it across the 360 view.<p>Just like the original iPhone. It was far behind the competition but years later it dominated the smart phone market. Albeit, Steve Jobs was the CEO at the time and that probably was a large portion of it. He was just a great salesman.<p>I can’t say the same for Tim. Great guy, I guess. But hardly memorable.
Why on Earth can people return these for non-fault reasons?!
It's the other customers who bear the cost to cover this - like indecisive ditzy clothes shoppers who order huge numbers of items knowing they'll return 90% of them.