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I'm curious how the economics work out. I don't think it's unrealistic to believe that the customer base that are going to be buying visionOS applications is go

I'm curious how the economics work out. I don't think it's unrealistic to believe that the customer base that are going to be buying visionOS applications is going to be very limited compared to everything else. Very few people are going to shell out 3.4k for a niche product like this. HoloLens found it's niche in commercial sectors like manufacturing and logistics so there's a potential path to make a profitable software business in that direction. However I'm curious what makes this play exciting for indie developers who might not have enough cash for a "long play" here. For iOS it wasn't difficult to see what the benefit would be and iPad only expanded the audience (and breadth of applications having more power under the hood). This is quite a bit different: the technology has been here for a while but the audience seems to be missing (or not as big as you'd think). What's the play here for small businesses? Just use a portion of your budget to throw spaghetti at the wall?

Krasnol 3y ago
Maybe this is supposed to become an arcade experience for those with normal wages?
bee_rider 3y ago
I suspect the only play would be: develop developer tools for those developers who do have the budget for a long play. If Apple wants AR in their normal non-gaming, non-niche segment to work out, they are going to have to come out with a sleek $1000 device in a couple years. They’d have to be very stupid to not realize that, and it couldn’t possibly be the case that you get a trillion dollars by being stupid, right?
- agentultra 3y ago
  Right, I think they will eventually come out with a non-Pro device eventually... and price is only one factor in adoption. They could be signalling that they only want a small number of users for these things. > it couldn’t possibly be the case that you get a trillion dollars by being stupid, right? ... I mean, the fossil fuel industry likes to think it's smart but what it's doing is incredibly stupid. I'm not sure Apple got to a trillion dollars on merit alone.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- threeseed 3y ago
  Cost or demand is not the issue for Apple it's the supply chain. Right now it can't fulfil a $5000 product let along a $1000 one. So they will need a dramatic ramp up across their partners before they even consider a consumer SKU.
- MBCook 3y ago
  Don’t forget the iPhone wasn’t an instant hit. It got a lot of discussion but it took a few years/versions before it became THE phone. Same with the Apple Watch. And even the iPod didn’t take off until it was on Windows after a few years. This will likely be similar. When the iPhone came out, not only was it limited it was $600 and no subsidy at a time most people were getting free camera phones. It took a while (and a price drop) for people to see enough value to pay the price.
  - greedo 3y ago
    I don't expect the Vision devices to really drop much in price in the coming years. To lower costs, they'll have to go with lower quality displays, or cheaper cameras/sensors and less battery life. If you look at the iPhone, it hasn't gone down in price much if at all. I think we're at least 5 years away in terms of tech capability to provide the level of experience Apple is looking for at an "SE iPhone" type price point.
    - MBCook 3y ago
      Some will come from mass production lowering costs for components. Some from the components being less cutting edge (and thus cheaper) too. But I agree it’s not getting cheap soon. Maybe to $2k for the non-pro version (similar to the announcement Vision Pro) in a few years. Maybe even $1500. You want to pay $500? You’re going to wait a long time.
      - TillE 3y ago
        When Apple releases one of these for $1999, that's the point where they'll be taking the general consumer market seriously. The price of a MacBook Pro. I think you could get there pretty quickly by cutting out all the AR stuff and making a VR-only "spatial computing" device, but I dunno if that's something they want to do.
        greedo 3y ago
        I think that would be a mistake and definitely not what they want to do (from their focus on AR in general the last few years). I think at $1999 for a "base" model, they'll sell millions. I just think that the tech they need to improve (optics and batteries) are hard to miniaturize. Chips and sensors they're the best in the world (in terms of consumer electronics). Batteries are just tough, and despite how good the iPhone is as a camera, it still is easily trounced by dedicated digicams.
mcmcmc 3y ago
> HoloLens found it's niche in commercial sectors like manufacturing and logistics so there's a potential path to make a profitable software business in that direction. I mean… that may have been a niche they targeted, whether they found success is debatable. Seems like it was mostly kept afloat by bloated military contracts. And even there it pretty much flopped. https://www.theregister.com/2022/10/13/us_army_report_microsoft_hololens/ https://www.theregister.com/2022/10/13/us_army_report_micros...
prox 3y ago
This is their first iteration. I think like the Apple Watch is the version where they just gonna see where it’s gonna go. I mean if anyone can make this more successful it’s probably Apple.
pazimzadeh 3y ago
The same way Tesla started out by selling a Roadster before working on mass market models

Krasnol 3y ago

Maybe this is supposed to become an arcade experience for those with normal wages?

bee_rider 3y ago

I suspect the only play would be: develop developer tools for those developers who do have the budget for a long play. If Apple wants AR in their normal non-gaming, non-niche segment to work out, they are going to have to come out with a sleek $1000 device in a couple years. They’d have to be very stupid to not realize that, and it couldn’t possibly be the case that you get a trillion dollars by being stupid, right?

agentultra 3y ago
Right, I think they will eventually come out with a non-Pro device eventually... and price is only one factor in adoption. They could be signalling that they only want a small number of users for these things. > it couldn’t possibly be the case that you get a trillion dollars by being stupid, right? ... I mean, the fossil fuel industry likes to think it's smart but what it's doing is incredibly stupid. I'm not sure Apple got to a trillion dollars on merit alone.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
threeseed 3y ago
Cost or demand is not the issue for Apple it's the supply chain. Right now it can't fulfil a $5000 product let along a $1000 one. So they will need a dramatic ramp up across their partners before they even consider a consumer SKU.
MBCook 3y ago
Don’t forget the iPhone wasn’t an instant hit. It got a lot of discussion but it took a few years/versions before it became THE phone. Same with the Apple Watch. And even the iPod didn’t take off until it was on Windows after a few years. This will likely be similar. When the iPhone came out, not only was it limited it was $600 and no subsidy at a time most people were getting free camera phones. It took a while (and a price drop) for people to see enough value to pay the price.
- greedo 3y ago
  I don't expect the Vision devices to really drop much in price in the coming years. To lower costs, they'll have to go with lower quality displays, or cheaper cameras/sensors and less battery life. If you look at the iPhone, it hasn't gone down in price much if at all. I think we're at least 5 years away in terms of tech capability to provide the level of experience Apple is looking for at an "SE iPhone" type price point.
  - MBCook 3y ago
    Some will come from mass production lowering costs for components. Some from the components being less cutting edge (and thus cheaper) too. But I agree it’s not getting cheap soon. Maybe to $2k for the non-pro version (similar to the announcement Vision Pro) in a few years. Maybe even $1500. You want to pay $500? You’re going to wait a long time.
    - TillE 3y ago
      When Apple releases one of these for $1999, that's the point where they'll be taking the general consumer market seriously. The price of a MacBook Pro. I think you could get there pretty quickly by cutting out all the AR stuff and making a VR-only "spatial computing" device, but I dunno if that's something they want to do.
      - greedo 3y ago
        I think that would be a mistake and definitely not what they want to do (from their focus on AR in general the last few years). I think at $1999 for a "base" model, they'll sell millions. I just think that the tech they need to improve (optics and batteries) are hard to miniaturize. Chips and sensors they're the best in the world (in terms of consumer electronics). Batteries are just tough, and despite how good the iPhone is as a camera, it still is easily trounced by dedicated digicams.

mcmcmc 3y ago

> HoloLens found it's niche in commercial sectors like manufacturing and logistics so there's a potential path to make a profitable software business in that direction. I mean… that may have been a niche they targeted, whether they found success is debatable. Seems like it was mostly kept afloat by bloated military contracts. And even there it pretty much flopped. https://www.theregister.com/2022/10/13/us_army_report_microsoft_hololens/ https://www.theregister.com/2022/10/13/us_army_report_micros...

prox 3y ago

This is their first iteration. I think like the Apple Watch is the version where they just gonna see where it’s gonna go. I mean if anyone can make this more successful it’s probably Apple.

pazimzadeh 3y ago

The same way Tesla started out by selling a Roadster before working on mass market models