4 ms·
There is no iPhone moment possible. The iPhone replaced at least 2 existing devices at a digestible price. Indeed, if you bought an iPad Nano plus a good featur
by seec 3y ago
There is no iPhone moment possible. The iPhone replaced at least 2 existing devices at a digestible price.
Indeed, if you bought an iPad Nano plus a good feature phone or one of the early smartphones you would be close to the iPhone price.
In France, it was launched at 600€ (8GB version) with a contract; but just the year prior I had bought a Windows mobile smartphone that completely sucked for 250€ (LG, under contract as well), plus a 210€ iPhone Nano. All in all, you are not that far from the price for a device that was truly something else and had all the functionality of the previous combo and much more.
The iPhone worked because it was priced pretty cheap considering everything it brought to the table. In fact, I am absolutely certain that people started buying iPhones because they intuitively understood that they would save money by staying ahead of the curve while bringing a lot of usefulness into their lives.
It is extremely doubtful that something like that will happen with the Vision Pro, firstly because it doesn't really replace any existing device and its pricing is completely disconnected from ordinary people's reality.
The iPhone was 5 years ahead of anything on the market, yet it did not cost 3 to 7 times the equivalent technology.
Actually, as I said I'm pretty sure it worked because people figured out that while it lacked some features or had "not as good" specs on paper for certain things, it was a far more usable and useful device. If you looked at its competitors at that time a Nokia N95 8GB would go for 300€ under contract (700€ naked) and the most popular Samsung/LG big feature phones/smartphone were around that price.
The iPhone was not expensive. This is a mythology created by Apple fanboys under Tim Cook that gaslighted everyone with "clever" diversification and an insane pricing ladder where he keeps selling old technology for twice the price of its competitors just because he benefits from the Apple brand halo.
When you look at it the first iPhone was what is now called a "Pro" iPhone; it was the best Apple could sell, but it was also the best in the market overall, there wasn't any alternative with a better integrated package.
Even if we make a charitable comparison and take for example the most expensive iPhone 3G at 700€ (16Go version) and ignore the Pro Max iPhone (which is an extreme outlier) and go for the "base" Pro iPhone at 1230€ ; you go from 68% of monthly minimum salary to 90%; a rather substantial 22% increase. For what is essentially the same thing relative to the overall market.
If you were to just consider inflation, 700€ in 2009 would be around 890€ today. This is already 80€ more money than the "base" iPhone 15. This base iPhone is technologically underwhelming, its only redeeming quality is the fast silicon but it is largely unnecessary and as to make up for the lower amount of RAM (that nowadays is way more relevant to what you can do with your phones that pure benchmark speed). It is basically the same thing as a Samsung S23, expect sold at a 300€ premium.
This is the reality that the Vision Pro is launching with, and as a "new" technology it was already bound to be expensive, but under the Tim Cook "leadership" it is bound to be a meme device considering the pricing placement. It is better technology than the competition, but not 3 times better and its potential use cases are not 3 times better than what exists.
In fact, we already know from very similar existing devices that such things are uncomfortable enough that they could not be considered as a primary device. So even if someone finds a use for them, it's going to be very niche and time bound. Nothing that could warrant its asking price.
But I find it very fitting to the Tim Cook era, it represents exactly what Apple has become with him: overpriced, overengineered, luxury show-off technology. Lots of posturing, enormous potential to display wealth; very little substance.