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Do they report on how much capex went into vision pro? I can’t imagine them ever moving enough units to recover those costs.

consumer451 3y ago
My personal reservations about Vision Pro aside, it's nice to see that Cook's Apple is at least taking swings at new product segments.
- losvedir 3y ago
  As a perpetual FOMO / early adopter with a pre-order (arrives tomorrow, can't wait!), I agree. I feel like phones and even watches are pretty "solved" at this point (witness every discussion around the incremental updates in a new iPhone), which is great. I'm excited there's potentially a new product category here where there's still a lot of unsolved questions. The form factor will certainly change, and the UX idioms will as well. I look forward to seeing it. I'm interested in the Quests, too, but Apple does have a little magic sometimes and are exploring a bit of a different direction. Exciting times.
  - holtkam2 3y ago
    I'm really interested to hear what regular customers (not journalists etc) have to say about it. I hope you love yours. I'm jealous! Like the others in this thread, I'm happy to see Apple investing in truly new, risky ventures. That's real innovation, and I hope they keep that up.
  - throw0101d 3y ago
    > I feel like phones and even watches are pretty "solved" at this point […] I'm curious to know about folding devices (as a category?) and if they're going to go anywhere. Would probably depend on the developments in flexible screens.
- wellthisisgreat 3y ago
  Yeah, I’d rather they do this then 1.5x their market cap via 6 new price-segmented iPhone models
- seiferteric 3y ago
  I was shocked when it was announced even though there were rumors of it for years. To me it just doesn't look like an apple product... I just never thought they would ship an actual VR headset like this, I figured they would be going towards something like a more refined/perfected version of google glass.
  - consumer451 3y ago
    I agree, it is a surprise. Vision Pro feels niche, at least for now. In some ways, Meta's new smart glasses almost seem like something more along the mass market "lifestyle" concept that Apple would normally go for. With Large Multimodal Models coming online now, it really seems like that Meta product has a lot of room to grow. Recognizing the world around you, and giving you very intelligent audio feedback on it seems pretty darn useful. Especially in a form factor that people have already accepted out in the public. The LMM -> audio playback interface seems like a great way to get around the display issues for a sci-fi Google Glass. But I suppose Apple will likely be later to market in that space as well, with an even more perfect product. That's assuming they can go from Siri to leading edge LMM.
  - GeekyBear 3y ago
    > I figured they would be going towards something like a more refined/perfected version of google glass. Long term, when the tech is there to do that, sure. 2017: > Apple CEO Tim Cook said that it will be a while before the technology available for augmented reality glasses rises to Apple’s standards, according to British Vogue. “There are rumours and gossip about companies working on that, and we obviously don’t talk about what we work on. But today I can tell you that the technology itself doesn’t exist to do that in a quality way,” Cook told Vogue. https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/11/apple-ar-glasses-tim-cook-says-tech-wont-be-ready-any-time-soon.html https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/11/apple-ar-glasses-tim-cook-sa... They keep iterating on it in-house, and keep finding that the tech still isn't ready. https://www.tomsguide.com/news/apple-glasses https://www.tomsguide.com/news/apple-glasses
hindsightbias 3y ago
200K x $3500 = $700M already It’ll do fine.
- promiseofbeans 3y ago
  Plus, much of the tech they developed for it has gone into other products - spatial audio being the prime example.
  - jdewerd 3y ago
    I don't think it's time for an obituary that counts the spinoffs and devkit revenue. FB and Apple got the timeline wrong, but the AR story isn't over. Looking down at phones still fundamentally sucks and eventually AR will be good enough. Point of comparison: Steve Jobs started talking about the iPhone when someone asked him about the next big thing at the Macintosh premier in 1984. 10 years later, he was fired from Apple and working on bespoke workstations. 20 years later, Palm/Blackberry owned the smartphone market. 30 years later, Apple owned the smartphone market. These stories take time.
    - sgerenser 3y ago
      I’m still waiting for my Knowledge Navigator: https://youtu.be/umJsITGzXd0?si=8q1W3ue40Kw_HRN0 https://youtu.be/umJsITGzXd0?si=8q1W3ue40Kw_HRN0
    - al_borland 3y ago
      To add to this, something akin to the iPad was first envisioned by Alan Kay in 1972 [1], then in the early 2000s, Microsoft was pushing the tablet PC hard to fulfill Gates’ dream of a paperless office. In 2010 Apple dropped the iPad, which seemed to finally get the formula mostly right, and 13 years later many are still waiting for the software to realize the potential of the hardware. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynabook https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynabook
- HDThoreaun 3y ago
  I doubt the revenue after cost of goods is much more than $1000 each with how expensive the displays and chips are.
esafak 3y ago
The XR market is projected to grow significantly; e.g., https://www.statista.com/topics/6072/extended-reality-xr/ https://www.statista.com/topics/6072/extended-reality-xr/ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/ar-vr-software-market https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/ar-vr-software-...
- ActionHank 3y ago
  iPhone was an obvious win as they were presenting it. Apple Watch was pretty mid, but people like watches and fitness bands, so it seemed to gain some traction. These goggles required so much tech and research and also have a massive price tag for what is realistically a novelty and possibly small evolution over current work flows. It doesn’t feel like it will be bigger than Apple Watch.
  - cj 3y ago
    I think labeling Apple Watch as “mid” is a bit of an understatement.
    - peddling-brink 3y ago
      When it was first released, it was not as good as the existing competitors, from my POV anyway. I had a moto 360 gen 1 which was great. The gen 1 iwatch wasn't even water proof.
  - al_borland 3y ago
    The iPhone was an obvious win for people who wanted an Apple phone. There were many critics who thought the iPhone was over priced and lacking features. Steve Ballmer was famously in that group.
    - jojobas 3y ago
      Iphone was filling an existing niche that others did poorly, at a comparable price. And it turned out that the niche was in huge demand - everybody likes reading the news and chatting with friends on the go. There were plenty of phones out there that could browse, email, take pictures etc, they just sucked and iphone sucked way less. It remains to be seen whether the current goggles just suck or the whole concept is for geeks only (even with the geeks that own some kind of vr googles only 10% use them weekly or more often).
NickC25 3y ago
>I can’t imagine them ever moving enough units to recover those costs. I bet there were similar reservations about the initial iPhone, too. CapEx spending to develop the Vision Pro will probably be spread out over years, in which Apple will undoubtedly release the Vision Pro 2, 3 etc.. I'm not an accountant or an R&D guy but the first version always costs the most, right? Improvements over the years cost less and less as the platform is more established, I would think (if all other costs remain relatively stable).
- Rapzid 3y ago
  > I bet there were similar reservations about the initial iPhone There were not.
- makeitdouble 3y ago
  The iPhone had a very clear path forward. In particular, while it's success wasn't guaranteed the market (high spec phones) was already sizeable and people were paying substantial money on it. The Vision Pro is none of that and they'll have to build the market (a non gaming ARish headset) by themselves.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- GeekyBear 3y ago
  > I bet there were similar reservations about the initial iPhone, too. Microsoft: “There’s no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance." Palm: “We've learned and struggled for a few years here figuring out how to make a decent phone,” Colligan said. “PC guys are not going to just figure this out. They're not going to just walk in.” RIM: "in terms of a sort of a sea-change for BlackBerry, I would think that’s overstating it" Nokia: “The development of mobile phones will be similar in PCs. Even with the Mac, Apple has attracted much attention at first, but they have still remained a niche manufacturer. That will be in mobile phones as well”
  - 3y ago
threeseed 3y ago
From Apple's perspective Vision Pro is going to be the next Mac. So they do believe they will ship enough units over the next few decades. As for capex, Apple claims 5000 patents cover the Vision Pro so it must be unprecedented for them.
- lulznews 3y ago
  Holy cow that’s at least a billion in lawyer salaries.
  - threeseed 3y ago
    I also count at least 8 acquisitions just for Vision Pro: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisitions_by_Apple https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisitio... So definitely a lot of lawyers.
  - badrequest 3y ago
    Even if they use in-house counsel? I would assume having salaried lawyers lowers the cost of registering that many patents at least a little, but I suppose it could also end up still being $1B.
    - gnicholas 3y ago
      If you divide a billion dollars by 5,000 patents, that would have to be $200k per patent. Some might have cost that much, with extensive back and forth via outside counsel. But many would be closer to $10-20k, via in-house counsel.
- crooked-v 3y ago
  To me, it seems really obvious that the current Vision Pro is step 1 in a plan that extends out for at least 10 or 15 years of iteration, until they finally arrive at the "Apple Glasses" that are a practical replacement for phones for a noticeable percentage of people.
  - 3y ago
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

consumer451 3y ago

My personal reservations about Vision Pro aside, it's nice to see that Cook's Apple is at least taking swings at new product segments.

losvedir 3y ago
As a perpetual FOMO / early adopter with a pre-order (arrives tomorrow, can't wait!), I agree. I feel like phones and even watches are pretty "solved" at this point (witness every discussion around the incremental updates in a new iPhone), which is great. I'm excited there's potentially a new product category here where there's still a lot of unsolved questions. The form factor will certainly change, and the UX idioms will as well. I look forward to seeing it. I'm interested in the Quests, too, but Apple does have a little magic sometimes and are exploring a bit of a different direction. Exciting times.
- holtkam2 3y ago
  I'm really interested to hear what regular customers (not journalists etc) have to say about it. I hope you love yours. I'm jealous! Like the others in this thread, I'm happy to see Apple investing in truly new, risky ventures. That's real innovation, and I hope they keep that up.
- throw0101d 3y ago
  > I feel like phones and even watches are pretty "solved" at this point […] I'm curious to know about folding devices (as a category?) and if they're going to go anywhere. Would probably depend on the developments in flexible screens.
wellthisisgreat 3y ago
Yeah, I’d rather they do this then 1.5x their market cap via 6 new price-segmented iPhone models
seiferteric 3y ago
I was shocked when it was announced even though there were rumors of it for years. To me it just doesn't look like an apple product... I just never thought they would ship an actual VR headset like this, I figured they would be going towards something like a more refined/perfected version of google glass.
- consumer451 3y ago
  I agree, it is a surprise. Vision Pro feels niche, at least for now. In some ways, Meta's new smart glasses almost seem like something more along the mass market "lifestyle" concept that Apple would normally go for. With Large Multimodal Models coming online now, it really seems like that Meta product has a lot of room to grow. Recognizing the world around you, and giving you very intelligent audio feedback on it seems pretty darn useful. Especially in a form factor that people have already accepted out in the public. The LMM -> audio playback interface seems like a great way to get around the display issues for a sci-fi Google Glass. But I suppose Apple will likely be later to market in that space as well, with an even more perfect product. That's assuming they can go from Siri to leading edge LMM.
- GeekyBear 3y ago
  > I figured they would be going towards something like a more refined/perfected version of google glass. Long term, when the tech is there to do that, sure. 2017: > Apple CEO Tim Cook said that it will be a while before the technology available for augmented reality glasses rises to Apple’s standards, according to British Vogue. “There are rumours and gossip about companies working on that, and we obviously don’t talk about what we work on. But today I can tell you that the technology itself doesn’t exist to do that in a quality way,” Cook told Vogue. https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/11/apple-ar-glasses-tim-cook-says-tech-wont-be-ready-any-time-soon.html https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/11/apple-ar-glasses-tim-cook-sa... They keep iterating on it in-house, and keep finding that the tech still isn't ready. https://www.tomsguide.com/news/apple-glasses https://www.tomsguide.com/news/apple-glasses

hindsightbias 3y ago

200K x $3500 = $700M already It’ll do fine.

promiseofbeans 3y ago
Plus, much of the tech they developed for it has gone into other products - spatial audio being the prime example.
- jdewerd 3y ago
  I don't think it's time for an obituary that counts the spinoffs and devkit revenue. FB and Apple got the timeline wrong, but the AR story isn't over. Looking down at phones still fundamentally sucks and eventually AR will be good enough. Point of comparison: Steve Jobs started talking about the iPhone when someone asked him about the next big thing at the Macintosh premier in 1984. 10 years later, he was fired from Apple and working on bespoke workstations. 20 years later, Palm/Blackberry owned the smartphone market. 30 years later, Apple owned the smartphone market. These stories take time.
  - sgerenser 3y ago
    I’m still waiting for my Knowledge Navigator: https://youtu.be/umJsITGzXd0?si=8q1W3ue40Kw_HRN0 https://youtu.be/umJsITGzXd0?si=8q1W3ue40Kw_HRN0
  - al_borland 3y ago
    To add to this, something akin to the iPad was first envisioned by Alan Kay in 1972 [1], then in the early 2000s, Microsoft was pushing the tablet PC hard to fulfill Gates’ dream of a paperless office. In 2010 Apple dropped the iPad, which seemed to finally get the formula mostly right, and 13 years later many are still waiting for the software to realize the potential of the hardware. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynabook https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynabook
HDThoreaun 3y ago
I doubt the revenue after cost of goods is much more than $1000 each with how expensive the displays and chips are.

esafak 3y ago

The XR market is projected to grow significantly; e.g., https://www.statista.com/topics/6072/extended-reality-xr/ https://www.statista.com/topics/6072/extended-reality-xr/ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/ar-vr-software-market https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/ar-vr-software-...

ActionHank 3y ago
iPhone was an obvious win as they were presenting it. Apple Watch was pretty mid, but people like watches and fitness bands, so it seemed to gain some traction. These goggles required so much tech and research and also have a massive price tag for what is realistically a novelty and possibly small evolution over current work flows. It doesn’t feel like it will be bigger than Apple Watch.
- cj 3y ago
  I think labeling Apple Watch as “mid” is a bit of an understatement.
  - peddling-brink 3y ago
    When it was first released, it was not as good as the existing competitors, from my POV anyway. I had a moto 360 gen 1 which was great. The gen 1 iwatch wasn't even water proof.
- al_borland 3y ago
  The iPhone was an obvious win for people who wanted an Apple phone. There were many critics who thought the iPhone was over priced and lacking features. Steve Ballmer was famously in that group.
  - jojobas 3y ago
    Iphone was filling an existing niche that others did poorly, at a comparable price. And it turned out that the niche was in huge demand - everybody likes reading the news and chatting with friends on the go. There were plenty of phones out there that could browse, email, take pictures etc, they just sucked and iphone sucked way less. It remains to be seen whether the current goggles just suck or the whole concept is for geeks only (even with the geeks that own some kind of vr googles only 10% use them weekly or more often).

NickC25 3y ago

>I can’t imagine them ever moving enough units to recover those costs. I bet there were similar reservations about the initial iPhone, too. CapEx spending to develop the Vision Pro will probably be spread out over years, in which Apple will undoubtedly release the Vision Pro 2, 3 etc.. I'm not an accountant or an R&D guy but the first version always costs the most, right? Improvements over the years cost less and less as the platform is more established, I would think (if all other costs remain relatively stable).

Rapzid 3y ago
> I bet there were similar reservations about the initial iPhone There were not.
makeitdouble 3y ago
The iPhone had a very clear path forward. In particular, while it's success wasn't guaranteed the market (high spec phones) was already sizeable and people were paying substantial money on it. The Vision Pro is none of that and they'll have to build the market (a non gaming ARish headset) by themselves.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
GeekyBear 3y ago
> I bet there were similar reservations about the initial iPhone, too. Microsoft: “There’s no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance." Palm: “We've learned and struggled for a few years here figuring out how to make a decent phone,” Colligan said. “PC guys are not going to just figure this out. They're not going to just walk in.” RIM: "in terms of a sort of a sea-change for BlackBerry, I would think that’s overstating it" Nokia: “The development of mobile phones will be similar in PCs. Even with the Mac, Apple has attracted much attention at first, but they have still remained a niche manufacturer. That will be in mobile phones as well”
- 3y ago

threeseed 3y ago

From Apple's perspective Vision Pro is going to be the next Mac. So they do believe they will ship enough units over the next few decades. As for capex, Apple claims 5000 patents cover the Vision Pro so it must be unprecedented for them.

lulznews 3y ago
Holy cow that’s at least a billion in lawyer salaries.
- threeseed 3y ago
  I also count at least 8 acquisitions just for Vision Pro: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisitions_by_Apple https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisitio... So definitely a lot of lawyers.
- badrequest 3y ago
  Even if they use in-house counsel? I would assume having salaried lawyers lowers the cost of registering that many patents at least a little, but I suppose it could also end up still being $1B.
  - gnicholas 3y ago
    If you divide a billion dollars by 5,000 patents, that would have to be $200k per patent. Some might have cost that much, with extensive back and forth via outside counsel. But many would be closer to $10-20k, via in-house counsel.
crooked-v 3y ago
To me, it seems really obvious that the current Vision Pro is step 1 in a plan that extends out for at least 10 or 15 years of iteration, until they finally arrive at the "Apple Glasses" that are a practical replacement for phones for a noticeable percentage of people.
- 3y ago

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]