this post was submitted on 15 Jan 2024
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Apple hopes to convince people to buy its $3,500 Vision Pro headset using free 25-minute in-store demos::undefined

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[–] [email protected] 58 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (7 children)

Oh. My. Goodness.

$3,500?!? HAHAHAHAHAHA

[–] [email protected] 36 points 11 months ago (3 children)

It is not meant for the end consumer at this stage, it is a tech demo and development kit.

The real consumer variant will probably be released in a year or two.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago (1 children)

It should be marketed as a dev kit, but they're marketing it for consumers

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Well, why not capture some consumers at the same time?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

This very article says that Apple is pushing it onto "walk-in" consumers.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

So?

They need to build hype, and if that means they are pushing a demo on walk-ins,then I don't have an issue with it as long as they accept a "No thank you" from the customer.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Did they say this or is this your pet theory? I don't feel like that is necessarily the best strategy, since people won't develop for it, when there's no users and no users will appear when no one develops an ecosystem for this thing...

[–] [email protected] 25 points 11 months ago (1 children)

This isn't really a "pet" theory — just economics. VR represents an entirely new product line, and with Apple's expansion into services, a whole new way to value-add to those services and entire ecosystem; capturing more recurring revenue. This price point is based on new manufacturing costs at a much smaller scale than their other product lines.

It's Apple, so it'll never be "cheap", but it can't remain at this price point and stave off competition for long. Within 3 years they'll either drop the price and introduce a pro version, or release an SE version, that'll still probably be around $2000-2500 — but bringing it within reach of the people who'd normally buy "pro" devices.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago (2 children)

This is interesting because you’re correct that this is almost certainly a dev kit that they’re making people pay for.

However: this is very unlike Apple to do if it’s true. We ask ourselves, “What is the enthusiast or middle class user able to afford for good VR?” And as we’ve seen, consumer headsets are aimed at less than $1000.

So the plan is for Apple to put out an amazing headset with the best materials and best screen and eye tracking and all this, only for them to wait some years before releasing a worse version of this that still costs over $1000? I can’t see how Apple would get beneath this price point. And I can’t see how they’d justify themselves.

So your average consumer isn’t using this anytime soon. Did they just make a weird toy line for the rich?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago

At best this may help scaling up production of the necessary components (in particular the displays)

[–] [email protected] 0 points 11 months ago

Did they just make a weird toy line for the rich?

Well it is Apple, they sell status more than anything else.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago

You have to start somewhere. The iPhone was a game changer so it took of instantly. Something like an AR/VR headset is still pretty niche even today about 10 years after VR really became a thing.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 11 months ago (1 children)

So... I can't buy it? If I can, you're either lying, wrong, or have an agenda.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 11 months ago

So… I can’t buy it?

If you can afford it you can buy it, the purpose of a product does not need to affect availablility.

you’re either lying

Why go straight into calling me a liar? This just shows that you don't want to have a proper discussion.

wrong,

This is quite possible, I have been wrong before, and I will be wrong in the future, it happens, and is not the end of the world unless you realy fuck up.

or have an agenda.

I can't figure out any agenda that I would push regarding the Vision Pro.

In the end, it is a theory, based on resonable data available to me.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 11 months ago (2 children)

I’d buy it if it was the kind of tool that earned me $5000… but it’s still really hard to justify the business use case for VR these days.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 11 months ago (2 children)

If I can lie on my couch while typing away on my custom virtual workspace it might be worth it but the resolution requirements make that unlikely any time soon

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago (1 children)

This thing is overpriced but there’s no way Apple ships it if they don’t have the pixel density to render text in a way that doesn’t make your eyes bleed. It’s being marketed as a work device, after all.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Yah but my dream setup is something that mimic 2/3 monitors sitting on a desk (or some VR-optimized version of that). In the real world those monitors are each 1080p+ and sitting in full view so the whole "scene" you're looking at has many more pixels than just what is on all the monitors combined. If you scale that scene down to 4K resolution then the text on those monitors would likely be blurry or unreadable.

Obviously there are other ways to make a 4K resolution usable by zooming way in but that's much less "screen" real estate than what a real workspace offers.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Also it's too heavy to wear comfortably for long sessions

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago
[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago (2 children)

It also has basically no battery life and once that mostly useless battery becomes completely useless you are never unplugging that thing from the wall because you bet Apple made that battery impossible to replace!

[–] [email protected] 12 points 11 months ago

The battery pack is literally just USB c.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 11 months ago

Not impossible, just impossible to afford

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

And I thought Apple consumers were out-of-touch!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Have you heard of the Apple Cheesegrater?

[–] [email protected] -2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Shit I've bought MacBooks for work that cost as much as that headset, and my current laptop costs about as much as this.

$3500 is nothing for a computer, let alone a prosumery AR/VR heatset with a computer built in.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

$3500 is nothing for a computer, let alone a prosumery AR/VR heatset with a computer built in.

It's absolutely bonkers. The problem is you've been brainwashed by Apple into paying such high prices.

[–] [email protected] -4 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

My work PC costs twice that. There’s Apples influence has nothing to do with my Thinkpad.

I’ve worked on workstations that cost as much as a nice car. Apples pricing only comes close because they charge so much for storage. When you’re working with triple digit gigabytes of ram machines it ain’t cheap.

Apple makes by far the best laptop out there. No machine comes close when it comes to performance and battery life. Intel has a decent performance per watt under load, but under light non idle loads it’s not even close. My Thinkpad is incapable of getting decent battery life. Lenovos 10 hour battery life is a damn lie. I get 30 minutes to 3 hours at best. Our work MacBook pros easily get 10+ doing the exact same workload. AMD gets close, but they’re falling down the same trap Intel has been for the last 10 years.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 11 months ago

My work PC costs twice that. There’s Apples influence has nothing to do with my Thinkpad.

Please show me your $7k Thinkpad.

When you’re working with triple digit gigabytes of ram machines it ain’t cheap.

It's a lot cheaper if it's not made by Apple. Even the 8GB models are insanely expensive.

Apple makes by far the best laptop out there.

That may be but they're still not worth remotely what they're charging, and the vast majority of people buying them don't need them. They just buy into the ecosystem.

Also cloud computing is a thing. If there's ever anything I need a bunch of power for I run it remotely from my desktop at home or on a cloud VM. And my mediocre desktop will blow the M9 Super Max Ultra Megacruncher out of the water for most tasks.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 11 months ago

A lot of tech, including computers, commonly cost that much for a long time. It's not a totally outrageous for consumer tech.

[–] [email protected] -4 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Only because it's an Apple product. They could have made it stream wirelessly from your MacBook, and make it smaller and lighter, but then you wouldn't have to pay another $3000 for the onboard processors.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

They could have made it stream wirelessly from your MacBook

yeah, no. People really don't understand how much bandwidth you actually need to stream even normal 4k 60hz video, let alone something like this. For reference, when I was figuring out how to dump my pc in the basement and have the monitor in my office, I had to run 12-strand fiber cables to do it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

I've tried several remote desktop apps but the compression artefacts very quickly give me a headache. So I splurged for MTP cables and the display port dongles, and it works like a dream. Also, MTP connectors are pure fibre porn.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

Yeah, no. Done it with WiFi 6, no problem. Meta has had Air Link for years. Works fine. You don't understand how much bandwidth you actually need.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

you need about 20 gigabits per second for 4k 60hz. Or more, for higher resolutions and refresh rate - which vision pro has, compared to ~6 gigabits per second, that you need for your quest pro's resolution. That's why they make these.

And having compressed video streaming to a VR device sounds like my worst nightmare.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Wifi 7 has a peak rate of 40 Gbps.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Maybe it does, and it still would (probably) not be enough for two 4k 90hz displays that this has.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

And is nowhere in any consumer product today. How is it relevant to this discussion?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

Vision Pro is also not a consumer product today.

WiFi 7 was all over the devices at CES though. It's happening soon.