Hacker News Reader

Comment by bagels | Hacker News Reader

Apple expects to sell 150k units next year. I'm sure there will be a couple of popular apps, but beyond those couple, what is the financial incentive to develop for it?

View on HN

Those 150k units will be purchased by some of the most desirable customers in the world.

People who spend $3500 on a headset have a lot of disposable income. Perhaps enough to pay $200 for a VR game with good marketing.

Especially if you're first, or close to first, with a killer app with a high attach rate. I read that something like 50% of PC VR headset owners buy Beat Saber, contrast that with attach rates measured with scientific notation like 1e-3 for most mobile apps that aren't from huge megacorps. If you can make the Beat Saber equivalent for Apple's platform it could be lucrative indeed.

Right, my point was, there will be a couple of apps that everyone will get. Mobile phones have anchored app prices near free. Maybe some great app will get to charge 1/2 of the users $10. That's less than 1M if they sell 150k devices. I hope you don't need a big team to build whatever it is and are sure your app is the successful one.

People who spend $3500 on a headset are industrial/professional users who will make more than $3500 in value for it. That is why Microsoft HoloLens, and a lot of commercial AR products you've never heard of, cost even more.

Apple is a consumer brand. The same people who buy $5000 sneakers or handbags may well buy a vision headset.

The brand + price tag is enough to sell at least a few thousand Vision units regardless of technical specifications.

They accomplished that with the iPhone, which is small, sleek, metallic....a status symbol like jewellery or a fine watch. It's not imposing, it doesn't overshadow your outfit. AVP is the complete opposite of all that.

A few thousand sales is nothing[0], and assuming your users are stupid doesn't make for a good business even if it seems cool to say it.

[0] it's enough for enterprise sales, but they're charging much much more than $3500 one time.

Apple is a consumer brand that sells a $50,000 tower computer.

Apple’s consumer spatial computing devices will be Vision Air and Vision SE.

AR NFT it is, then.

You might want to read similar comments that were made about the iPhone when it was launched. And the iPad, and the Apple Watch.

My personal answer is that I don't know what it's going to be used for, but I'm betting that it will be used A LOT once that use is figured out.

> You might want to read similar comments that were made about the iPhone

What comments do you want to share from 2007 that will be relevant? The iPhone was released without an App Store and no intention to support 3rd party native apps until developers demanded it. The App Store was released after millions of units had already shipped. A speculative platform of uncertain consumer interest, shipping a tenth of the units in the first year compared to iPhone cannot be compared to a once in a generation phenomenon where the dev platform was pulled out of the vendor by demand.

It will be interesting to see how it turns out but the use cases Apple showed so far are kind of laughable: photos, movies, meditation apps, facetime, 2d games etc. The only tangible benefit was "a big screen". There is more chance these goggles end up in a drawer than an iPhone which was already used compulsively through out the day.

> and the Apple Watch

It's a popular product but are there many developer success stories on the Watch? AFAIK a handful of fitness/media apps are popular but doesn't it otherwise suck as an app platform?

Whoever manages to slip a porn application by the censors is going to clean up (financially).

If anyone is familiar in the Cyberpunk 2077 universe, it seems reminiscent of "Brain Dances". I could see an app that can play and interact with pre-recorded footage and provide the ability to view that experience in a 3D space

Just FYI, you can just say Cyberpunk. Cyberpunk 2077 is based off of the long-running tabletop rpg Cyberpunk. Same universe, different stories/media.

Dude, check out the 1995 film "Strange Days".

I thought that was one of the few built-in features that was advertised as shipping with Vision Pro?

Totally Innocent 3D Video Player Pro™ coming right up.

There's no sideloading? Typical. At least the EU will fix that soon.

Ah, but it has a replaceable battery.

I agree, long term, if it's a success, there will be more opportunity. It might be too early right now to risk the investment.

If they sell 150,000 units somehow and it only has 2 apps on the market then you could expect an extremely high percentage of those people to buy your app.

They will sell more than that. At least 500K. You’re underestimating Apple’s pull. Heck buy two. Save one completely wrapped. Sell it 20 years later.

Supposedly the entire world's production capacity of the micro LEDs Apple is using is about 350k. They are really hard to make.

More than a couple of apps. I'd guess there are a handful of viable opportunities in each of many categories - music, productivity, particular game genre, etc. Many developers will port existing iOS/Mac apps, even if just to work in the 2D iPad mode.

The users of these glasses will be rich people who love to spend money on new shiny things

Vision Pro is lower cost than two nano-textured Studio Displays.

The buyers of the first 150k units are overwhelmingly people who value Vision Pro as equipment and people who value Vision Pro as an Explorer’s Adventure. Both will be good customers of artisanal apps.

Can you share where you got that number from? Is it in one of their recent keynotes ?

thanks

Yeah, I googled it, maybe the source isn't reliable, sorry.

I heard closer to 600K in sales. But I do think, regardless of the actual number, Apple doesn't plan to sell millions of theses. At least not this iteration of the device. Which is something I've seen parroted quiet a bit.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com