Apple plans a slow, appointment-only rollout of Vision Pro
bloomberg.com
bloomberg.com
The whole experience of visiting an Apple store has changed from being something I looked forward to just another shopping chore. The VR headset is a case in point - if I want to be guided through the process, then I will ask for that. Otherwise, just sell me the damn product! I guess maybe I'm just not their target audience any more.
https://www.aboveavalon.com/notes/2021/3/10/the-future-of-ap...
I don't blame the guy who stole it, although I might if I'd had to hold the bill for his act of sticky-fingered entrepreneurship. I do blame Apple for using a service, whose drivers normally handle $50 in food at a time, to deliver nonperishable and highly portable items of 20 or more times that value.
If I'm there to shop, I'll ask them to point me to what I want to try out and do so. If I'm buying clothes, for example, high-touch is great. "I like this style, but this manufacturer doesn't fit me well, do you have something similar you recommend?"
But when I needed a new Apple Watch charger on a trip, I walked into the store, said I needed one, and the only question was did I want USB-A or USB-C? A, thanks, sold. I was in and out in less time than it took my wife to find and use the restroom in the mall.
One bizarre experience I had was when I had a Genius Bar appointment to fix an inaudible handset speaker on an iPhone (apparently they have a program that runs through a wide gamut of frequencies to knock out any odd bits of dust). Yep, it worked. Then the Genius asked me if I would make a phone call (can't, it's a backup phone, no SIM) or FaceTime call (um, to whom?) to test it. It's work hours, the people I would call would be busy at work, how about I just call your phone? No, can't share that.
I said, Genius, why don't you have a generic thing that I can FaceTime and you can respond to that's part of your work identity? I don't need your personal info. Just "applestore-ZIPcode-[five-digit one-time account]@icloud.com" would work.
I just had this exact experience because my phone was irrevocably ruined, so I needed to pick a replacement up the same day.
The Apple Store was a very poor experience with a sales agent I knew more than trying, repeatedly, to explain to me things like backup, Apple Care, etc., etc. I also for some reason had to talk to four different people, and the only one that could actually help me was busy while everyone else in the store was standing around. It should have taken 10 minutes and it took the better part of an hour.
It makes sense. There's not a pile of 1000 Macbooks on a pallet back there. It's locked up in a cage, and they go in and get one at a time.
But makes for a slow shopping experience.
I've worked places that used this kind of process. It doesn't turn a 10 minute visit into a 50 minute visit without some kind of underlying issue blocking the cage pull from happening. Something along the lines of an interpersonal communication failure (forgot to request cage pull, person with key forgot/never got the request or the person with the key has gone into hiding ), a technical fluke (cage has electronic lock and it's EMP day), or a freak accident (person with the key, as well as the key itself, got disintegrated by ball lightning). As long as there isn't anything blocking, a cage pull is 10-15 min. If the person with the key was busy with a client, the requestor would normally take that over so they can run to the cage without the delay of having to finish that client.
I counted 14 workers and maybe 3x as many customers in the store, with at least 5 workers just standing around doing nothing.
This is why people on a budget go to the grocery store with a list. The physical experience is designed to sell you more, and Apple has the margins to to design the fuck out of that experience.
You're not just supporting them with money, you help to reinforce the spread of their ecosystem and marketing by using the phone day to day.
I don’t have the same negative experience as others in this thread with the Apple Store, but I understand it. I would liken it to a car dealership, which I refuse to do business with after it once took five hours to buy a car from one. Lots of people are totally fine with it, but it’s not for me.
I’ve not gone into a store for an item when I already knew exactly what I want since the pandemic. Even if I need it same day I’ll buy it online and pick it up. That’s probably most people now, and they probably know it.
But then, it might be about my buying habits: the cheapest thing which suits my needs, and only when I actually need it rather than as soon as it comes out, so I'm almost never there at the sales peak for whatever it is I'm getting.
Or purchase from the hundreds of third party resellers who also sell them.
There are many people especially with the Apple Watch who aren't experts at technology and so having personalised service makes sense for them. And for you there are obviously many other options.
The reason this is done is to:
a) limit bad online reviews due to ill fitting headsets or unfamiliarity with the controls
b) to ensure that people looking to buy it have their expectations managed
c) to give it the upscale, prestige feeling of going to a tailor for a fitted suit. Useless theater for a tech product, but Apple loves pageantry.
1) Give explanation to you why you should reconsider
2) Make you fill out a form stating reasons for returning
3) Refund in cash giving you small notes
I don’t say this to challenge your story, but I found it completely straightforward to buy an iPhone in an Apple Store recently (in London).
Oh, you didn’t know that there’s actually two different places to swipe down at the top of the phone? Everyone knows about that, you idiot!
In my case, I learned about setting up a triple-click shortcut to pop up the accessibility menu so I could unmute the phone via software due to a broken side switch that won't stay on. I'm sure this is available elsewhere online, but using Google just took me to the regular places - typically someone posting on an Apple forum trying and failing to get help.
It's frustrating, sure, but look at if from the other side: 99% of the people they deal with are completely incapable, and 90% of their problems ARE solved by a simple reboot.
Apple/iPhone is the ubiquitous phone for everyone from CTOs to grandma's.
The in store experience is optimized to make sure a person that has been stuck in a cave for 30 years and can walk out with a device optimized for their needs.
I bet they think that people like you will just buy online and choose in store pickup...
When I last went to an Apple Store to get a new one (while wearing my current Apple Watch) I just said “I know what I want and what I’m doing”.
They handed me the box on the spot in the middle of the store and I paid with the mobile PoS terminal they carry.
I was in and out in less than five minutes and this was at their very busy Chicago Michigan Avenue store. Maybe they’re that efficient because it is busy but like most Apple Store experiences I’ve had it was very fast and efficient - they didn’t get in the way of me spending my money, that’s for sure.
Went in, saw someone on staff fixing up a display unit, asked if I could buy an S5 apple watch, he asked if I had any questions, I said none, tapped card on the mobile POS thing, and then in maybe 10 minutes, someone else came out, apologized for the wait, and handed me my box.
It's possible it's changed over covid though. Makes sense they would want the in-store experience to be more white-glove if they were seeing less foot traffic.
If you let the people in the store talk they will talk and try upset. Just politely say no.
If you want to see it in person / try it on / have questions, that is what the physical Apple Store is for.
I get home later that day, start to set it up and it’s locked to employees of a bank in Canada. Live support is no help so I take it back, only to find out the serial number did not match that on the box. They had their security guard quietly come stand near me until they figured out what they wanted to do.
The sales guy told me since they can’t prove I stole it they were giving me a different one. I think they knew it was previously returned and realized they got scammed by someone else the first time around.
This time I made sure I could login before I left.
Within the return window the new 16” came out at the same price so I took it in and swapped it for the 16”. They just took it, handed me the new laptop, transferred Apple Care and sent me on my way. It made sense as they didn’t bother to verify the box/device serial number with me. They took my word and processed everything in a matter of minutes.
Apple can remove it of course. It was probably a laptop stolen from the bank or their suppliers, then returned to Apple to whitewash it.
I'm not surprised this happens. What I am surprised about is that Apple apparently sells a returned item to another customer as new. Pretty sure that's not their policy and in most cases illegal. Perhaps they checked the seals (for activating DEP you don't need to open the box at all!) but still this shouldn't happen.
Normally these items go through a cleaning and reimaging process and then end up on the refurb store at a reduced price.
They know the employee is judged on that and is incentivized to make the transaction glide through.
On the other hand, Apple certainly seems to bank on making their devices as exclusive an experience as possible. They sell a huge amount, but they want the customer to feel like they are part of an elite group. This will heighten the artificial sense of scarcity.
And the funny thing about what the legions of Apple faithful who were willing to pretzel themselves into contortions defending that.
(For a more reason, mention Batterygate and watch them come out and tell you how you just don't understand, Apple was absolutely doing you a favor, somehow.)
(Just like when they quoted me $900 to fix faulty charging on a MacBook, device worked perfectly, battery was healthy, just could not be charged. "Perhaps we should talk about getting you into a new Mac instead...?")
"That one?" said Fenchurch, pointing, rather puzzled, at a blue plaque with some instructions written on it.
"Yes. They are the words that finally turned me into the hermit I have now become. It was quite sudden. I saw them, and I knew what I had to do."
The sign said:
Hold stick near centre of its length. Moisten pointed end in mouth. Insert in tooth space, blunt end next to gum. Use gentle in-out motion.
"It seemed to me," said Wonko the Sane, "that any civilization that had so far lost its head as to need to include a set of detailed instructions for use in a packet of toothpicks, was no longer a civilization in which I could live and stay sane."
— Douglas Adams, So Long and Thanks for All The Fish, Pan Books (1984)
> it would take half an hour or so to get somebody over
That's only the case for genius bar appointments or an extended consultation when they're super busy or something. If you just want to buy a phone you've already decided on, you ask the nearest person and they grab it and you pay for it.
It sounds like there was maybe just a miscommunication in your case. There is no trend here.
But you can ask them to grab a specific model of iPhone, iMac, etc, for you if you don't need information.
Apple stores are often willing to spend enormous amounts of time with you if you ask for help, but I've never seen them stay in your way when you say "no" and that you're ready to pay and leave.
(Obviously it can happen, but they're some of the most-standardized tech stores out there. If it were A Thing™, it would be everywhere.)
For example, even buying something as simple as an Airtag means waiting for a random employee to be free, who then gets one for you, only to then wait for another different employee to be free to allow you to pay for it. Maybe that's just about theft prevention?
My one "Genius Bar" experience (recently) in Munich was really crappy - told to check in, then told to wait by a table where I was ignored; when I re-approached someone, told to wait somewhere else... and watching the flow of things, it became very apparent that my 'appointment' had no value - I was helped in a queue after people who'd just walked in.
(Your vision isn't the case in the [European] Apple stores I have experience of...)
Eg. https://www.howtogeek.com/338754/how-to-buy-stuff-at-the-app...
But earlier references are from 2012 for the easy pay roll out.
Maybe US only. Definitely a shame if it is.
Hands down the strangest retail interaction I’ve ever had. Frustrated, I went to the Best Buy literally in the mall’s parking lot and was on my way in under 10 minutes with the watch I wanted. I guess Apple still won here since I bought the product anyhow?
Ah, yes, the Ferrari customer experience. You need to be selected by the manufacturer to be allowed to buy their product. It makes the product feel rare and exclusive, and the customer feel "special", when it's a consumer product made by the same Chinese sweatshop workers that make your other e-waste.
Obligatory Futurama "there might be one left":
It’s making a surface level imitation of behaviors, without understanding the underlying reasons, hoping for the same effect.
So maybe Jobs might have made experiences that looked superficially similar to this, but he would’ve done it in a manner that actually understood the customer.
At some point you either have to point to their inventory system being a problem, and/or them having a very low trust view of their employees, and it's the customers who get to waste their time as a result.
If you have a negative experience from being forced to wait, then that's a different animal. How many of us relish the idea of visiting the DMV after previously experiencing long lines?
The difference here is that you can only get a Ferrari from a dealer. Apple products aren't exclusive to Apple stores, so driving away customers eager to shell out money doesn't seem optimal.
This is anecdotal of course. Your experience is yours. Sorry you went through that. My experiences have all been pretty smooth.
As for the Vision Pro, I think we’re dealing with a very different kind of product. They want everyone to have a positive experience, and this is the kind of thing no one has used even if you’ve used VR headsets, you’ve not used the product they created. They want to make sure you’re not getting stuck on fit or comfort.
But I did once visit a store with someone wanting to buy a Watch and there was no forced sitting through any fitting or explanations. Just some questions about which Watch, if they already had a phone to connect it to, etc., and we were in and out of the store in under 20 minutes (Covent Garden, London, a Saturday afternoon, which is reasonably but not terrifyingly busy.)
++anecdata
Told them what they wanted, they went back and got it, they brought a POS so I could pay, I was easily out of there in 10min.
Never had any issues like this whatsoever in more than a decade of shopping at these stores?
It seems they made the experience for the people they show in their commercials (some "tech unconcerned happy people" who knows just barely enough to pick the Apple product, has "good vibes mandolin music" all over them and somehow makes 300k/yr)
It probably goes a long way to explain things if you know that Watch launched while Ahrendts was SVP of Retail at Apple. She came from Burberry, a luxury fashion retailer, and clearly had a vision for Apple Stores that was not compatible with the high throughput & demand they regularly get.
I will agree that it’s ridiculous for customers to have to wait for an appointment to buy a watch band, which I’ve seen. There were several employees standing around at the time, inexplicably.
The existence of workarounds doesn't make it not stupid.
And if you are in the small % who don't want this. Either go to one of the other retail stores selling the product, or order it online for pickup or delivery.
Revenue lost = 0
The percentage of HN types storming out screaming “I’m going to just go buy Android” is a rounding error.
Over the last twenty years, more and more shopping is done online. Fewer people want to visit shops - those that do are usualy there to seek advice. The need for shops is changing and will become more like showcases for what you can do with the products and how they might fit into the lifestyle that you aspire to have.
Your use of dysphemism in that paraphrase suggests a defensiveness and personal identification with your own consumption choices that are not helping you assess Apple's strategy here.
I always excessively research big purchases, and so I have never in my life walked into a store like this without already knowing what I want. For example, walk into a sewing machine shop ready to buy without asking for any demonstrations, and see how almost giddy the staff get about it. Salespeople and shop owners often tell me how much they appreciate the rare customer who comes in ready to buy; it means more sales for less work.
It seems weird to turn those customers away instead of perceiving the sale as an unexpected-but-welcome freebie like 99.9% of other retailers do.
That's not really the issue here. It's more that it's odd to ask someone else to do this process for you and they tell you to make an appointment and come back.
A potential customer is telling an apple store employee "I want to exchange my money for your goods. I need you to do the exact same thing as a high school kid at a part time job, take my money and give me the phone. I just want you to act like a proper brick and mortar store for 2 minutes dammit." To which the employee responds "I can't do that now be cause you don't have an appointment. When you come back withone, I'll be glad to take the 2 minutes that's needed to make that transaction."
The "insane" pat is that apple store employees, the purpose of which are ultimately to convince potential customers to give them money in exchange for apple stuff and facilitate the transfer of resources, are basically telling potential customers "I won't do my job where I take your money and give you apple stuff unless you have an appointment. You don't have one, no apple for you."
This won't always be the case (I've never been told I needed an appointment to buy an iPhone, and I've bought them at several different Apple Stores over the years), but if you run into an intransigent employee, give this a try.
At the very least, the employees should be trained to tell people about the in-store pickup option. That would avoid leaving a bad taste in the mouth of customers who just want to get in and get out.
If they were going to train employees to tell customers about that, they could also just... let their employees ring someone up without an appointment. It would take exactly as much time as explaining the work around would, and would be even less likely to leave a bad taste in a customer's mouth.
Leaving a bad taste in a customer's mouth isn't a problem. Just look at the comments here from people exactly like that: they went somewhere else, and then bought the exact same thing. Sure, they're griping about it, but who cares? Apple still got their money for the item, and they freed up room in the Apple Store for another customer who might be more amenable to up-selling.
Why should Apple care about pissing off customers with this kind of treatment? It's not like they're going to buy an Android Phone or Samsung watch or whatever. They're going to buy the Apple product they have their heart set on, no matter how poorly they're treated by employees at the Apple store. So exactly what incentive does Apple have to make their shopping experience more efficient and hassle-free?
It's sort of shocking to hear about going to a store, attempting to purchase something they are selling at the asking price, and being told "I don't feel like having commerce right now. I have a headache. Why don't you come back tomorrow cause I need something time to psych myself up?" It's almost violating somehow, maybe like seeing capitalism get violated or something. I mean, what if you went to the grocery store and they told you they don't feel like selling food to you at the time but they might have some appointments open. Hunger doesn't have a snooze button to delay it until the time of your appointment.
No one's being violated here.
>I mean, what if you went to the grocery store and they told you they don't feel like selling food to you at the time but they might have some appointments open. Hunger doesn't have a snooze button to delay it until the time of your appointment.
You don't go to the grocery store if you're hungry (in fact, that's the worst time to shop for groceries). If you're hungry, go to a restaurant.
Anyway, if there's a fancy and horribly overpriced grocery store in town, and they treat customers like this, and those customers just give in and make appointments and come back later, how is the grocery store operating badly?
Normally, such a grocery store would quickly go under, as customers would go to a competing grocery store. But with Apple, that never happens. Apple customers will keep coming back for more.
Some people (apparently many people) actually like this kind of buying experience. I imagine some ultra-high end brands of clothing and cars treat people similarly.
My last 4 purchases from the Apple Store were terrible experiences that all took nearly an hour.
Then why do you go there? Honestly I don't get it. If you call it names like that.
There's dozens of retailers who sell the same Apple products and online websites too for quick delivery, including Apple's own.
I picked up a MBA and had a similar experience. It just takes 5-10 minutes for someone in the stock room to find the thing and carry it out to me. 10 minutes feels like a reasonable amount of time. I guess best buy has a slightly better system?
Historically, I've been able to just throw in a few little bits of "yup, I know how that works" so that their techs realize that I know what I'm talking about and let up with the patronizing assumptions about what I do and don't know. However, this time, when dealing with a newly-present heat issue during charging after that very store replaced the battery in the phone (so both a safety issue and one that would be warranty if it could be determined that it was caused by the repair), the tech just kept repeating that there was no way that their work could've caused it and going "these phones don't have a fan to cool them like our laptops". No matter what I said, I couldn't get them to have an actual discussion with me, so now I'm stuck waiting for a call from their safety support team since it's a heat issue.
Hopefully I can get somewhere with the phone support people, but it's really disappointing that they don't train their techs in the stores to feel out what a customer knows or at least drop some of the "oh the user doesn't know anything" if customers are showing that they do, in fact, know things.
I think they have homogenized support to treat each user as equally non-technical, it's by design. Apple is like a sect, they need to have a strong grip on their users.
Then I had a problem with the keyboard replacement program. They agreed to replace it under their extended warranty, due to the known issues with them. Posted the laptop off. Got an email 2 days later with a blurred image “the logic board shows signs of water damage”. I had a choice. Replace the logic board at my own cost (>£1000), or return the device unrepaired. They were the ones that had previously opened the machine & replaced the logic board! The machine operated permanently in clamshell mode, vertically - there’s simply no way any moisture could have got into it. I just wanted the keyboard replacing. Very frustrating. I ended up buying the parts & doing the repair myself.
All-in, bad experiences.
Apples pricing structure is also annoying nowadays too. As soon as one specs out and bumps a laptop, one suddenly finds that they may as well get a different laptop, ie once you bump up a MacBook Air, you may as well just buy a Pro, until all of a sudden your £999 purchase idea has turned into £3000 and a debate about AppleCare.
Ballache.
Yeah. How’d that turn out, guy?
Windows "Mistake Edition"
Ranked 4th in 2006 PCWorld "25 Worst Tech Products of All Time"
Their pricing structure on basically all of their product lines is absolutely perfect from a capitalism/business perspective. They are so good at getting people to buy more than they need. It's impressive.
Also, the tedium of nowadays knowing that all the products will be bumped in spec in 9-12 months means that instead of excitement, buyer's remorse has already kicked in before reaching the store, for the savvy consumer midway though the product cycle. Again, not the result effective capitalism should be going for.
I imagine their pricing structure works well to upsell people on average, which is why they have maintained it for long.
Also, why would someone like you even go to the store; I had no issues whatsoever buying a macbook from their website. No reps, no nothing, I set my specs and clicked buy and a few days later had my product. I think most people with your profile probably buy online, and most people with the profile that fits store-goers are successfully upsold by the reps.
It is often that I see people on hackernews post as if the world was designed for them. When, in reality, they are most definitely the odd-man out.
sewing thread emoji
Also, I guess people forgot about all of the “Whites Only”, “No Negros Allowed”, and “No Irish Need Apply” signs at storefronts too.
Errrr, because I'm out shopping? And the store is located in a shopping centre amongst other stores where I'm buying things. I fully realise I can buy online, but I can buy vinyl records, sofas, groceries and shoes online, yet I'm often in the mood to walk in somewhere where they have those things available for sale and buy one. It can actually be quicker and easier.
But Apple's target demograhic isn't the average person. Apple is particularly dependent on image, and one would think that they would want every customer to leave their store with a story about how awesome they are, to ensure that they keep their image polished.
Their image is one of exclusivity, but products such as the iphone, macbooks, ipads are actually mass-market products. It's quite a remarkable thing, that the most luxurious phone you can get from Apple is what... 1500 dollars? That's affordable when you think of other luxuries, how expensive can a watch get?
I think saying apple doesn't make products for the average american consumer is really falling for their marketing. They make products that are on the upper-end of what average people can afford but they put a lot of care into presenting these as clean as possible so that people feel like they are buying into luxury. They're not in most cases.
In terms of the phone market, foldables are probably the most luxurious products right now. A foldable will run you 1800-2000 dollars for a product that you know is not designed to last more than 2 or maybe 3 years. In terms of laptops, how many people really spec out their macbooks? I would say people probably buy in the 1000-1500 range and laptops are long-lasting products. A gaming laptop can easily cost 2500+ dollars and will depreciate much faster.
So, I respectfully think you're misreading Apple's demographic. Their demographic is pretty much every adult in America and they tap onto that aspirational mindset to achieve it; which is why people who can kinda see through the bullshit might come out with the sensations that are being described in these comments.
A 50/50 chance to make close to 3x the profit is a huge net win for Apple. It’s also why they don’t cater to the low end of the market.
Revenue, not profit.
And you're going to have to convince me that it's 50/50 that a consumer who came in looking to buy a $1,000 MBA is going to be convinced to walk out with a $3,000 MBP. Because I think that number is closer to 1 in 20 (and I think I'm still being generous there).
Anyway, most people who walk in wanting a 1,000 MBA end up buying something even if it’s a 1,000$ MBA that’s just breakeven. So no they don’t upsell 50% on a 2.5k laptop with much higher margins, but that or no sale is not the only possibility.
Some people buy nothing or what the intended walking in, other people buy an 1k laptop with extended care, others by 2.5k laptops etc. So looking holistically if they lose 200 million in profit from lost sales but make it up with profit of 100 million in 3 different categories that’s a win.
PS: Something that’s not obvious is sales people don’t use the same pitch for everyone who walks in the door nor do they all execute every sale perfectly.
Bold from you to assume majority of Apple customers are savvy consumers
For example, a maxed out MBA is just a few hundred short of a MBP. So you say to yourself, well why not just get the pro? That quickly turns into "well I can't get the base model macbook pro" and more. It's all designed so that the consumer instinctively upsells themselves before anyone in the store even tries to do so.
It IS good business. It's proven by the company's stock price and financial results. For every customer like you that leaves in disgust, there's 100 more that are happy to be upsold like this and empty their bank accounts. Consequently, Apple is the most valuable company in the world.
>Also, the tedium of nowadays knowing that all the products will be bumped in spec in 9-12 months means that instead of excitement, buyer's remorse has already kicked in before reaching the store, for the savvy consumer midway though the product cycle. Again, not the result effective capitalism should be going for.
Yes, it IS. Again, the company's financial results speak for themselves. Customers are happy to buy new Apple stuff every year, and the company is profiting enormously.
If you want to be mad at someone, be mad at all the idiots that buy into this.
Meanwhile I had the opposite experience in a Google Store recently. I picked a phone case off the shelf in 10s, told the nearest employee I wanted to buy it, and he immediately whipped out a credit card scanner and I bought it right there in 30s. Didn't even need to go to the checkout counter or anything. It probably helps that that store is less crowded than the Apple store, but their training at least seems to involve making the purchasing flow as efficient as possible.
It seems the lesson is to treat knowledgable customers like morons using patronizing staff and try to upsell them as much as you can, even if it makes them leave the store in disgust.
I just order my stuff online, walk in, and pick it up. Not sure that it’s super frequent I have a “I need this hardware in 30 minutes or less” situation
I’d guess Apple wants to avoid their shops feeling like a supermarket, to avoid commoditisation. They want it to be like buying a work of art, where each one is unique and special. You need a knowledgable curator to guide you.
I know that for us on HN it’s all bullshit, but it’s a very, very successful strategy.
And I disagree HN crowd 'looked through' this, the amount of tribalism and emotional irrationality that almost any Apple-related topic here brings is probably unparalleled.
TLDR: cheap stuff -> as quick as possible. Expensive stuff -> take time to ensure the sell and try for an upsell.
I've walked into an Apple Store and told the person triaging people walking in, "I know EXACTLY what iPhone I want". They send me to the iPhone area where I have to wait in a queue behind 5 other people who need to be sold the damn iPhone. The customers I'm waiting for are either deliberating between a few different models or have no idea what they should get, so the people working in the store are busy talking to them for much longer than I care to wait.
I wish Apple would add a step to their triage to handle people who walk into the store and say, "I know EXACTLY what I want, _________"
That's what I did when I got my last phone, and will do that on every subsequent purchase.
“Your job is not to sell products, we could put all this inventory out there on a pallet with a credit card swiper and sell all of them. Your job is to sell attachments, primarily Apple Care”.
Seriously, sales volume was a footnote. You are entirely judged on your attach rate for whatever it is corporate/your market is pushing, they start you part time and the only way up is to attach attach attach. No one wants to “just sell you a phone” because they know you’ll never get Apple Care and for every one of you they need to sell 4 other people on AC to get their numbers back up.
Another fun note: At the time Apple Store revenue $/sq ft beat out jewelry stores.
Great gig as a high school kid, made decent cash and a bunch of people used their tuition assistance. A large number of their employees though are what I call “retail lifers”, 25-30 year olds who are way in debt from a degree that didn’t work out or washed out of the corporate world and landed back in retail. They really don’t like younger employees who are actually going somewhere/realize it’s a temporary gig for kids and not a real career. Lots of alcoholism and drug abuse in that group.
A customer who already knows exactly what configuration they want is probably going to be hard to sell AppleCare to.
I don’t mind the additional hand holding for a new category to make my myself familiar with it.
I have purchased several Apple Watches, iPhones, and other devices and not once have I ever been forced to sit through anything other than an employee going to the back to get what I purchased.
Apparently the apple store near my house rarely gives people paper receipts anymore. It took 10+ mins for the poor sales drone to try every table in the store before he found the one that could actually still print receipts.
So I got to be the smart ass who said on the way out "goodness printing a receipt isn't that complex, i thought apple was a technology company."
Go to LA for example and you'll find creative professionals that need "pro" level gear but appreciate the white-glove Apple service of showing them around and answering questions for a high end purchase.
This wont happen if you want to buy a phone or MacBook, but with accessories and things you can self-checkout, it’s pretty seamless.
I don't have an Apple Store in my country, but last time I bought Watch in Tokyo and an iPhone in NYC, I told them I know exactly what I want and the transaction was super quick.
In NYC I was even impressed by it, because I just talked to the sales rep for the tiniest bit and a colleague came over and inconspicuously handed her a box with the phone mid-walk. I haven't noticed how she (the sales rep) signaled for it. It almost felt like buying drugs.
Being forced into an appointment when you're ready to pay and know exactly what you want doesn't sound like a run-of-the-mill shopping chore.
It oddly resembles a visit to a medical clinic (that is government subsidized, and accordingly fettered with bureaucratic rules that prevent you from just ordering the procedure you want).
A: Approach customers with a personalized warm welcome
P: Probe politely to understand all the customer's needs
P: Present a solution for the customer to take home today
L: Listen for an resolve any issues or concerns
E: End with a fond farewell and invitation to return
I guess though that this does apply to accessories rather than one of their main product lineups though - although I have heard similar things from friends purchasing products at the same store. Perhaps it heavily depends on which store you go to?
I find the store purchasing experience to be frustrating as well, but if you order online and it's in stock, every Apple store I've lived near will deliver it to you door in 2-4 hours.
If you want to play with a product: go to the store, interact with it, and if you like it order it on your phone while you're there. It will be home not long after you are.
They're just phones, they're just laptops. But no, we get "what's a computer?" hurr durr.
It drive me crazy. It's bad enough to have to talk to a salesman when I wasn't seeking one, it's even worse when I tell that salesperson that I'm ready to buy something specific and then they waste both of our time trying to do anything other than take my money and give me the thing.
Those are stores I'm unlikely to return to.
This is different than when I want a salesperson to explain things to me. In that case, yes, please shower me with attention as long as they're one of the ones that are actually helpful rather than just constantly trying to sell.
Here's what won them over:
- Being able to try it themselves with little preparation ("put this on your head, tighten it here, and click these buttons on the controller"). You could even use it over glasses.
- Games that you play by grabbing things with your hands. The heavy hitters are Beat Saber and Half-Life: Alyx, but Climbey and UltraWings also got fans, and all the combat games where you punch cartoons or reload guns realistically.
(seriously, if you've never tried, the jump from mouse+keyboard to hand tracking is like going from arrow keys to mouse+keyboard)
Meanwhile, here's what Apple seems to be doing:
- Customized accessories, to the point that you need a face-scan and to send them your glasses prescriptions.
- Eyetracking and gesture-only interactions. I haven't seen a single demo where somebody picks a virtual object up.
How is that going to work? Do they expect to make up for all the lost word-of-mouth with marketing campaigns? Also, did they give up on VR games?
People won't get hyped on the Vision Pro by their best friend, they'll get hyped on it by their favourite YouTuber.
"Present 3D content, animations, and visual effects in your app with RealityKit, Apple’s 3D rendering engine."
It's just that they are positioning the device as a spatial computer i.e. something you use to get real work done. And right now for 99% of people that involves 2D windows.
Definitely agree with haptics which many have mentioned is an issue.
Context of the interaction is important. I've seen this mentioned with selecting, but not with doing something like picking up a 3d object. I don't recall seeing this use in any of the release footage.
26 joints per hand. Assuming that all the joints in your hand are visible to the device (this seems to be unlikely for much of the time).
As per parent's line of questioning, it doesn't address how that maps to a manipulation in the virtual realm in practice.
In comparison, each controller on my Valve Index has 87 sensors - that can distinguish touch vs actual press (triggers etc), pressure, presence vs absence (fingers on the handle), as well as the usual orientation / accelerometer sensors. Even with an abundance of processing power, a camera-tracking system can't get there.
Why developers want to make, and what consumers want aren’t necessarily the same thing.
https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2023/06/developer-tools-to-cr...
It seems to me that Apple is very worried about their device getting slotted into the “fun expensive limited use toy” niche.
If they can actually deliver on their promises - they will fucking sweep the VR market. Current VR headsets blow chunks. If the meta quest cost 10$ - people would still not use it for normal things, because it unpleasant to interact with.
So now we're here. If Apple delivers on their promise of a very nice Oculus Quest sorta thing with iPhone apps and AppleTV+, I can't imagine people using it more than their Oculus Quest, iPhone or AppleTV.
[0]: https://taskandpurpose.com/uploads/2023/01/24/army-IVAS-2022...
My experience following the VR scene. The unreleased product doesn't solve the weight problem, it doesn't solve the friction problem of needing to put on a headset, it doesn't solve the VAC problem which can strain people's eyes, etc. I would also speculate that it doesn't solve the content problem in motivating people to consistently use the device instead of regress to using your iphone or whatever to do those normal things.
Just doing VR, but with more resolution or VR, but with a different input scheme or VR, but with a heavier headset, or MR, but with higher resolution passthrough doesn't solve the current challenges that VR headsets are facing.
Hopefully the release of the game porting toolkit is a sign they're thinking of gaming beyond the toddler casinos they have on iOS.
Not sure what is fake about them.
Just in my small social circle, I know of a family where the father was addicted and it actually kept them from putting food on the table, and another friend who only has part time work but still managed to spend over a thousand dollars and choses to live with her parents.
Everybody had fun, but more like going to a theme park. Nobody ever talked about it again or bought one, just zero interest. And these are tech people.
Will VR and AR be the future? Absolutely, and a large part of the current population will be left behind. Happens with every new technology.
No one doubts that. The question is whether this particular product will be successful. That’s not clear yet.
There is absolutely no reason to believe it so far - from all of my experience, both VR and AR are technically inferior to a screen in almost every way that actually matters, except for a short demo.
We are talking about the future.
For example, if I predicted that phones the size of a coin are the future, you could meaningfully say "in my experience, bigger phones are actually more sought after, so I don't believe your prediction".
My phone is on my wrist currently (Apple watch), I left my iphone at home. To me your prediction would have been correct (for now).
If you insist on basing your predictions on existing experiences, think of your sunglasses: light, comfortable, stylish. I predict that 10-20 years from now your sunglasses will offer great AR/VR experience, most likely through improvements in retinal projection technology. It will take nothing away from your experience using sunglasses and will add a whole lot more. Similar to traditional wrist watch —> Apple watch transition.
Your Apple Watch is still dependent on your iPhone. You're also unlikely to be browsing the web, watching YouTube, or browsing social media on your watch, and these have been the biggest factors for smartphone adoption by far - so I don't think such a prediction works. We can also see that the market for smartwatches is dwarfed by the market for phones, and this trend shows no sign of reversing.
> I predict that 10-20 years from now your sunglasses will offer great AR/VR experience, most likely through improvements in retinal projection technology.
The problem with a glasses form factor is that it fundamentally can't create enough contrast for a good quality image, especially not for VR - that requires blocking out most light coming into the eye, which no additive technology can do. I do believe that some equivalent of a smartwatch could work very nicely in a glasses form-factor (i.e. a device that acts as an accessory to your main computing devices, for small specialized tasks).
I still don't see any plausible way it could replace phones or laptops/tablets with any technology visible on the horizon. So I'm not saying AR/VR won't have a place or even be wildly successful - just that I don't believe they will ever be "the future of computing" in any reasonable sense, say like the smartphone was to the PC.
Smartphones became widespread 15 years ago, and will be obsolete 15 years from now. We will still see an old lady in 2040 pulling out iPhone 23 Ultra Super Pro Max, just like we still occasionally see an old lady in a supermarket pulling our her checkbook.
Both screens and retinal projections will be seen as historical curiosities 50 years from now, just like we now look at VHS tapes and compact disks. Provided we have not turned into unimaginable cyborgs by that time, surely any information that can be consumed by our brains would be fed directly into our brains - why would you want to rely on our unreliable, deteriorating and severely constrained senses to consume information - most (or even all) of which by that time will be created or transformed by an AI?
However, you are wildly overestimating how near brain-computer interfaces are if you think they will obsolete smartphones in 15 years.
My prediction then is this: screens on fixed devices (desktop, laptop, phone, tablet, probably other form factors) will remain the most common way of accessing the majority of our computer use for the next, say, 50 years. They will not be displaced by glasses-mounted displays, though "smart glasses" will become a more and more common secondary device in the coming decades, just like smartwatches. The only thing that will displace regular screens will be safe, high-bandwidth, high-fidelity brain-computer interfaces - which is where the 50 years timeline is coming from.
And I believe even 50 years is optimistic given the difficulty of making such a technology mass-market.
For the record, what I predict is:
1. In 15 years smartphones will be obsolete. The most likely technology that will replace them is retinal projection via glasses. Laptops and monitors will probably last a bit longer.
2. In 30 years, BCI will replace all other human computer interfaces, unless by that time humans will already have merged with computers on a more fundamental level.
As with any examples of progress in human history things will appear to change slowly until they suddenly change very fast.
What does "left behind" mean?
While anecdotal, I know of many folks in their teens that use VR a few times and then just move on. VR is a neat toy but for a lot of people it is something that they forget about very quickly.
Personally it was the same, the tech was brilliant but after you take the headset off - you just forget about it.
Smartphones for the 60+ age group was a paradigm shift. It was very difficult at first, but within 3 or 4 years, it became pervasive worldwide. Somehow I feel that AR is less of a disruption than the "swipe" mode that touchscreens introduced around 2008 or so.
There's a plethora of reasons why VR in its current state is little more than a gimmick.
That word paradigm is doing so much work in this sentence. You realize we're talking about a gadget/product here, not a new system of government or medicine or locomotion right? So what you're basically saying is "some people lose the need to buy useless gadgets foisted on them by marketing".
As for a paradigm shift, we've had AR for 10 years now. With the exception of navigating a city by foot, there's zero successful mainstream use cases.
There's not a single VR game that has appealed to the masses so much as to buy a headset. Not one.
It's expensive, inconvenient, anti-social and it doesn't stick.
I really wish Meta or someone else would focus on fitness more. Augmented fitness (not normal gaming) seems to be an area ripe for viral adoption. Without any haptic feedback, VisionPro is less suitable than the Quest.
They are following Palmer Luckey's "Make people want it first model". Being supply limited, traditional marketing would only generate demand they can't satisfy. What they actually have to do is make sure every person who gets one has the most perfect experience possible.
This is particularly important when it comes to a VR headset, where it's very easy for bad initial experiences to literally physically condition the user into getting sick every time they put on a VR headset.
Stepping the most diehard fans through how to metaphorically "hold it right" also gives them a built-in backstop of support when it comes to preventing those issues with future consumers once they eventually hit the point of proper mass market production.
Because you could say GMail but GMail was a better experience than literally every other provider at the time.
> Everyone I have seen with actual experience USING VR and AR say it is not even evolutionary, let alone revolutionary.
Luckey obviously has that experience. Now you're changing to a different argument. Marques Brownlee also has experience with these products and says it was impressive and that there's nothing equivalent: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFvXuyITwBI.
But they can't have the most perfect experience if the software isn't there. And there won't be enough software that actually utilises the 3D features until a sufficient number of developers get access to the device.
So I agree that the strategy can work but it can also be overstretched. If expensive devices become obsolete before they become useful, and if developers write this off as some sort of forever niche then momentum will die.
Judging by the keynote, Apple doesn't seem to care too much about 3D features. The Vision Pro looked more like a 360deg window manager for iOS & macOS-like apps.
And that's an entirely different niche, because suddenly it competes with desktop monitors. Focus on immersion seems to be much less than what eg. Meta is building; even the games they showed in the keynote were traditional, flat iOS games.
If true, no need to push hard to sell these this year.
Apple doesn't want their market to be the same as the market for the HTC Vive, which isn't exactly a successful product (at least by Apple standards). They also don't want the market to be defined by their competitors, so they're approaching the market in a very different way. An example of this is how, in the keynote where they announced their new VR headset, they didn't say the words "Virtual Reality" once.
Why do I need to do that? It’s a great demo but it’s not something I need to be able to do day to day. And that seems to be the strategy from Apple. Make it a useful device for daily tasks rather than a gaming specific device or a device for doing something “new”. If you’re paying $3500 it needs to be immediately useful.
Think about it, you’re trying to tell me Vive is great and their marketing strategy (word of mouth) was a huge success…I have never seen one in the wild and Occulus seems to be much more popular. In other words their strategy hasn’t worked so probably not a great idea for Apple to copy it.
Totally different experience here. It's interesting but the mouse still blows away anything VR has offered thus far. Games like Beat Saber /are/ a ton of fun and cool input method but but the novelty wears off fast. A majority of my friend group all bought VR headsets together and after 1-2 months of playing (often together) our usage has fallen off a cliff. I can't remember the last time I picked up my headset and I even bought lenses a couple months ago to try and reinvigorate my interest (I wear glasses/contacts but glasses always fog so I'd have to put in my contacts to play which was an annoying barrier) but I literally played it 1-2 more times before getting bored and moving on.
Current VR headsets are only good for gaming (yes, even the Meta Pro, it's resolution is joke for real productivity) and I have a limited interest in that method of gaming. I still play my Xbox, I still play games on my computer, I still play games on my phone but VR gaming isn't as interesting to me. It's novel but it wears off and the motion sickness is really annoying in certain types of games. All that coupled with absolute shit hand tracking (it's cool when it works but it fails too often), lackluster controllers (I can only take my sabers going wild when that's not what my hands are doing so many times), and poor graphics makes my headset a toy and not a particular good one.
We will see if Apple is able to improve on what's currently available and their track record has me hoping they succeed. Their vision, no pun intended, of AR/VR is much more in line with what I have been dreaming of for decades.
The manual learning process of ordering special fit lenses, adjusting the headsets, etc would be a great fit with Apple’s store model.
Maybe I misunderstood, but if not count me skeptical.
This is particularly important for a) new product categories where customers aren’t yet sure they want/need it, b) products that “fit”, or don’t, and c) expensive entertainment products. These headsets are all three, so it’s really important.
Apple’s retail presence could solve this.
Aside, I hear a lot more about free returns from people in the US. In the UK they are seemingly near-universal, but there is significantly less willingness to return outside of specific categories such as clothing. I have a little experience working in a retailer (as a software engineer), and US return rates were far higher than UK/EU return rates, and this was apparently considered typical.
It has been one of Apple’s competitive advantages since 2001.
How many people are going to spend $3500 on a device that by definition you have to try on in person to see if you want it?
they’re front-loading friction in an effort to minimize it.
The Apple Watch was initially sold at fitting appointments in store, and I think that was important in establishing it as a normal thing to wear and even a fashionable thing to wear in some cases, and helped cement the product in the mainstream.
Tailored suits is another case where there’s a premium price, premium service, but a lot of friction. It’s not always bad.
They’re also probably supply constrained enough that the friction doesn’t matter for the first version or two.
Apple did not need to normalize the wearing of watches. Watches have been luxury fashion items for hundreds of years.
Apple was late to the game with smartwatches and didn't do a single thing to convince people to wear them.
And it was seen as a toy for geeks and software developers who think t-shirts are an acceptable office attire despite being the most watch-like of the smartwatches.
I would never have gone to the office wearing a moto360. People would have given me funny looks all day. Meanwhile you can wear an Apple Watch with your suit and everyone finds that acceptable.
Source please! That's not how I remember the release, I recall it was very well recieved and sold out everywhere with the battery life being the biggest complaint.
> I would never have gone to the office wearing a moto360. People would have given me funny looks all day. Meanwhile you can wear an Apple Watch with your suit and everyone finds that acceptable.
I doubt you'll find a source, this entire paragraph is you projecting your own insecurities onto everyone else. Your opinion is not the general consensus or a source for anything so find a reliable 3rd party to back you up that isn't a random blogpost by Joe nobody.
https://www.cnet.com/reviews/motorola-moto-360-review/
https://www.alphr.com/motorola/32669/motorola-moto-360-revie...
Criticisms of how much the OS sucks
Sometimes I wonder if I live in the same world than some of the commenters here.
Here is The Verge review of the Moto360: [https://www.theverge.com/2014/9/5/6108947/moto-360-review]. A few selected quotes by me: “It’s designed to prove that smartwatches don’t have to be ugly.”, “It’s not a gadget, it’s a watch”, “At 11.5mm, it’s a little thick”, “ Everything before it was a screen on your wrist”. And that’s the Verge being incredibly nice with the 360. Truth is it was very much still seen as a tacky piece of technology bolted to your wrist.
It took me two minutes to find by the way because this kind of reviews were literally everywhere in the years leading to the release of the Apple Watch.
I'm wondering the same thing.
You are arguing with people because you think Apple invented wearing watches as a fashion statement with their release of the Apple watch in 2015.
No, I said that Apple successfuly turned smartwatches from something seen as gadget into something seen as a proper acceptable watch, which they most definitely did as I have proved to you with my previous message (which you are conveniently ignoring by the way).
The watch industry is very fashion conscious. Swatch Group managed to turn mechanical watches - a clearly inferior product which not only can't keep time properly but has to be serviced every couple of years - into something of seen as timeless and the embodiment of success so clearly Apple was walking a well paved road.
It doesn't prove anything at all and Apple definitely did not make watches fashionable in 2015.
Whether you like it or not, for most people, celebrity culture drives luxury culture, and even in the top end markets it's still a leading indicator even if it's not driving it.
I'm open to hearing constructive arguments against this, but it seems very clear to me.
This sort of exclusivity makes some people feel special. It's a viable tactic.
for the enthusiastic, apple is going to make it as low-friction as possible.
this is a slow game.
> for the enthusiastic, apple is going to make it as low-friction as possible.
Going to a store is not low friction for an enthusiast. We've already established that the price tag shuts out all but the enthusiast.
Apple enthusiasts will do anything to buy Apple products.
besides, not all apple enthusiasts are wealthy. some will prepare last minute, by selling furniture to make space and help fund the headset. it doesn’t matter if that sounds silly, if it happens.
this is why apple goes slow. bring the ecosystem enthusiast to the object by attempting to integrate the object into the ecosystem first. start with the most eager, guide them in, let them deal with the growing pains, convert enough to full believers in the new object.
public-ish beta with an exclusive-ish signup fee.
apple isn’t merely training enthusiasts in how to use a headset. they are training fans that sell product. enthusiasts talk. easiest way into the ecosystem is with a guide, and even better if that’s a friend or loved one not getting paid to do so.
the least important part about this product is the product. it’s expanding the ecosystem into new territory. show apple enthusiasts that perhaps they want to be xr enthusiasts.
There is still 4 U.S states that lack an Apple store entirely. It's not like Wal-mart or even Best Buy.
Sounds like a serious shortcoming if you can't share the device with friends and family.
I get what you’re saying and it’s hard to describe (and never really does it justice) the experience of this technology. It’s something you have to experience yourself to understand.
Do you share the use of your tv with friends and family?
But there will be enough people who will by the headset for them to sell all they can make in the first year.
Likely the upfront issues would be getting everyone their personalized lenses, but actually using seems like it would be easy.
As for getting lost, Apple already has their AirTag technology. While I don't know if that's already in these lenses, it doesn't seem like it'd be difficult to add.
Heck, my dad loses his phone multiple times a week, necessitating a quick phone call to track it down. Are the lenses going to include built-in AirTags so people can locate them?
Heck, I’m even skeptical of the iPad. I own one and I use it so seldomly that I have to charge the thing up from 0 every time I use it. But I recognize that a lot of people love them as consumption devices and a few as creation tools for some niche purposes, such as digital painting.
Essentially pile up a bunch of mirrorballs. Point projectors at it. Then map where each pixel from each projector ends up on the walls/ceiling/floors.
Consoles, AppleTV, and iPads are at the lower end of the price range here, right? (Well, you can get an expensive iPad of course).
Laptop are expensive but personal, phones… definitely personal, tend to be a little more expensive maybe?
I dunno, it isn’t a straight line correlation but I don’t think the fact that the Vision Pro is expensive tells us much.
In have a Rift CV1, I enjoyed showing it off to people and got some party-game type things (Keep Talking And Nobody Explodes is great for showing the device off). But I don’t use it much solo, and I’ve shown it off to all my friends already, so I don’t use it much. Don’t get me wrong, it was fun, but it hasn’t integrated into my daily life.
If I were Apple—word of mouth is good, but I’d hope the Vision Pro becomes something that sort of gets embedded in people’s lives to the point where they don’t care to show it off (either because it becomes personal like a laptop, or because it becomes boring like a monitor).
I think we’re pretty clearly talking about a small number of contrary data points, here? I’m not trying to prove a general trend at least, just point out that we should at least double check the assumption that expensive implies shared.
If someone is really invested in that idea I’d love to see an argument for it, rather than silent downvotes.
Wrecking your first car is almost a teenage rite of package.
Again we are talking about people who are willing to spend $3500 on a headset. Not exactly the demographic of people who are “sharing a family car” and that don’t statistically have separate cars for the parents and don’t either buy their kids a car or subsidize them in some way to help them buy their own.
I know I never let either one of my sons drive my car alone and I bought myself a new car and handed my older one down to my older son and bought my younger son a car before he had a license.
However, we're talking about a 3500 US dollar (without tax) device and a novelty. Of course people are going to share it if they can.
As someone that wears glasses with VR, it’s awful. The light gasket presses against them, gets tangled. The band presses against them. I can see why they didn’t bother making it an option, since I often put my headset away because of the discomfort. This is why the quest pro has optional light blockers, and why I never use mine. Leaving enough room for comfortably wearing glasses would make things huge.
There are 270+ Apple stores in the US, I don't have the figures to hand but an overwhelming percentage of the country's actual population live within an hour of an Apple store. They are common, frankly.
I'm not defending the decision to require a store visit here, but lets not paint a picture of Apple store availability that doesn't exist. The number of people with disposable income in the US to purchase a 3500 dollar headset and actually want to buy one who aren't living under an hour from an Apple store is likely a very small list.
But I will to buy electronic gear or even to get my right AirPod replaced that I dropped in the water when I was on a boat in Cabos…
If I were in the target market for the vision pro I would totally schedule an appointment and drive a couple of hours to get a curated experience and feel confident I'd come home with the right combination of lenses and everything.
In my dads case, music gear
I even know people who would drive from the even smaller places than where my parents live who would drive to my home town to go the mall, movies and Olive Garden.
When you use an oculus, if you need to do something like reply to a text, check an email or reply to someone on social media, you have to take off your headset or kill your current task and switch to virtual desktop.
Having all your iOS apps on it, and being able to multitask means people won’t be taking off their headset as often and they’ll not have to consider dedicated VR time.
To me, that’s the biggest software differentiator
The reported battery life on the Vision Pro is still going to require that you have dedicated "goggles on" time for the foreseeable future.
It won't be using the app store, though. It's using a brand-new store, built from scratch. No iOS apps will be there unless the authors rewrite them to be compatible with visionOS.
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The reasons I would not like to have one of these devices ;
* Apple's closed moat
* App store lock-in
* 'DLC' model whereby not a single thing you do on this $3,500 device will be free - and no matter what app you choose, Apple takes 30% of whatever revenue stream that app wants...
* The piss-poor apple fix-service market, and their shitty designs of the iphone which break so fn easily that VCs (YC+) have had to invest in cottage industry of phone repairs
I've had iphones since the first day of launch... and while I prefer them over android, I still hate ios ecosystem.
The infra-mechanics of it are awesome, but compared to the smarmy and condescending greedy Apple, i still hate ios.
It's technically possible to develop on the simulator alone, but given that the simulator is confined to a 2D window on a computer screen I can't imagine that apps developed in this manner would be able to stand up to competition developed without such limitations.
Its just FN financially-dystopian
---
@scarface_74 ;
"*May you please ELI5 expand on your comment - as I am OOTL and would like to understand what you mean, precisely. (because I want to learn, kthxbai)*"
/as-i-am-posting-too-fast....
A non-Apple device without the moat would be better. GP also didn't ask for free apps.
Almost every non game app on the iPhone/iPad of note require a subscription and most outside of the App Store.
I'm sure there are a number of people here who will agree with you.
On the other hand, the fact that Apple now has a $3 trillion-with-a-"t" market cap indicates that most people do not care about any of these issues. Not in the slightest.
2. Many commonly used apps don’t have a browser experiences with equivalent features. Take Instagram for example.
3. With the Quest , you can’t really multitask, except for the Quest Pro.
The Quest 1-3 are equivalent to game consoles in many ways. I can use a web browser on my PS4. It doesn’t mean it’s a full productivity system with multitasking.
That being said, it’s not like children aren’t already in Apple stores and they don’t seem to be damaging a substantial amount of phones and whatnot.
There were a lot of videos in the 2000s of Wiimotes getting swung into TVs.
I cannot imagine people being excited that they need to go physical store and deal with a staff there to get their fancy new toy.
Older people today have been using computers since they were in their teens or twenties. Conversely, I know a 20-something woman who can't understand why her iMessages quit working when she switched to an Android phone, despite explaining it to her multiple times.
As you note, they also have more money.
I find it surprising that this is less common than it was in the past, and that people are more willing to put up with something that’s a subpar fit for them. One tech example that would benefit from custom fit are in-ear headphones. It would make sure that product is a perfect fit for every customer every time, rather than roughly every single customer having to put up with a suboptimal fit and poor comfort.
From what I understand, there are a number of sub $500 options. (xreal air, rokud air, TCL NXTWEAR, etc). However they all get very mixed reviews. I wish there was a retailer that had demo units, as this is something I'd very much like to try before I buy.
I think the price is right for what they do.
When Nebula is open, they simulate 3 individual monitors. Nebula is simply responsible for positioning the screens in space and keeping them where you want.
When seeing the Apple goggles, it clicked for me that this was basically a mac environment, and I started thinking how amazing it would be to run terminals in it, then I started googling for any options that were available now..
Because yes those features have been available on other devices but what's important and different is how those features have been implemented.
And those that have used other headsets and the Vision Pro all say that there is a jump in the quality of experience that hasn't existed before.
To me, the question is whether Apple has actually made this work.
If they've got it crisp, how big a deal do feel that would be? For yourself, and for others who've been interested?
So, the Quest Pro is unusable to them, due to PPD. If the Vision Pro is actually retina, then that's good, but I don't think that's the only reason they wouldn't want to use it. I think comfort/bulk is a huge concern, especially since it appears to use the flesh of your face to support the weight, rather than a top strap. My Quest Pro is unusable without a top strop, for more than 30 minutes. With, I can easily do 6 hours. But still, the bulk makes me hesitantly put it on, sometimes.
BTW I read somewhere they are adding a top strap.
SimulaVR, a competitor with roughly half the number of pixels (2x2448x2448 = 11,985,408 vs 23 million), claims to go from 24.48 PPD naively calculated to 35.5 PPD near the centre of the display using this.
The extremely low latency in rendering courtesy of the dedicated R1 chip is going to take some time for other companies to replicate.
As a reference, the standard resolution for web pages is 47 pixels per degree.
1. Eye tracking for interaction vs hand tracking. If the UX works out, the amount of precision that can be reached is just far higher with less effort - just seems to be an easier technical problem.
2. Resolution and lensing. Most VR headsets have fairly low quality fresnel lenses which cause distortion near the edges (basically - if you want to see something in good detail, you have to tilt your whole head to look at it), and in general the resolution is not good enough to see things that are 'far away' (those who play games like DCS have to use the 'binoculars' feature with headsets to accurately see targets). With a device like an HP Reverb, the resolution is probably close to good enough, the lensing is not - the Meta Quest Pro has a good enough lens, but not resolution. I'd expect the lensing on the Apple device to be top of market, and we know the resolution is ~2.5x more dense than the Meta Quest Pro - which should be closer to going from SD to HD TV rather than HD to 4k. Essentially, if you try to code on a Meta Quest Pro, the text looks a bit blurry. With the Vision Pro, it won't.
3. Custom face cushion + prescription lenses. Comfort is everything with these devices and nothing is worse than a headset putting pressure in the wrong places. It'll cost much more, but be totally worth it.
4. People claim common nausea when using VR. I've felt it too, but only on certain headsets. My money is other companies know what causes folks to feel bad, but have had to make technical tradeoffs which mean that nausea remains a problem. I'd put money on Apple having done serious research into 'what causes nausea when using headsets' which causes this to minimised on their headsets.
5. Software stack and usability. VR stacks are typically fairly clunky, usually Android derived, usually behaving a bit like a dodgy phone. iOS/MacOS are usually not most feature-ful, but a core usually works very very well. Will likely push bar a lot higher, change the shape of industry (e.g. samsungs are so good because of the iPhone competition).
Basically, having used some of these devices - the complaints I have with these right now, are the same things that Apple has real, technical solutions for. And the price isn't even _that_ high compared to other players in the market. Pimax Crystal is $1600 for what right now is a fairly buggy user experience. Their vapourware Pimax 12k is listed as starting at $2400 for the most basic model, though it's been in that state for well over a year.
(1) The HoloLens used eye tracking. It was tough to get used to but it was interesting. I didn't feel that I ever got to the point where it was more precise than moving my hand to a 3d point in space.
(4) I doubt it's the headset. It's almost certainly the application the headset is running.
Apple seems to have maxed out every possible spec and put a ton of research and software into making a great experience.
Probably will see it move down price points from here (it already has Pro in name so presumably that’s the top).
The parts will get cheaper over time as well which will help.
Nor is their a guarantee that its even a viable market at scale.
Apple is too big to serve niches (see how they let some product lines wilt like Mac Pro, Apple TV hardware) and needs to sell 10s of millions of units in the near term.
I've tried this on other platforms. The device gets heavy and your eyes get hot and sweaty, and dealing with an extension cord running from your head to a battery pack just adds insult to the inconvenience. It's not fun and it was not a major boost to productivity.
Plus.. for $3,500 I can just buy quite a few nice monitors.
But you're not taking those monitors anywhere.
I have seen a person take out a standard moniter, laptop stand, keyboard and mouse from their carry on and set it up on an airport table.
Why even bother with the laptop when you can bring a desktop and diesel generator.
Yeah, but you can't use them in planes or hotel rooms very easily.
I tried Pico 4 headset, and gaming-wise it is fine, you almost forget you are not in your room anymore, but run a browser, and eyes start bleeding out from horrible font rendering. It is somewhat better on Quest 2, but still too bad.
[0] https://www.tomsguide.com/news/apple-vision-pro-display-spec... [1] https://spectrum.ieee.org/apple-vision-pro
If you have roughly 4K per eye in the headset that renders everything you see, then you can't expect the virtual equivalent of a 4K monitor that only takes up a part of your vision.
Lower PPI virtual screens should be usable, but the text may still look bad on those when you can't do things like subpixel antialiasing (macOS on 27" 1440p also suffers from this). Especially if you need to render small text at an angle. If you only work with fairly large text or with pictures/video, that would probably be fine.
And the enthusiast price is similar across very different sports.
I use a quest pro for this. It requires relatively large font.
If the rumors about the pixels per degree are true, I’ll have trouble keeping my wallet in my pocket.
Maybe it’s a solution looking for a problem, but the best use of AR has always seemed to be for activities that require full attention. Flying a plane, driving a car, riding a bike, etc.
There might be some point in the future at which the risk/benefit tradeoff lands in favorable territory, but I wouldn't bet on it being any time soon.
But actually resolution is extremely important for that kind of work and only the highest resolution headsets available today can actually work well for that.
What Apple is missing here is that people wanted the iPhone (a phone with an iPod built in) for years before it was even officially announced as under development. It succeeded because the market invented it, not because Apple are geniuses who showed us we needed it.
It’s hard to see how anyone who has been following the technology could make this claim.
Some people do because the benefit is literally regaining one of your senses, but even if AR / VR glasses one day become like normal glasses, it will be a niche product.
Nobody's wearing glasses just to get notifications and gimmicks like this. Ever.
The only moment where AR / VR can maybe become mainstream is when we can send signal straight to the brain to generate images (disregarding that there's no way people will be ok with other people controlling their brain).
There is also an entire industry of eyewear crafted and worn just to look cool (sunglasses have not primarily been a protective aid in a very long time, they're fashion accessories now).
Of course all that's orthogonal to AR/VR, but the idea that "nobody wants to wear glasses" is a bit laughable.
What do you think advertising and news are?
From many observers, we have seen many AR/VR devices fail over the years. Some spectacularly (like Snap Spectacles), and some seem to be just throwing money into a furnace (like Oculus, which hasn't failed, but even with millions of devices sold doesn't seem to be reaching product market fit for anything outside of niche gaming and fitness).
Yes, the Vision Pro is a different device, but there are orthogonal attempts at this kind of screen sharing experience which also have very niche markets, like Sightful's Spacetop laptop.
I get that the Vision Pro has some product differentiation, such as the App Store, the developer ecosystem (debatable at this point compared to other AR products), and so on - but what exactly are you seeing the market today that will drive this demand for Vision Pro? Where is the evidence that customers want this technology?
The original phrasing is ambiguous as to whether its acknowledging the tech was bad or not. But it doesn't seem reasonable to conclude that people don't want something until they can experience an implementation of it that isn't "bad".
It's an emerging product category. I think the workmachine use case is compelling and I can imagine myself using something like it. The price is steep for a personal device, but I suspect that will be fixed in one or two iterations.
Go on...please tell me where the AR in William Gibson's 1984 novel ,Neuromancer, came from.
I may be an old man, but what I want is the opposite of immersive technology. Put a computer on my face? Are you kidding? The one in my pocket already feels increasingly parasitic.
Cynicism, pessimism, and affected jadedness have always been the way people have attempted to sound cool. Nothing new about that part.
Ultimately, the question is whether your path brings you joy.
I'm more excited for something like Humane's laser projection system or a less-intrusive, deep-learning driven assistant which uses voice and tactile feedback.
It won’t get better without big drives in adoption, adoption won’t happen without big improvements to.. everything. Catch 22
Have you ever used an AR/VR headset for something you generally enjoy (a game, a movie, Google Maps, whatever)?
I ask because my own experience (and the consensus of my network and the critics I read) is that devices like Oculus and the Vive Pro are extraordinarily compelling but overall held back by immature technology. Base stations. Wires. Visible pixels. Low quality video pass through. Stupid controllers you have to hold in your hands.
People see the potential and flashes of what might be, but it's impossible to get beyond the awful user experience.
> What Apple is missing here is that people wanted the iPhone (a phone with an iPod built in) for years before it was even officially announced as under development.
Two thoughts on this:
1) It seems to undermine your point that iPhone launched in 2007 and yet through 2011 failed to come close to outselling iPod in terms of units.
2) The device you are describing -- "a phone with an iPod built in", before the iPhone -- actually did exist. The Motorola ROKR E1, or the "iTunes Phone": it was unveiled in 2005 on stage by Steve Jobs. Motorola did the phone stuff, and Apple did the iPod bit.
It was a dismal failure and was discontinued after roughly a year on the market.
> It succeeded because the market invented it, not because Apple are geniuses who showed us we needed it.
What do you mean by "invented"? Because literally two years before the iPhone launched, the market "invented" a phone with a built-in iPod, manufactured by the leading cell phone manufacturer of the day, in collaboration with Apple, and it failed miserably. Did the market invent that phone?
It's fair to say that Apple is not the first entrant to most market it contributes to, and it's fair to say that they are rarely the progenitors of the technologies their devices rely upon.
What Apple is very good at is deeply understanding when new technologies can be combined or honed to bring them over a threshold of resonance with consumers which drives widespread adoption. It is not enough to simply say "ship a phone with a touch screen' --- folks were doing that for years before iPhone launched. Instead it's about understanding the interplay of latency, brightness, PPI, plural point awareness, manufacturing yields, component costs, and making tradeoffs which pursue a vision which people buy into.
That's why when you said "a phone with an iPod built in" you could have been referring to both iPhone _and_ the ROKR, but the two devices could not be more different: ROKR had a fiddly microSD card for storage. Crummy slow processor and user interface. Stupid tiny keyboard for typing on. WAP internet. Wired transfer speeds slower than high speed USB. Slow java apps. A low resolution TFT LCD display. Only 11 megabytes of onboard memory.
The thing I would hate, though, is limited availability with no real way of securing a spot. Nothing more annoying than trying to find any appointment spot available and praying that the units aren't sold out. It seems that their production "numbers" are capped by supply chain difficulties, rather than raw demand. But then again, it's $3500, so maybe I won't have any trouble grabbing a headset.
I wear prescription glasses and have gone from single vision to progressive lenses that are stupid expensive. Worse, my prescription changes every visit to the optometrist. How sensitive is the headset's performance to my prescription, how expensive would replacement lenses be, and how difficult would they be to change out? Could I do this myself by ordering updated lenses based on my prescription or would I have to take the headset in?
As you likely know your vision will eventually settle when you hit late 30’s.
Also I assume you have considered LASIK?
Eyesight doesn't settle, it continues to deteriorate with age. Lasik also deteriorates with time, normally becoming noticeable about ten years after the surgery. Lasik providers offer "touch ups" as you get older in order to ameliorate this.
Apparently a common pattern, at least for myopia, is for that to stop progressing in the late 30s, but then focussing response to get worse (why people end up needing reading glasses in their 50s-ish.)
Certainly that's what I've experienced, and what before I did I was told to expect.
But from what I understand, you won’t have major changes in your prescription, such as what GP is dealing with.
This statement reminds me of the surgeon who did my PRK few months ago. He mentioned preferring not doing procedure on candidates who are at least in their mid-20's. I think the person you're replying to probably meant specifically myopia whereas you're referring to presbyopia?
You may be able to go for additional follow ups, but it’s case by case, as there is only so much cornea that can reshaped.
Fantastic advice! A few years later my prescription started to drop and I wear glasses less and less.
If I had LASIK I'd be looking at glasses or more LASIK already.
I do have low prescription inserts for VR because one eye is slightly weaker and I found that more noticeable than IRL.
It’s not nearly as bad as you might think and it only ever comes up during my annual eye exam.
FYI, unless your vision is quite bad, this is likely to bilk you and/or your insurance for money. I have slight-to-moderately bad eyesight and had optometrists trying to change my prescription every year as well, to no noticeable effect. I started getting my eyes checked only every few years and then taking away my prescription without purchasing glasses immediately. You can generally gauge how honest your optometrist is by how indignant this makes them.
Not really on-topic, but I've had very good luck with Zenni Optical.
I feel you on this topic. I wear glasses. Wearing a really old pair from 20 years back is painful, but I can slip comfortably into a prescription from 6 years ago, I don’t know what your experience is with that, though.
I wish there were more information about this. Should I get an updated Rx and put in a pre-order for lenses? Who knows!?! I’m astigmatic, near sighted I guess, but a close up VR lens doesn’t change focal length at all, so lenses are a must for me.
Waiting and “seeing” ;)
It’s not for me in its current form, I feel I wouldn’t be able to deal with a heavy and warm mask on my face isolating me from my surrounding for more than a few minutes (quite sure I would be sweating a good amount while wearing it…). Hopefully we will get something closer to Dennou Coil soon :)
Also, they want developers to figure out what they want to do with it. If it was a “development kit” people would still try to get their hands on one like with the Apple Silicon dev kit, but with this anyone can try it out if they have the money and time to do so.
The marketers told them to go for the 'exclusive club' vibe by doing in-store appointments.
Wonder if there is some messaging by the Apple leader at the appointment that explains how this is cool, exclusive, luxury. Reinforcing the purchase decision.
Need to make the barrier to entry extra high too, so when people laugh at it in public, they are fully committed to defend it. Who knows maybe they will go full abercrombie and make sure people who are older than 40 get it slightly later than 20 year old females. Eventually it gets normalized and people use it.
It's possible that this product will flop, but I can't see it being anything other than sold out everywhere for most of 2024. Heck, you can make a reasonable case for there only being 10k-30k SKUs in channel inventory at launch, and Apple has 275 retail locations which require multiple demo units in addition to launch stock.
[^1]: https://www.ft.com/content/b6f06bde-17b0-4886-b465-b561212c9..., https://www.ft.com/content/632b4ffa-3637-4972-a525-0ddbcd50b.... Tl;dr: each device needs 2 displays (so 800k displays leads to 400k headsets), the displays are new and complex (which is why they account for 50% of the manufacturing cost of the entire device) which means it's expensive to ramp up production lines for suppliers (who are unsure of demand) _and_ production yields are low.
Cynically, a case in point is the display: it is so new and advanced that they have problems ramping production!
Whether issues are real or not, I am sure that Apple's marketing team knows how to spin everything. They are famous for that and indeed one of the best.
For near enough the last decade, all iPhone launches have been appointment only in-store, and Apple Watch was appointment only in-store for the first 4 months of its life.
> Cynically, a case in point is the display: it is so new and advanced that they have problems ramping production!
Imagine that at the end of next year, Apple has sold 400,000 devices, and tells us that only supply constraints are preventing them from selling many more. Which is the more plausible explanation:
1. As with nearly all novel/complex technologies when manufactured at large scale, the combined costs of tooling, the complexity and uncertainty of new manufacturing techniques, and the low yields which inevitably follow, have created a supply constraint for Vision Pro.
2. In the face of weak demand for Vision Pro, Apple and its partners choose to collude in a lie to customers and shareholders alike, claiming that Vision Pro is supply constrained when really nobody wants to buy it, thus… achieving… erm… uh… something?
Very reminiscent of the rollout of Facebook which had an exclusive, Ivy league only presence, that eventually expanded out to everyone and their grandparents.
Another thing I just noticed in this release is how the device looks like ski goggles; an item already associated with 'coolness' and extreme sports but also wealth and exclusivity.
I think there's a risk that your marketing class is being taught by folks who have a limited grasp of how trivial the discipline of marketing can be when a company's products -- in Apple's case: iPhone, MacBooks Pro & Air, iPad, AirPods, Apple Watch -- rank among the leading products in their categories by nearly any measure, from consumer satisfaction to performance benchmarks.
> The marketers told them to go for the 'exclusive club' vibe by doing in-store appointments.
"The marketers" told them the same thing for the Apple Watch launch in 2015, and each iPhone launch since 2014 (?). The article suggests that the in-store requirement for Vision Pro stems from the need for multiple components of the device to be tailored to the purchaser's head/face/vision.
> Who knows maybe they will go full abercrombie and make sure people who are older than 40 get it slightly later than 20 year old females.
It's almost impossible for me to imagine that someone with sufficient interest in marketing to intentionally study it in a class could entertain this idea, even as a joke. It betrays a near total misconception of the discipline of marketing, and Apple's relationship to it.
> rank among the leading products in their categories by nearly any measure, from consumer satisfaction to performance benchmarks.
When you say it generically like this, it has no meaning. Among? Top 50%
You could say this about any company. Its marketing jargon from the best in the world at marketing.
This is no different than when they plaster 'Security' and 'Privacy' in their ads, yet have worse security than Android(if we use pegasus and zerodium for security) and have been known to hand over data(PRISM, data in Russian and chinese data centers).
It has little to no meaning, but it sounds really positive when you say words like 'rank among' and 'nearly any measure'
Let me pull up single and multithreaded bench marks. "Oh not that measure". "Well it was among, top 36.6 percentile".
Here are two measures for you: 1) look at the last ten years of Consumer Reports smartphone rankings. How often is the latest iPhone ranked in the top 3? 2) look at the single core performance, battery life, and screen quality of the original 13" M1 MacBook Air. Now find me a laptop with commensurate performance at the same price point from that time.
> You could say this about any company. Its marketing jargon from the best in the world at marketing.
The urge to suggest that you seek a refund of the tuition fees for your marketing class is tempered only by a growing feeling that it might have been an elective at high school?
> This is no different than when they plaster 'Security' and 'Privacy' in their ads, yet have worse security than Android(if we use pegasus and zerodium for security)
Trusted Reviews:[^1] "iPhones are more secure by default. Disk encryption is enabled by default, apps from the App Store go through a stricter vetting process, and Apple doesn’t gather users’ personal details for advertising purposes"
Norton:[^2] "There’s no doubt Android is a bit more of a Wild West than iOS, but, with the right precautions, it can still be a safe platform."
InfoSecurityBuzz:[^3] "Android had 547 vulnerabilities in the year 2021, compared to 357 for iOS. While both Android and iOS have vulnerabilities […] Android has more overall vulnerabilities [and] a higher proportion of Android vulnerabilities are considered to have a low attack complexity, which means that they are easier to exploit."
The claim that Android is more secure than iOS seems like pure fantasy. Can you substantiate it?
> and have been known to hand over data(PRISM, data in Russian and chinese data centers).
Any foreign company operating a data center in China is required to contract with a domestic partner for legal ownership of the data within the facility and physical security of the location. In this regard, as with PRISM, Apple is no different to Amazon, Microsoft, et al.
The only data stored in Apple's Chinese data center is that of its Chinese customers, and I do not believe Apple markets its products as "privacy"-focused in China, where there is almost literally no concept of privacy.
Apple has in fact publicly resisted repeated attempts from state and federal authorities to have it insert backdoors into iOS, and launched an amicus legal claim with Meta against the NSO group.
But anyway, let's pretend for a second that I grant you all of these fantastical and unsubstantiated claims about iPhone privacy and security, I have some direct questions for you!
1. Can you explain to me why "the marketers" are adopting the same strategy for Vision Pro's launch as they have for every other flagship Apple launch in the last decade?
2. Can you explain why a company with an estimated NPS in range(+65,+80) even _needs_ the best marketers in the world?
3. Can you explain why you seem to believe that it is the job of Apple's marketing team to "normalise" something ex post facto? Isn't it a well understood axiom of Apple's philosophy that until the technology is mature (in this case: thin / light) enough to create a resonant user experience, they will not enter a market?
4. Can you find me that mythical laptop computer to compete with MacBook Air?
5. Can you see a trend looking back at the top 3 smartphones in Consumer Reports' surveys over the last decade?
[^1]: https://www.trustedreviews.com/news/mobile-news/are-iphones-...
[^2]: https://uk.norton.com/blog/mobile/android-vs-ios-which-is-mo...
[^3]: https://informationsecuritybuzz.com/ios-vs-android-the-more-....
You share links to random websites that fit your narrative. Its dangerous to listen to your opinion, you might get mureded like jamal khashoggi with a pegasus hack. Or maybe it will be mere nudes like Jeff Bezos. Has anyone gotten hacked with Pegasus on Android? I couldn't find any examples.
Your identity is wrapped up in Apple products, its scary what they can do to a human brain.
> Let me pull up single and multithreaded bench marks. "Oh not that measure". "Well it was among, top 36.6 percentile".
And now you say:
> You share links to random websites that fit your narrative. Its dangerous to listen to your opinion,
If you can reject the mass of empirical data supporting the view that MacBook Air M1 offers unparalleled processor performance and battery life in its class and form factor, then I'm not really sure what to say. Good luck with the MBA which educated you sufficiently to suggest that Apple's marketing team might profile customers in retail stores based on age and gender.
> Your identity is wrapped up in Apple products, its scary what they can do to a human brain.
I'd say my identity is more wrapped up in helping the world to avoid making facile and conspiratorial statements about marketing strategies so hopelessly out of touch with reality that they can make someone apparently educated to a postgraduate level appear roughly as superficially informed as a high school student.
(Sent from my IBM Thinkpad.)
Not even marketing can stop you/your corp from buying the best product huh?
Anyway, check out some benchmark websites one day.
Blackberries and palm pilots were ready to take over the world in 2007, when Apple swooped in and hypnotized people to think a full screen, no-stylus touchscreen was a better design!
Sure: https://www.amazon.com/Lenovo-IdeaPad-Laptop-Memory-Windows/...
> Apple has in fact publicly resisted repeated attempts from state and federal authorities to have it insert backdoors into iOS
They have also in fact been part of NSA surveillance programs for over a decade. It's nice that Android gets out ahead of these things by offering pure Open Source images.
1. Can you explain to me why "the marketers" are adopting the same strategy for Vision Pro's launch as they have for every other flagship Apple launch in the last decade?
Because lying works!
2. Can you explain why a company with an estimated NPS in range(+65,+80) even _needs_ the best marketers in the world?
Why wouldn't they? They're the largest company in the world, forced to compete in one of the most competitive advertising markets in the world. Publishing things that keeps those customers happy takes work, and Apple clearly does lots of "work" in that sense.
3. Can you explain why you seem to believe that it is the job of Apple's marketing team to "normalise" something ex post facto? Isn't it a well understood axiom of Apple's philosophy that until the technology is mature (in this case: thin / light) enough to create a resonant user experience, they will not enter a market?
Well, that's kinda what they did with the iPhone and the Apple Watch and even the iPad: https://youtu.be/3S5BLs51yDQ
I don't know what their end-goal is, but they seem to be perfectly aware that Apple products are not 'the norm' in many places.
4. Can you find me that mythical laptop computer to compete with MacBook Air?
See above. There are hundreds but anything with a Ryzen 5 or 7 from 2019-onward should smoke the M1, if only for lacking a big.LITTLE core architecture. Beating the M1 in CPU or GPU performance is... not difficult. Beating it's idle draw will be what people struggle with.
5. Can you see a trend looking back at the top 3 smartphones in Consumer Reports' surveys over the last decade?
Not when I look at the global chart, no.
I said:
> look at the single core performance, battery life, and screen quality of the original 13" M1 MacBook Air. Now find me a laptop with commensurate performance at the same price point from that time.
1. Single core performance
It looks like the M1 which shipped in the 13" MacBook Air massively outperforms the AMD Ryzen 5 3500U[^1] on Geekbench 5 single core: 1710 vs. 707.
Am I missing something?
2. Battery life
Here's a comparison[^2] of the M1 MacBook Air with the laptop you referred to from the same publication. The M1 MacBook Air scored >29hrs on the battery rundown test: "It ran for 29 hours and 1 minute on our battery rundown test, producing one of the longest results we’ve ever recorded." The Ideapad was about 1/3rd of that at 8hrs: "Eight and a half hours away from a wall outlet isn't bad…"
Am I missing something?
3. Screen quality
The same reviews refer to the Ideapad having a "mediocre" screen. It's 1920x1080, but the resolution is only 142ppi. The M1 MacBook Air is higher resolution and higher PPI (227) and 13" not 15". The disparity in quality between them almost couldn't be starker.
Am I missing something?
Happy to talk to someone who can at least try to offer substantiation for their perspectives, but it feels like we're missing each other on this.
[^1]: https://versus.com/en/amd-ryzen-5-3500u-vs-apple-m1/geekbenc...
[^2]: https://www.pcmag.com/reviews/lenovo-ideapad-3-15-2021, https://www.pcmag.com/reviews/apple-macbook-air-m1-late-2020
> Am I missing something?
Yes, a fair fight. Pick a laptop with the same core count as M1 and preferably another 5nm laptop chip for a truly "fair" comparison. Like the 5800u, if you fancy. Or ignore that and continue to insist faster and cheaper laptops don't exist.
> The M1 MacBook Air scored >29hrs on the battery rundown test
> Am I missing something?
Presumably the part in any of my previous comment where I mentioned battery life.
> The same reviews refer to the Ideapad having a "mediocre" screen.
> Am I missing something?
It's a $400 laptop and your only critera was that it had to be faster and cheaper. If you actually wanted to talk about displays then yes, your original comment was missing some key details. I wouldn't be surprised if your next reach was to claim MacOS is an "infinite value add" and end our comparison on that basis alone.
My original ask of OP was this:
> 2) look at the single core performance, battery life, and screen quality of the original 13" M1 MacBook Air. Now find me a laptop with commensurate performance at the same price point from that time.
My point is not that there are NO faster or cheaper laptops than MacBook Air, but that at this price point, it's very difficult (impossible?) to find comparable processor performance, battery life, and screen quality.
You offered a laptop which doesn't seem to be commensurate on any of those aspects. I think it's possibly because you didn't read the full comment?
> Or ignore that and continue to insist faster and cheaper laptops don't exist.
Hopefully the above clears up what I'm driving at. Faster laptops definitely exist. Cheaper laptops definitely exist.
> It's a $400 laptop and your only critera was that it had to be faster and cheaper.
No, that is not what I said. I referred to the MacBook Air "test" twice:
> > 2) look at the single core performance, battery life, and screen quality of the original 13" M1 MacBook Air. Now find me a laptop with commensurate performance at the same price point from that time.
This might be unclear to you. I am saying: look at [processor performance, battery performance, screen performance] of the original 13" M1 MacBook Air. Now find me a laptop with commensurate performance [to those aspects][ at the same price point.
I went on to refer back to this later on:
> 4. Can you find me that mythical laptop computer to compete with MacBook Air?
I did not set the condition that it be cheaper. I did not constrain performance to JUST the processor speed.
> If you actually wanted to talk about displays then yes, your original comment was missing some key details.
Is there something beyond me specifically referring to the "screen quality" that would have been helpful to your understanding?
> I wouldn't be surprised if your next reach was to claim MacOS is an "infinite value add" and end our comparison on that basis alone.
You're engaging in a lot of quite pointed speculation about my integrity in this discussion. Did you read what I said to OP? If so, can you help everyone understand why you think I don't care about the list of parameters I enumerated and am somehow moving the goalposts by assessing your example by the criteria I feel like I originally expressed?
The Vision Pro might end up a complete failure, but requiring an appointment and a face scan is not a sign for this.
They cancelled Newton in order to compete? I don't understand the assertion.
Newton was cancelled by Jobs in 1997 for a number of reasons, but mainly because Apple had lost focus and was running out of money. Jobs cleaned house and only kept the products that could bring in larger profits more quickly.
Palm pilots were sold as complementary products to Macs or PCs and synced well with either one. I don't understand how that is eating Apple's lunch for 15 years since Apple was not shipping a competing product. Does Boeing eat Apple's lunch since Apple doesn't sell any airplanes?
Apple released iPod in 2001, again, not a competitor to Palm but it did provide a means for Apple to learn how to build handheld devices in very high volumes. Ignoring the Motorola ROKR, when Apple finally entered the smartphone market in 2007, Palm began to wither away.
The Newton platform was never competitive. The only group that forced the Newton to shut down was Apple. Then Apple didn't compete at all in the PDA space. Palm had a better PDA than Apple and Ford in 2000, because neither company competed in that space.
Meanwhile the iPhone sells more units in a year than Palm sold units in its lifetime.
Meta's unit sales are not an unassailable moat just like Palm's unit sales weren't a moat. Apple setting low initial projections is also not necessarily indicative of them not taking the market seriously or not having faith in the product.
Hopefully Meta learned the lessons of Palm, RIM, and the other smartphone also-rans and focuses on making their platform better. Apple's not unstoppable. There's also likely plenty of market for VR/AR at all price points. There's certainly room for that market to grow if the offerings are compelling.
I'm not saying the Vision Pro will follow the same path as the iPhone. Past sales of the competition shouldn't be used as a signal of how good compelling of a product it will be. Meta's sales reflect the demand of a product from Meta. Apple has a lot more experience and success at building a platform for third parties. Meta can improve the Oculus platform but it's an open question whether they will.
Are those two categories also failures for Apple?
And saying that Meta can sell more worse devices than Apple that are cheaper and losing Meta money is like saying that Android manufactures can sell more $50 unsubsidized phones than Apple.
Is that a wrong statement? Do they not effectively stop Apple from penetrating every non-US market in the world?
So... assuming you're right, who is this headset for? People inside the ecosystem, who want to spend more money on Apple products but don't need it for anything particularly useful? I wager more iPhone users will own Quest headsets than Apple-branded ones by 2025.
Yet people take out 0% interest loans from Apple to buy $3000* laptops?
Besides, in most countries, people tend to pay cash for phones and carriers don’t offer payment plans.
> with it, there's no point in buying it. It's a product that inherently relies on an ecosystem (albeit a strong one) to survive
You mean like you can’t use an Apple Watch at all without an iPhone paired to it initially - not even the cellular Apple Watch and I doubt very many people are buying AirPods that don’t own Apple devices. The main value add over other BT headsets is the tight integration.
> Much like the iPad and the Apple Watch, if the iPhone and its app ecosystem didn't exist it would be DOA.
But the iPhone does exist and Apple’s services revenue from selling to existing users is larger than its revenue from the Mac and iPad revenue combined.
To a first approximation, no one buys Apple Watches for its third party app ecosystem. Most use it for notifications from the phone, for workouts using first party apps and for times when they don’t want to have their phones on them like running or other exercise
> I wager more iPhone users will own Quest headsets than Apple-branded ones by 2025.
And more iPod users and iPhone users own Windows PCs.
But with the iPhone, iPad, Mac and Watch, they also had an army of enthusiastic users who would show off these portable devices to all their friends and acquaintances. An ad hoc product demo given by someone you know is often worth more than thousands of dollars in traditional marketing.
With the Vision Pro, it’s not obvious that users can give demos so easily. There’s custom face fit, prescription lenses, and hygiene questions.
Their previous hit devices were famously “one size fits all” — the billionaire’s iPhone is the same as everyone else’s. The Watch has a bit of customization, but the Vision Pro takes it beyond fashion into a necessity.
Apple sold 10 million iPhones in the first year. But 10 million was such a small number, that the chance of you seeing one in the wild wasn’t that common.
Apple is already seeding journalist with demos and it’s getting enough buzz from people in YouTube who were invited to use one and people like John Gruber and Marco Arment that if even a small percentage of their listeners/readers try it not to mention natural foot traffic in popular Apple Stores that demand will outpace supply.
While the personalized parts can probably be bought for a whole household and swapped by the user, when including lens correction for instance it's just not practical and it becomes a single owner device.
1. How much room in the headset is there for glasses? I can wear glasses relatively comfortably in existing gaming headsets like the Vive, Index, and Quest.
2. What are the stats on likelihood of requiring corrective lenses across a group of people, and what subset of those exclusively wear glasses?
If I had a friend with one of these and they didn't accommodate glasses on the wearer, I'd just wear contacts to do a demo. If I were spending $3500 on a setup at home, I probably wouldn't scoff at an accessory cost alongside it to get lenses for a family member.
On 1., leaving space for glasses limits the FOV so I'd assume Apple is not leaving that gap (which would also justify the production of prescription lenses from the start, for a product that isn't even shipping yet)
On 2. I don't have the stats, but this study was interesting: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8569398/
> The distributions with significant changes included males that were significantly more myopic and astigmatic, while females were more hyperopic across the age groups. Furthermore, myopia decreased, while hyperopia, astigmatism and anisometropia increased with increasing age.
So,
- parents and children have a high probability of having a different correction
- A man/woman couple has a high probability of having a different correction
Everything we have read at this point comes directly from Apple or from “reviewers” invited by Apple which is the same as coming from Apple considering Apple blacklists reviewers who don’t play ball from futur events.
At that point, we as consumers have absolutely zero meaningful and trustworthy information about the product and that will most likely be so until it is out.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36253348
> Maybe Apple doesn't actually want to sell a lot of a first generation product they know will quickly evolve?
It's an impressive tech demo pushed out early to support the stock price, claim trademarks, gauge interest, and allow developers to begin building the ecosystem. Apple isn't going to go in with both feet on a product with dubious market potential.
I was excited iPad apps could be directly ported over to VisionPro - but now after hacking with it in XCode - it’s evident this device and its APIs have no idea that customer intent drives context.
This lack of customer awareness is so interesting because all the designers in WWDC videos outline context with great labor. They forget a space is only part of an intent, and an intent is not a click or scroll. Intents demand a certain context, not the other way around - they’re scratching at old scars of starting with technology first then working to some customer experience.
Everyone pulls up the SJ D3 interview to say VisionPro is what Steve would want - but just like everything he says, if you only quickly listen you miss the full history and intent - he says something along the lines of “headphones are just as good as amazing audio systems, displays on your face need to get better before we can recreate the plasma tv experience” - only after a lot of reflection did I come to understand this means audio passive consumption and display passive consumption. The customer intent for a display on face context is to recreate watching a plasma tv - following this intent means you end up with something completely different than what is happening now (I think SOL has nailed this, but perhaps focused too niche on the use case). Only later do you pull forward interactivity - as in the delay between headphones and Siri, which is still lagging.
Could you elaborate on that? I'd like to better understand
Basically think of what you want to achieve, it’s the intent. Then think what happens if it happened automatically, that’s the ideal context (why pills for losing weight is so enticing). Then actually try to solve the problem in tech in the best way, and then you’ll see that the intent drives what tech context is truly great - as in you’ll end up creating dedicated hardware and software; what’s happened is that this platform has become good enough for many use cases and everyone is looking for the next best “good enough” when this current generation of tech platforms was built for a specific intent very different from what’s next
Think AirFryers and Convection Ovens - focused, small package, easy to use, etc vs…
In fact their actions suggest they already know this. It feels like Apple felt obliged to show .. something, anything .. after so many years of work (7 years? Just a guess).
I think this limited appointment-only release is part of a cautious wait-and-see approach.
Neither was the Mac that sold abysmally for years and Apple was propped up by the Apple // series
And neither was the iPod. They sold less than 1 million in the first two years.
Or the Apple iPhone that barely captured 1% market share tte first year (Jobs stated goal)
Or the Apple Watch which was slow, with bad battery life and a horrible SDK. It took years for Apple to have a coherent focus.
In Apple's defense, it is still two of those things. (No longer slow though!)
I purchased my Apple Watch through one of these 'fitting' appointments.
> Beginning at 3:01 a.m. ET today, customers have the option of pre-ordering the Apple Watch of their choice or making an appointment for an in-store fitting.
> While Apple is directing people to the website to schedule a 15-minute fitting experience, they'll also accommodate walk-ins if time permits. Customers can also play with an Apple Watch display unit that lets them demo the interface. However they won't be able to try one on without meeting with an Apple employee.
> What It's Like to Get an Apple Watch Fitting Appointment on the 1st Day ABC News tech editor Alyssa Newcomb gets in-store appointment.
> ByALYSSA NEWCOMB > April 10, 2015, 2:42 PM
I am not misremembering. I even still have the order invoice and delivery notification from the courier in my email archive.
See operative "or" in the quoted "customers have the option of pre-ordering the Apple Watch of their choice or making an appointment for an in-store fitting".
> Beginning at 3:01 a.m. ET today, customers have the option of pre-ordering the Apple Watch of their choice or making an appointment for an in-store fitting.
> While Apple is directing people to the website to schedule a 15-minute fitting experience, they'll also accommodate walk-ins if time permits. Customers can also play with an Apple Watch display unit that lets them demo the interface. However they won't be able to try one on without meeting with an Apple employee.
> What It's Like to Get an Apple Watch Fitting Appointment on the 1st Day ABC News tech editor Alyssa Newcomb gets in-store appointment.
> ByALYSSA NEWCOMB > April 10, 2015, 2:42 PM
What seemed more likely from Apple was the form factor of the Vuzix Ultralight, which looks like ordinary glasses. AR-only, offering access to a smartphone functionality with hands free. That's a mass market product. Several companies showed such things at CES.
What Apple is demoing is nicely engineered, but has every bell and whistle known to VR headgear. It shows in the weight, bulk, price, and battery life. It seems to have roughly the same market as the Microsoft HoloLens, which is an nice piece of expensive equipment sold to corporate buyers.
Meta and Microsoft have something in this space, so Apple had to have one too, in case somebody made this niche grow.
Apple's image announcement is just for future positioning: this really is a "Pro" device, for specific market segments and use-cases - niche. It's how apple won desktop publishing years ago.
Segment 1: creative professionals keep buying more and bigger screens. Vision Pro (VP) can eat that budget, and provide as many displays as you want. (The technology appeal is that a display must be high resolution everywhere - but VP only needs to be hi-res where you're looking, giving arbitrarily large "displays"). Apple carefully and specifically claims text is crisp. The engineering question is if Apple has actually done this: is it as good as a physical display? (or close enough)
Segment 2: creative professionals who make 3D objects: industrial designers, architects (but not yet engineers - they have different priorities). Also directors: cgi sets and set extensions have long been standard, and directors (and production designers etc) use an ipad to "see" the fully dressed cgi set, overlaid on the practical set. This is a better version of that. I can see James Cameron and Denis Villeneuve ordering any many as they can use - if it actually help. (aside: maybe for actors in rehearsal, but interferes with mocap).
Creative professional collaborate, hence Apple's huge efforts on the eyes being visible. A real question is will it be enough, for effective and natural communication, in a real-worlx work-flow situation? Will Jim be able to ordsr people around, or will he have to rip it off?
By announcing it after years and years of work, Apple shows they think they have enough of it, for it to be worthwhile for some people.
Provided they can get a genuine foothold, in actually making people more productive (real ROI, not jus enthusiast prosumers), then this has endless upside. If they can, users, usages and sales will grow fantastically for decades....if
They probably only want serious people trying these things. And by serious I mean people with the money to spend and intent to buy it.
My first thought when I saw this was how will this work in an Apple store with every Tom, Dick and Mary with at most $100 bucks in their bank account and a bunch of soon to be maxed out credit cards trying this thing but knowing full well that they cannot afford it and will probably not buy it.
It would be a waste of time for Apple store employees to demo this thing for people who are thousands of dollars away from being able to afford it.
By making it appointment only they can reduce the pool of people who would waste their time.
And no, I'm not trying to be a snob, in fact, I am one of these people who could never afford this thing. They'd have to sell it at $500 for it to be in my price range.
I was just thinking about the logistics.
Then tell anyone driving something less fancy than a Mercedes S-class or equivalent to fuck off :-)
It's funny to see a company rooted in jeans and T-shirt California counterculture struggle to reinvent something that would have been painfully obvious to any luxury store owner before the 20th century: throw out anyone not wearing sufficiently fancy clothing.
The Beverley Hillbillies got 9 seasons outta that trope!
Wouldn't work in oil towns though, often the worst dressed bloke is the richest in the room.
I get that the Vision Pro is expensive and near-useless for most users.
So was the Macintosh in 1984, which cost the equivalent of $7000 today adjusted for inflation. So yeah, two Vision Pros. With just 128 KiB of RAM, the original Macintosh didn't have the capacity to run the applications of the future everyone to run. But people knew it was the future... and if you had the scratch, you could go down to the store and buy one.
That's where Vision Pro should be. It should be on everyone's minds as obviously where computing is going, and you should be able to buy tomorrow's computing paradigm today -- so that when better products come in at lower price points, everybody's ready.
Shut up and take people's money, Apple.
Here is news from 12 years ago where they deny iPhone 4 shortages are just marketing. https://appleinsider.com/articles/10/07/20/apple_denies_crea...
They’ve only sold 38 million in almost 3 years - the number of iPhones Apple sells in less than a quarter.
And you’re citing a denial as proof?
When Apple seems to face less demand than expected they have 'problems'. Sony has real screw ups it hurts the company because demand is off the roof.
(Apple has the best supply chain management in the world)
access to a virtual apple store with no crowding, no wait, and no pilgrimage required. payment charged to apple card using an eyeball scan.
hey, siri, let’s go to the mall.
The best use of VR Apple can come up with is going to a store?
It takes a lot to be outdone by the Metaverse, but trust Apple to accomplish it.
I was in San Francisco last year and walk from the financial district to the pier and I wasn’t nervous at all.
My wife and I “nomad” across the US to major cities across the US half the year. I’m comfortable walking around most places during the day.
- Game play that changes with your heart rate
- Switching easily from work mode to a meditation
- Getting ready for bed by watching a VR sunset
Imagine walking into an Apple Store and seeing as new customers are getting fitted and exploring these experiences on 100” OLEDs. Converting the masses requires displaying entirely new experiences, from work to play.
Media and companies still pushing the VR hype garbage... its not new, its not 'the future', get over it.
I don’t feel the need to elaborate much, but it could be an interesting offering for a shared workspace rental business too.
There is a big difference in comfort for even a pair of glasses.
The tale of a product which needed to be launched due to corporate dynamics but several years need to pass before it's actually ready. (And as we see with the Sapphire Rapids woes, it's still not fully so, five years later. But close enough.)