It makes it a bit harder to create positive word of mouth, though. You can’t just try out the Vision Pro fitted for a friend or family member.
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.