Do they report on how much capex went into vision pro?
I can’t imagine them ever moving enough units to recover those costs.
I can’t imagine them ever moving enough units to recover those costs.
I feel like phones and even watches are pretty "solved" at this point (witness every discussion around the incremental updates in a new iPhone), which is great.
I'm excited there's potentially a new product category here where there's still a lot of unsolved questions. The form factor will certainly change, and the UX idioms will as well. I look forward to seeing it. I'm interested in the Quests, too, but Apple does have a little magic sometimes and are exploring a bit of a different direction. Exciting times.
Like the others in this thread, I'm happy to see Apple investing in truly new, risky ventures. That's real innovation, and I hope they keep that up.
I'm curious to know about folding devices (as a category?) and if they're going to go anywhere. Would probably depend on the developments in flexible screens.
With Large Multimodal Models coming online now, it really seems like that Meta product has a lot of room to grow.
Recognizing the world around you, and giving you very intelligent audio feedback on it seems pretty darn useful. Especially in a form factor that people have already accepted out in the public. The LMM -> audio playback interface seems like a great way to get around the display issues for a sci-fi Google Glass.
But I suppose Apple will likely be later to market in that space as well, with an even more perfect product. That's assuming they can go from Siri to leading edge LMM.
Long term, when the tech is there to do that, sure.
2017:
> Apple CEO Tim Cook said that it will be a while before the technology available for augmented reality glasses rises to Apple’s standards, according to British Vogue.
“There are rumours and gossip about companies working on that, and we obviously don’t talk about what we work on. But today I can tell you that the technology itself doesn’t exist to do that in a quality way,” Cook told Vogue.
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/11/apple-ar-glasses-tim-cook-sa...
They keep iterating on it in-house, and keep finding that the tech still isn't ready.
I bet there were similar reservations about the initial iPhone, too. CapEx spending to develop the Vision Pro will probably be spread out over years, in which Apple will undoubtedly release the Vision Pro 2, 3 etc..
I'm not an accountant or an R&D guy but the first version always costs the most, right? Improvements over the years cost less and less as the platform is more established, I would think (if all other costs remain relatively stable).
There were not.
The Vision Pro is none of that and they'll have to build the market (a non gaming ARish headset) by themselves.
Microsoft: “There’s no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance."
Palm: “We've learned and struggled for a few years here figuring out how to make a decent phone,” Colligan said. “PC guys are not going to just figure this out. They're not going to just walk in.”
RIM: "in terms of a sort of a sea-change for BlackBerry, I would think that’s overstating it"
Nokia: “The development of mobile phones will be similar in PCs. Even with the Mac, Apple has attracted much attention at first, but they have still remained a niche manufacturer. That will be in mobile phones as well”
Same for watches.
Same for portable music players.
The same cannot be said for VR.
https://www.statista.com/topics/6072/extended-reality-xr/
https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/ar-vr-software-...
Apple Watch was pretty mid, but people like watches and fitness bands, so it seemed to gain some traction.
These goggles required so much tech and research and also have a massive price tag for what is realistically a novelty and possibly small evolution over current work flows. It doesn’t feel like it will be bigger than Apple Watch.
And it turned out that the niche was in huge demand - everybody likes reading the news and chatting with friends on the go.
There were plenty of phones out there that could browse, email, take pictures etc, they just sucked and iphone sucked way less.
It remains to be seen whether the current goggles just suck or the whole concept is for geeks only (even with the geeks that own some kind of vr googles only 10% use them weekly or more often).
So they do believe they will ship enough units over the next few decades.
As for capex, Apple claims 5000 patents cover the Vision Pro so it must be unprecedented for them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisitio...
So definitely a lot of lawyers.
Meta already has a context aware glass product that is limited and flawed but also paves the way for a magic product 10 to 15 iterations down the line.
If we look at Apple's recent track record, we have the Apple Watch as a success, and Apple TV, HomePod as mostly living deads. Apple coming late to a market and crush it isn't the main pattern anymore IMHO.
It’ll do fine.
Point of comparison: Steve Jobs started talking about the iPhone when someone asked him about the next big thing at the Macintosh premier in 1984. 10 years later, he was fired from Apple and working on bespoke workstations. 20 years later, Palm/Blackberry owned the smartphone market. 30 years later, Apple owned the smartphone market. These stories take time.