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Comment by KMnO4 | Hacker News Reader

I genuinely think Apple wanted this to be relatively unpalatable to the typical consumer. They want to build something to prove their tech is the future, but don’t actually want anyone to buy this iteration.

Why? Because they need developers to make worthwhile apps. Yes, the original iPhone shipped without an App Store, but it could also do regular phone stuff (calls, sms, etc). What’s the “regular” stuff you’d expect to do on a VR headset? Other than watch movies on a big screen, there’s currently very little reason to own one, and encouraging everyone’s mom to buy one is setting them up for failure.

Give it a couple years for there to be some really groundbreaking apps, and Apple will open the floodgates with a cheaper/more ergonomic version.

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>Give it a couple years for there to be some really groundbreaking apps, and Apple will open the floodgates with a cheaper/more ergonomic version.

But what are the "ground breaking apps"? The "we just haven't thought of it yet" seems absolutely silly given how long we've had sci-fi novels that have similar ideas and nothing I've ever read in any novel sounded "groundbreaking".

This just screams "3D TV" to me - a solution nobody wants to a problem nobody has. If you could fit all of this into a pair of sunglasses MAYBE there would be a market - but that tech is probably 50 years away if it's possible at all.

Mind-blowing apps? Future kids in East of West, of course! https://imagecomics.com/comics/series/east-of-west

> I genuinely think Apple wanted this to be relatively unpalatable to the typical consumer.

Based on what? Apple cultivates this myth that they wait to enter a market until they can produce the best device in the market. So, I disagree, I think Apple thinks this is the best device they could have built right now and it's for everyone with $3500 to drop on it.

There's a point where you can't further your product without getting it into the hands of actual consumers. We saw it with the Apple Watch after the first version it became less a communication device, and more a health and fitness device.

I do think Apple thought this was the best device they could make that did this thing, but estimates are that they can make about 800k of these things. I think the price point intentionally pushes it away from the typical consumer. They want early adopters. Mostly they want developers.

> They want early adopters. Mostly they want developers.

Of course.

> I think the price point intentionally pushes it away from the typical consumer.

I disagree. I think they truly believed this thing is worth this much in it's current state and if they built it people would buy it.

We’ve had consumer VR headsets on the market for 8 years now (Oculus Rift CV1). Why would apps suddenly start appearing now, what makes Apple so different?

People actually spend money on the App Store.

Not everything is going to be a repeat of the iPhone, lol.

App store = entire Apple ecosystem.

Oh why haven’t Apple Watch apps taken off then? Or what about the macOS App Store, why is that dead?

sigh, you seem to be lacking basic knowledge in this area. I can buy/download an app for my iPhone and have it available on Watch/iPad/iPhone/Mac. There was 90 billion dollars spent on the app store last year alone and it is only increasing.

Break down that 90 billion by iPhone vs Watch / iPad / Mac. I guarantee 99% is coming from iPhone. Their other stores haven’t taken off.

But OP just said apple doesn't want anyone to buy them. Why would developers invest a bunch of time making apps for a device nobody has?

People spend money on apps (mostly games) from the Quest store.

The vision pro is being built on top of an already large and successful ecosystem. The Quest store is literally just for the Quest that has nowhere near as many customers.

> I genuinely think Apple wanted this to be relatively unpalatable to the typical consumer.

You’re starting to hit on Apple’s strategy. Build something expensive and impressive, get all the media hype out of it with influencers making content and consumers watching it cause it’s the expensive thing.

Then it comes down in price over 10 years and soon everybody has one, because everyone wants to try to Apple thing they saw so much about years ago.

iPad went exactly the same way, as everyone wrote it off when first introduced as just “a large iPod touch”, and now it’s the defacto leader in the category without anything coming close.

The iPad was far from expensive at launch, considering it was a brand new category, and it was rumored to launch at ~1k. It was a huge surprise when the price was revealed at $500. Apple even acknowledges it in the keynote!

We've had the Hololens for 8 years (and VR for even longer) and no groundbreaking apps or features showed up. I suspect there simply aren't any.

And there probably won't be any until we get the tech down to just look like regular glasses.

I suspect that may be the case (Apple Luggable comes to mind).

The Microsoft HoloLens was $5000, when it first came out. I think that MS pointed it at a commercial target audience.

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