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Comment by kilroy123 | Hacker News Reader

It's the crappy version 1. Just like iphone and ipad v1. They sucked.

It's very obviously better to wait a little longer for a future version.

Not sure I agree. When I first saw the 1st gen iPhone I was so impressed with it, I went out and got one a few days later. This is before the App Store. Yes compared to today it might “suck” compared to the latest version, but the first iPhone was super compelling by itself at the time and started selling very well

Yeah if the first version doesn't take off that's generally not a good sign. 1st Iphone did extremely well.

> 1st Iphone did extremely well

Citation needed. The 1st gen iPhone sold 6 million units over two years. The Nokia N95 (not a super mainstream device, but in a similarish price category) sold 10M. Other Nokia phones of the time period sold 100+ million devices. BlackBerry, LG, and Sony/Ericcson was in the tens of millions per device model.

Let’s not forget:

1. The iPhone didn’t support 3G, which essentially all other phones of a similar price point had

2. Was only available for AT&T customers in the US (then still known as Cingular Wireless)

3. Cost significantly more ($500-600 w/ two year contract) than the average consumer paid for phones (almost always under $150 with contract, but usually “free”) at the time.

4. No App Store

5. No cut and paste

6. No removable battery

7. No physical keyboard (a positive for me, but was a deal breaker for so many back then)

That’s not to say the original iPhone wasn’t amazing in many ways, but let’s also remember the past accurately.

How many countries was the Nokia N95 available in VS. the 2G iPhone? I don't think it launched in Asia or most of Europe.

> How many countries was the Nokia N95 available in VS. the 2G iPhone?

Way more, especially since the original iPhone was only available in the US for the first 5 months. It was available across Europe, North America, South America, China, and Australia at minimum.

> I don't think it launched in Asia or most of Europe.

The N95 was heavily across Europe, that was the primary market for it in fact.

So you can see how it might not be a fair comparison?

Sure do. But it’s also a quite a bit more expensive phone too, which helps level the playing field some. Either way, there will never be a perfect apples to apples comparison.

That said, there is sufficient evidence to support my claim made in my original post.

Is the claim that sales numbers are the only way to measure success? And since the 2g iphone didn't measure up in that department it doesn't qualify as a success?

If you have a counter claim, especially one you can back up with as much facts as I did, please do so. Otherwise, please either stop straw manning or find some other place to do so.

The iPod, iPad and Apple Watch are all products from Apple where the first version didn't take off. I'd say they did just fine and the iPhone is largely an outlier in Apple's history of new products. Even the initial iMac suffered relative to its later revisions.

Yeah I used my iPhone 1 for 4 years until I moved to the phone 4 (a year after it was released because I couldn't afford it new). It was a great device, only let down by its ridiculously slow data connection.

> It's the crappy version 1. Just like iphone and ipad v1. They sucked.

iPhone 1.0 was incredible. There was nothing like it. iPad 1.0 (and following) has been lackluster. AVP is impressive, but lacking.

The iPhone changed the world of tech in an instant. There were aspects lacking (slow internet, no copy paste, no third-party apps), but saying it sucked is rewriting history. The things you take for granted about phones came from that.

iPhone 1 was way more successful than Vision Pro, and it didn't suck relative to what was on the market at the time. At launch, Steve Jobs famously said it was 5 years ahead of the competition, and contemporary commentators generally agreed.

In its first week, Apple had sold 270,000 iPhones domestically.[47] Apple sold the one millionth iPhone 74 days after the release.[48] Apple reported in January 2008 that four million were sold.

Phones have more mass appeal which I think attributes to the larger initial numbers. It doesn't change that the original iPhone was not great in a lot of ways. I had one - 2.5g was slow, the screen was small, and it was missing basic features. But it catalyzed what the future was going to look like.

Interesting. Macrumors reports 200.000 sold vision pro's a few month's ago. So maybe 300.000 today?

It's a type of gadget that hasn't become widely adopted yet and the usecases and killer features are almost non existent compared to the iPhones phonecalls + web browsing, music, videos, notes and many others.

Really hard to gauge what success means here, but if we say that in a year it will sell 500.000 units, that's 1/8 of the original iPhone, seems ok, or maybe not?

there is no killer feature where it sees mass adoption.. 99.9% of the population cant afford to drop $3,500 on a computer screen for their computer.

Idk, people spend absurd amounts of money on various hobbies and other pursuits that I bet a much larger % of the population can afford a Vision Pro than you might think. We don't really question when someone buys an ATV or boat that they use only a few times a year and easily costs as much as a Vision Pro.

Not comparable. I paid $7k for an upright piano (which is a rookie number not worth bragging about) which is my biggest purchase other than a car so far, plus ongoing $90 weekly lessons, but I won't ever regret because it is a very meaningful and valuable investment -- the piano easily lasts a decade, I practice every day and am happy about what it brings. People who blow $100k on a Steinway think the same. Vision Pro? Not a chance, even as a one-time purchase. Maybe after I have a big house and earn $1m in annual income and have too much money to waste.

I know people that make not much more than median income and easily blown thousands a year on hunting trips. Think of how many people spend a ton of money on a truck that they only use for normal commuting. People easily spend thousands a year on hobbies and the APV easily fits into that.

> boat

Brunswick Corporation has a market cap of about 6 billion.

99.9% of the population can’t afford to drop $100k on a sports car. They still exist.

The first Apple Mac was $7500 in today’s dollars.

Armchairs are way over-indexing on price.

But that just makes it a bigger success right? Adjusting for the crazy price it's even more impressive if it sells almost 1/8 in the first year.

My impression is that it's going to fall in price in the next iterations though i agree with you right now it's not even targeted for the masses.

> computer screen for their computer

You're making a plenty convincing argument- why misclassify the device? It's a full computer.

Yeah, not holding my breath for a Vision Pro II to see the light of day.

Also, the iPhone cost $500 at launch. At the time, that was expensive for a smartphone, but even adjusting for inflation it was nowhere near Vision Pro-level expensive. (It would also be a relatively cheap phone in today's market.)

If anything, the Vision Pro feels to me more like the original Mac: an impressive technological leap forward, with lots of interesting ideas about computing and UI paradigms, but also prohibitively expensive, and still underpowered relative to its lofty ambitions.

Notably, the Mac didn't really end well for Apple. Eventually we got the iMac and OS X, but in between was a decade in which Apple nearly went bankrupt. And I'm not really convinced the Vision Pro is as innovative or compelling as the original Mac was to begin with.

>and it didn't suck relative to what was on the market at the time.

That's going to depend on what things you cared about. The original iPhone was heavily criticized for no copy/paste, no 3g service, no MMS, no physical keyboard, its absurd at the time $700+ price tag, carrier exclusivity, lack of subsidized pricing model and number of other things. Plenty of commentators thought Apple had widely missed the mark and had just launched a multi-million dollar folly that was sure to sink them any day now.

> very obviously

And yet people buy v1. It really depends on how much your time is worth. I bought v1 and I expect to sell it for $1000 or so when v2 comes out. $3000 to use this product for 12-18 months is totally worth it to me.

So, not “obvious”. At least to people with different priorities.

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