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Comment by Invictus0 | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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