Hacker News Reader

Comment by autoexecbat | Hacker News Reader

I'd happily buy one for $500, but $3500 is way too much

It seems like a developer tool for building VR apps, which could make sense if they were planning on making a $500 device later. But, absent clear plans there, I can’t really see why anyone would buy it.

OTOH they wouldn’t sell any at all to consumers if they announced there was a sensibly priced one planned for the future.

Apple is the last company I want a VR headset from.

Like I'd buy iPad instantly if it could run a real OS (like a surface pro) - but Apple loves the app store margins soo much they will fight tooth and nail too keep you locked in, at heavy expense of capability.

Likewise for Apple vision pro :

  - productivity - only if it fits the store model
  - entertainmen - only if daddy Apple approves
  - hackability - no way

MacOS devices are a legacy from a different era in Apple business model - they would not build such devices today - and are not really expanding the range. iPhone I can live with the lockdown for the integration between MacOS, likewise for accessories (even here I might switch due to the taste their ecosystem business leaves in mouth).

But VR and iPad are things where I want fully capable/hackable environments - that's not going to happen with Apple App Store business model.

considering it has a CPU that is as powerful as the MacBook Pro, I find your target price extremely optimistic.

hopefully once the display tech becomes cheaper, the overall price will come down quite a bit. But $500? unrealistic expectations IMO. Maybe in 10 years.

Then it won’t be a success for another ten years. You can call them unrealistic expectations if you’d like but I’ll drop thousands on a laptop because I use it day in day out. There’s simply no chance I’ll be doing the same with a Vision so the price I’m willing to pay is adjusted accordingly.

i agree it won’t be successful for a very long time. I personally think fit and comfort are bigger challenges. The tech will certain get cheaper but how much lighter?

$500 is what a new gaming console costs. If Apple wants to compete for the attention of people with better gaming/entertainment experiences then their price needs to come down.

I think it's unrealistic of Apple to expect sales for more than $500, and the market has proven that to be correct.

Does it really need a CPU as powerful as a MacBook Pro though, I wonder. It certainly doesn't offer the same capabilities as one.

This looks like one of the primary targets to start cutting.

VR needs a more powerful CPU and GPU than a MacBook Pro needs if you're trying to break into the VR gaming market (not saying you need a faster CPU than an M3, but VR is extremely demanding and will use all the CPU and GPU you can throw at it to maintain 90+fps with multiview rendering), especially since Apple keeps pushing Metal and not supporting Vulkan. (Metal tends to have higher CPU overhead vs Vulkan, and means you have to add an additional rendering backend for existing VR games)

> VR needs a more powerful CPU and GPU than a MacBook Pro needs if you're trying to break into the VR gaming market

No, it doesn't. The Quest series has done well for itself with boosted smartphone chips.

Surely, that means simpler graphics, but the graphics aren't really the thing holding VR back right now. Ease of use, comfort, weight, eye strain, motion sickness, physical feedback, these are all bigger issues imo. (Though I'll admit that larger FoV would help, and that's tied to graphical power)

If you really want powerful VR yes, but this is not what Apple is going for at all. They're only doing some very basic AR usecases with floating windows.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com