Maybe they are finding that they're like the Segway, just too geeky for the mainstream market.
It's typical of Apple's hubris, to throw in all these features they think people will want, meanwhile if the headset had no cameras and was just a display strapped to your head for $1000, it likely would have sold a lot better. But they didn't want a VR device for whatever reason.
At the same time you could blame discretionary spending being at some of the lowest levels in a decade.
I can see AVP as being half luxury and half tech-demo/devkit for a more budget friendly device.
I have never seen anyone look at those two examples and think “luxury”. Even the most ardent proponents of Apple products laugh at those prices and think they are absurd. With good reason. Who ever is going to look at computer wheels and think they’re a sign of luxury¹?
¹ Yes yes, someone surely will, just like there’s someone for everything. I’m making a general point.
Now that we are all more social again, the point of a device that shuts you out of the world is a bit... less useful.
For a real attempt, the UI needs to be augmented reality you can wear walking around, and the form factor needs to be a pair of normal glasses. It is certainly possible the tech doesn’t exist yet. But that won’t convince people to buy a silly version.
> meanwhile if the headset had no cameras
I remember when apple got universally panned for putting cameras in laptops. Most people surely wanted the cost savings, while the small number of power users who needed video chat should have no trouble picking up a USB camera for $100 (more like $200 in present-day USD). Of course, what actually happened was that people (and apps!) in the mac world could suddenly assume that everyone else already had a camera set up, even if they weren't technical, and that was the real killer feature. The rest of the industry quietly memory-holed the snide commentary and followed suit.
Volume will drive price down once VR gets Good Enough. Right now it isn't, so I'm glad that Apple is playing to their strengths by taking swings at substantive challenges -- like the fact that VR makes the wearer look like a complete dope -- rather than becoming discount VR vendor #312.
Apple has a history of doing products that seem expensive and weirdly overspecced at the beginning, and then stick with it if they truly believe in it. OTOH, there are also clearly products that Apple killed because they didn't work out. But I believe it's still to early to tell where the Vision line is going.
Damn you just reminded me there was time laptops didn't have cameras. Like phones!
Personal computing did not reach mainstream until smartphones. Even notebooks were too much of commitment for most people. Maybe AR [0] glasses could go in path of smartphones but VR headsets are polar opposites to smartphones.
[0]: Actual augmented reality that is projected on top of real vision - not recorder reality with camera like in case of this product.
Time will tell if a "killer app" is found.
It's a shame as it seems like they maxed out the tech specs, but given the state of the art it still ends up being too low resolution for true MacOS productivity replacement, while also being too heavy & tethered to a short lived battery pack.
Maybe a worse-is-better version that is cheaper/lighter will sell more for entertainment uses.
Where are the grants to devs to buy and develop something good for it? Apple just kind of expected everyone to do that work for free for them. Watching movies on an airplane is not a $3500 use case. Mirroring your desktop to a head mounted display that is too heavy and cumbersome to be a $3500 use case. Putting iPad apps into the air is not a $3500 use case.
Where's the killer app? What even IS a killer app for head mounted displays? They've been around for 30 years now. It has never been an insufficient hardware problem. The original oculus devkits were genuinely terrible, but VR IS a killer app for sim enthusiasts, so they rushed to implement it into everything they could straight away. Euro Truck Simulator was one of the earliest integrations. But that's not an Apple market and never will be.
If someone wants VR/AR to be some stupid ShadowRun heads up display for managing all the info you encounter in the world, that app should be built and iterated on first. How many average people even run an "organize and remember everything" app? What percentage of iPhone users even use the damn calendar?
But they still look kind of off when wearing them in public (slightly bigger than normal sunglasses, cable from one ear and other people can see the light from the screens from the side or back).
And the lack of integration is a pain - the phone has to be unlocked so is subject to random taps and swipes in my pocket.
However, an Apple-built Carplay-style projection into XReal type glasses could work very well - the question being how would you control it?
I think it is not totally necessary to have it be impossible to tell you are wearing the things. Like walking around with earbuds or portable headphone was unusual at some point (even the walkman is less than 50 years old, right). They just have to not look deeply goofy, like current VR-pressganged-into-AR headsets do.
My guess, Apple knows this won't become mainstream/usage for 5+ years.
And as such, they need to bring technology from the future 5-years from now, to today ... and as such, that's why it's so expensive.
They aren't expecting people to pay $3,500 for this device when the killer app exists. But it needs to cost that in order for developers to "develop to where the puck is going" in 5-years time.
People love their electric scooters nowadays, and they’re just worse Segways.
Apples headset is expensive and has no compelling software for most people. It was DOA.
The early problems were it was illegal to use them on sidewalks but also there weren't bike lanes like there are in big cities now.
It was also pretty big & heavy it didn't work for multi-modal like using it for the last mile to/from a train or bus.
So the e-mobility space got won decades later by worse, cheaper products that were smaller & lighter .. being used heavily for food delivery app drivers using them semi-legally in bike lanes. A use case that wasn't imagined in the Segway unveiling.
That doesn't bode well for VR headsets, which also make you look geeky.
The middle class won't want to join a new untested alternate reality if it's full of working class people, and the working class will always want to go where the middle class is at. The only thing to stop them is the price. That's why it costs the same as a piece of designer clothing. Apple has to lock in a critical mass of affluent adopters first, before they can mass monetize the prestige.
Not sure about that. The scooter is a >200year old design and there is a reason it subsist to this day. Segways are huge and not as easy to store/fold. Onewheeler are more elegant design and much more compact but awkward to operate when powered off in places you aren't allowed to use it and you cannot carry loads as easily. In that sense a scooter offer the speed of the segways/onewheelers, with the convenience of being able to push them easily anywhere with minimum effort while staying foldable, easy to hide away once reaching destination yet they can carry stuff.
Scooters are a smaller form factor, but bikes should be the real personal transport winner.