> the Vision Pro’s sales up to this point justify discontinuation
What are you basing this on though? From all accounts they’re pretty close to selling the number of units they could manufacture.
What are you basing this on though? From all accounts they’re pretty close to selling the number of units they could manufacture.
These are sales that are on par with the Nintendo Virtual Boy.
And if they can’t manufacture any more than that, they have an even bigger problem.
It’s now been a year and a half since the first model was announced and there is no sign of a second model to move the product into a more mass appeal device.
We saw critical follow-ups like the iPhone 3G and Apple Watch Series 1/2 come out as quick releases that were in retrospect very important to establishing a practical device that a regular person might consider buying. I think the fact that we haven’t seen one yet is a huge problem.
If Apple couldn’t make another leap in a calendar year it’s clear that they will never catch up to Meta. Meta is out there selling a gazillion Quest 3S bundles to your local Costco impulse buyer.
The million sales mark was from one single report by Kuo. Kuo himself previously said they were limited to ~900K display units which is ~450K devices and other analysts have said the same.
There is no other source saying 1M was the target that I know of that doesn’t trace back to Kuo. If they are at ~500K units then they’ve exceeded the initial sales target that Kuo himself laid out.
For your second point about a follow up, you’re comparing product announcement to product launches. The product itself only launched 10months ago. You’re expecting a second iteration within 10 months, of an entirely new product class for them ? Meanwhile other more popular Apple products often go longer between releases. Even Meta are around two years between products within a device class.
Your last point of comparing to a meta quest is misplaced too. They’re different classes of the same device category. There’s no way Apple are expecting to compete with a device a tenth of its price for total sales.
You're right that the Meta Quest is a different class of the same device category. But that's the problem, isn't it? Apple made a device that is in a different class of the same device category, really far away in a price point where just aren't any customers.
That's why Apple actually needed an unusually fast follow-up device, because the first product was too close to being an overpriced barely-working tech demo, similar to the original iPhone and Apple Watch.
I think it is quite safe for us to all assume that Apple isn't releasing a Vision Pro follow-up in the next couple of months. The iPhone 3G dropped the price and outclassed the original iPhone owners so much that Steve Jobs had to write an apology letter. The Apple Watch released a new product that resolved all the gripes from the first one in 12 months. I just think as a business strategy that Apple is missing the mark here with the Vision Pro.
To the rest of your point, I’m sure Apple is aware that there aren’t a lot of customers at the 3500 dollar mark. They’ve said as much in interviews, but you’d have to attribute a lot of hubris to them to think they thought they’d steal market share from the Quest line.
Again, all reports say they can’t even manufacture enough right now to be more than a blip on the sales chart.
Perhaps your first paragraph bellies your confusion because you claim it’s just a consumption device, and partly that’s because apples marketing focuses on it, because it’s the easiest thing to communicate.
The 3500 price tag is exactly the starting price point of other high end XR headsets that are used in many non-consumption areas. I say starting, because they go up considerably from there (see the Varjo XR prices). That’s the space where it’s not consumption, but work. It’s the same way that a Mac Pro can be used to view Netflix the same way a MacBook Air can, and they have similar capabilities on paper but widely different markets to target.
From all accounts of working with those industries, Apple has eaten that market share. Varjo has stopped being the headset of choice for most of those cases, to the point that even NVIDIA (who were a huge Varjo customer) are doing Vision Pro courses at siggraph and made it the headset they feature for professional work ( https://resources.nvidia.com/en-us-awe-2024/omniverse-apple-... )
Basically, don’t take Apple’s consumer facing marketing as their entire sales pitch. They have completely separate paths for businesses.
None of this is to say that there aren’t areas that Apple has missed on with the headset. There clearly are several, but I don’t think sales strategy is actually one of them. Marketing is perhaps an issue though.
Industrial and medical use, creative platforms etc, Literally the only other headsets I can use for the lines of work I’m involved with are 4x the price of the Vision Pro (the Varjo XRs), yet by your metric wouldn’t be worthwhile.
And this is the problem with people who don’t consider usecases beyond their own.
Excuse me for being very skeptical.
I don't see a whole lot of Apple marketing material talking about the Vision Pro as a professional device. They have a grand total of one press release that highlights different uses for business. There's no landing page that says "contact sales" or anything like that you'd see for an enterprisey specialized solution.
In my mind the more plausible explanation is that Apple misjudged the pricing strategy for the Vision Pro, a device that it considers to be primarily a consumer content device.
If the Vision Pro was a $1000 product they would have potentially had a hit. But I think what's going to happen is that Apple is going to have a product like that in 2026 and when it comes out the response is going to be quite muted.
Also in terms of press releases, a quick google search shows these two
https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2024/04/apple-vision-pro-brin...
https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2024/03/apple-vision-pro-unlo...
Just because Apples consumer marketing pages don’t target enterprise, doesn’t mean they don’t target enterprise as a product. See the Mac Pro webpage that also doesn’t mention enterprise contacts https://www.apple.com/mac-pro/ but it’s clearly not targeted for just consumers either.
https://time.com/7093536/surgeons-apple-vision-pro/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39140319/
But yeah, if Apple can become a medical device company, it would unlock a huge revenue stream for them. Looks like these people are optimistic, I'll take them at their word for that.
I personally don't know if Apple is willing to put the investment into the devices to make them viable as medical devices. There is a reason medical devices have huge costs, and that's largely because of the human effort involved to go multiple rounds with the FDA and other regulatory bodies to get a device approved for use in medical facilities outside of trials and studies.
This is why you’ll often see a range of display devices in operating theatres. You’ll even see iPads or other tablets that aren’t necessarily certified for use.
But I could also see the value of a comparably priced or even higher priced version, with ultra versions of their M chips, going all in as a Mac or MacBook upgrade in terms of user interface.
I use mine as a MacBook Pro screen upgrade. I would love to dispense with the MacBook, while retaining Mac level (as apposition to limited iOS style) applications.
But the AVP cannot be used for any of these use cases, and as far as I know is not in serious use for professionals in such industries at scale, so why are you acting as if I was blind to the real reason people buy it? None of those are reasons people would buy it today.
Also, you seem to not be aware that the Quest series actually have a professional / industrial business sales setup and do actually make large volumes of sales for business use cases, unlike AVP (https://forwork.meta.com/quest/business-subscription/)
The reason I think you’re not counting those is because you claim equivalency of capability despite cost difference, but there’s clear areas that I know of where a Quest would not cut it.
Your link to metas business use has no relation to my argument. I’m not saying the quest can’t be used for business cases, because I myself have set up professional environments around it. But that’s why I’m confident in saying the Vision Pro allows for a level of fidelity that the Quest cannot provide for today.