Just for some perspective. The cost of a base AVP today is the equivalent of $1200 when Mac came out back in '84 (Mac launched at $2495) or $2400 when iPhone launched in 2007.
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I’m torn between not buying one (because I’m not sure I’ll have use for it and I’m not sure how well it works if I’m wearing prescription multifocal lens glasses) and spending an amount that won’t exceed the cost of a good 5-6k display. And there’s the catch… Considering Apple displays there’s the studio at $1,600 and the Pro XDR at $5,000…
Anyway - $3,500 is too steep for me at this stage. Maybe the next release.
I’m intrigued by those historical numbers, mostly because of how I think about the raw prices. $2500 for a decent Mac setup has seemed reasonable for decades, for instance, and I have trouble with prices above $3000. My 2020 27-inch iMac was $2600, though my 2014 27-inch iMac was $3200 (and I bought the 27-inch Thunderbolt Display at the same time for $900). I winced slightly at the $3200 price, as I remember, but the 5K Retina display was a game-changer. Even my previous Mac Pro was only $2300. For the MacBook Air models I’ve owned, it looks like I usually end up spending between $1600 and $2000.
Simultaneously, the iPhone Pro prices are a little hard to take with a starting point of $1000, but that has been stable (with the same amount of storage) since the iPhone 12 Pro and with less storage since the iPhone X. And since I need the 256 GB of storage, I’m usually paying $1100 before AppleCare and tax.
But in each of these cases, I know that I need what I’m getting. With the iPhones, I may be upgrading unnecessarily so I can write about the new stuff, but there’s no question that a device I’m using for 3+ hours each day is worth $1100 per year to me. And it’s even easier to justify spending money on Macs that I’ll use 8+ hours per day.
But with a $3500 starting point and probably $4200 final cost for a device that at its most useful would be as a Mac display, I just can’t pull the trigger, even if I would have bought a Mac for an equivalent amount in the past.
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The first Mac I bought new (vs. acquiring from corporations tossing old gear or flea markets) was my Quicksilver-2002 PowerMac G4. I paid about $3000 for that system (almost the top-of-the-line configuration) and I was very happy with it.
But over the years, the high end models (PowerMac G5, then Mac Pro) got so much more expensive and the entry-level models (MacBook Air and Mac mini) got so much more powerful, that the logic of buying the biggest model made stopped making sense for a personal home computer.
Today, I still spend more than the minimum (currently looking at about $1800 for a Mac configured as I like it), and I would be willing to spend $3000 today if I could think of a use for the extra horsepower, but for what I do, I just can’t justify the higher cost.
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I paid about $3000 for a 512K Mac, printer, and a 1200K modem in 1985, and it seemed fair but expensive at the time. The only time after that I bought a high-end Mac was in 2004 when I paid about $3000 for G5 Power Mac and a 17-inch Studio Display. The Studio Display failed after 3-4 years and since then I have been buying MacMinis and generic displays, most recently a 4K 27-inch Dell last year. That’s all that many of us need.
The potential of Apple’s Vision Pro for a fighter pilot is remarkable, offering advanced features that could significantly enhance their situational awareness and decision-making in the cockpit. However, my skepticism arises from concerns about the unintended consequences of technology that further separates individuals from one another, potentially impacting the essential human connections that contribute to effective communication and collaboration.
In other words, I hate the bloody thing.
The US military has had in-helmet display systems for quite some time. Here’s one example: Collins Aerospace: F-35 Gen III Helmet Mounted Display System (HMDS).
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The price seems very reasonable to me given the R&D costs that Apple has invested over the last 5 or more years. Just watch the short “behind the scenes” video of the manufacturing and think how much the production line machinery and robotics alone must have cost. Apple has taken the long view here by putting out a new device that only it has the financial resources and technical knowhow to produce. It is betting that developers will generate user applications well beyond what is currently imagined - most probably in the professional workspace - medicine, aerospace, nuclear power - and we all know that professional equipment is 10x as expensive as anything used by the general public.
So whether we think this is expensive or not is beside the point. It’s not designed for us, and we should be thankful that it doesn’t cost $10,000.
So much of actual reality to enjoy to bother with virtual reality. I could see this for hard core gamers, but this device makes me think of the movie Wall-E.
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I really haven’t looked into it too much.
I’m wondering about its possibilities & implications for educational, scientific, and medical purposes/uses and the benefits.
I’d probably get one if I had that kind of money burning a hole in my pocket, just to explore it uses.
Do you remember how expensive the original Mac was ($2,500?) and how little it did? It came with two apps, MacWrite and MacPaint, and when it was released there were no third party apps available, if I remember correctly, although Microsoft released a spreadsheet program before too long.
But it was useful to virtually everybody.
The AVP right now is AFAICT useful to gamers and movie watchers, basically recreational. I don’t see a single productivity application right now that is broadly useful. I will emphasize right now. I have no doubt AVP could become very useful in the near future in certain professional areas. I’m sure a company like GE or RR would love to use something like this for the training of their junior technicians on how to properly disassemble a $15M turbofan engine and then put it back together again, similar in medicine/surgery. I’m sure there will eventually be lots of specialized professional applications where there is a very simple and clear value proposition. But I doubt this will ever have the broad versatility of an iPhone or Mac, and that’s before we even consider the value proposition. In that sense I can see why someone like Gurman would claim it’s the iPad that the AVP will displace, not the Mac or iPhone.
I frequently hear comparisons made between the initial launch of the AVP and the iPhone or the AVP and the first Mac. I think there are at least two differences.
In the case of the iPhone, it filled a niche, a gaping hole in the cellphone market. As Jobs famously said, most people hated their phones: they were difficult to use, did very few things well, etc. The iPhone was a revelation: a device which did three things infinitely better than the existing devices: a better phone, an iPod and an internet communication device. All in one device. This niche simply doesn’t exist for VR devices: nobody is yearning for a better way to view an iPad or a Mac. The screens and UI of these devices work just fine as is, thank you.
The other difference is the use of the headset for productivity. A number of reviewers claim that when using the Mac screen provided by the device, you can be as productive as you would be using a Mac in the usual way. Note that I said “as productive” and not more productive. The original Mac was a breakthrough in making computers easier to use and eventually with more programs would make the user much more productive than using the former command line UI.
Why should someone attach an expensive heavy device with a short battery life to their face to just be as productive as they already are? The expense of the device would be added to that of their existing Mac. Furthermore, the screen provided by the AVP for the virtual Mac is not as sharp as the retina screens on all existing Macs as well as the Studio Display.
In a way, Apple is attempting to create a new market sector defined by a new paradigm for using a computer or iPad. Whether this works in the long run is questionable. But, the comparison to the first Mac or iPhone doesn’t work in my opinion.
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I have vision in only one eye, so it’s useless unless someone comes up with a compensating solution to create the illusion of dual dimension.
The AVP may work for you. See
That support article is amazing—they have thought through so many things with this!
I have one strong eye (the other amounts to peripheral vision only) and by gosh you can tell AVP which eye to follow!
That still doesn’t solve my monocular depth perception issue which I doubt will ever be solved so I guess I’ll just have to put up with my flat screens fixed in one place.
Dave
Strange that you didn’t include an option for people who might be willing to pay more than $3500.
Whilst I’ve no particular desire to buy or use one of these things, from what I’ve seen and read the device is really quite something, bringing together some brilliant software and hardware designs utilising some amazing technologies. I was chatting to my 90 year old father about the Vision Pro and suggested to him that it was quite expensive (of course the same could be said of all Apple kit). He responded by pointing out that a high quality hearing aid would cost about the same - which to my mind brings a fresh and useful perspective. Comparing the Vision Pro to something like an iPad is the wrong question to ask - it’s comparing apples with pears.
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Well, I figured that anyone who would pay more than $3500 would have ordered one already.
The comparison with a high-quality hearing aid is an interesting one, at least for those for whom the Vision Pro would be allowing them to interact with the real world in ways they couldn’t otherwise due to a disability.
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I wouldn’t buy one. People are already so disconnected from one another; I fear this will contribute to that trend. Eg running into people tripping down the street staring at their phones, or the people who “multitask” live conversations with phone usage, and the phone usually wins. I don’t say there are no socially valuable use cases - maybe training of surgeons or mechanics, that sort of thing. I am no luddite, but a developer who spends 8 hours or more a day in front of a 27” 4K monitor, plus iPhone use, plus iPad use. I am also a composer. Maybe I would be tempted if someone came up with an app enhancement that would ease the process of note entry. In sum: it needs a killer app, not to mention a drastic price reduction, before it goes mainstream.
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