I wouldn’t buy the current iteration – it doesn’t have a real use case. A smaller version that sit like glasses on my face and run for days? Then I’d fire some real money up. Driving with a built in head’s up display giving me directions (I’m assuming that the future version will be genuinely see-through)? Awesome. The ability to check on things without diving into my pocket to get my phone out? Superb.
But yes, this one has a way to go.
This should be a poll option. How can I answer this when I haven’t tried it out and when the use case hasn’t even been well articulated?
I put 500 because I could see wanting one for a similar reason that I wanted an Apple watch; it extends the iphone apps and makes my life easier, more fun or similar. The Vision Pro probably is worth what they are charging in absolute terms, but I believe the object here is to find out the price point each individual is willing to meet.
The initial cost is way too high. I think of this as the latest Lisa-like device. Way over priced. The next similar device will be more affordable.
After looking at the teardown at iFixit, I have concluded that Apple’s price is reasonable for an incredibly complicated and well made device. I think they could reduce the price by getting rid of the ridiculous eyesight feature without harming its usefulness one iota.
The question is what I would be willing to pay. As a Mac-centric person, it would be just a single Mac screen with fewer pixels than the Studio Display which costs half the price of the headset. Another drawback is lack of support for bluetooth mice. I think $1k is about right for such a device for me.
The “entertainment” aspect of the device is less important to me - I am somewhat disturbed by the isolation which results from using it. That is close to a show-stopper, despite the coolness of the immersive 3D experience.
I would welcome a well-executed flight simulator. Due in part to health issues, I sold my airplane last year and would enjoy experiencing being a pilot again if the simulator were well done. This might increase what I would be willing to pay for it.
I would pay top dollar for a device that helps my failing vision, especially in settings like live entertainment. Someone out there is already trying to get there first, if I know my creator class. My first thought was this is just the beginning for augmented vision. I just hope and pray optical science is going in this direction. People have electronic devices to help them hear, and I think this shows us the way for electronically enhanced vision. Putting on live-augmented reality shows would be amazing in small groups. This might limit the commercial appeal of this use for huge corporations, but be a real boon for small arts groups everywhere. The kludge here is the lens inserts. This will be what we will be shaking our heads over ten years from now. After they figure that out we will really be buying these things.
Exactly.
I want an Apple Vision Air. I want one very much. It would be the thin edge of the wedge to get a lot of folks on board.
I am reminded of when I purchased my own first Mac, (a Power Macintosh 7500) which, including the monitor and keyboard, set me back well over $4000. in 1995 dollars. That’s nearly $8K in today’s money. Nearly 30 years later the ticket price for Apple’s highest-end is remarkably stable (altho obviously a much better value in terms of spending power and technology). This rationalization helps me get on board with a Vision Pro.
For a question like this, I like to cite one of my managers at work. He told me “If there’s a need for something, I’ll authorize millions of dollars to buy it. If there’s no need, I won’t authorize ten cents.”
I concur. I would spend $5000 for an AVP if I thought I had a need for it. But since I can’t think of one, I wouldn’t spend any amount of money on it.
This is the same reason why I don’t have
Well, let’s not panic prematurely. While I agree that certain kinds of tech are hard to avoid (e.g. personal banking without a computer is possible, but actively discouraged by many banks), but they’re hardly mandatory.
While we can assume that some kinds of jobs may require use of VR/AR, I think it will be quite a long time before that becomes so mainstream that they can’t be avoided. And given the fact that a lot of people have problems with the tech today, I think it’s safe to assume that it will have improve quite a lot before we get close to that point.
I may eat my words at some point. But…
My initial thought, not having tried it, is that it’s going to be super cool but that I’m not going to like feeling like I’m not in the real world.
I used to perform on stage with a band with super high-tech gear, including in-ear monitors and personal monitor mixers. They have a purpose: protecting your ears, helping you get a balanced mix that you can never hear from the big stage… But I felt like I was in a cave. That I was isolated from the other players standing around me. Nevermind that all the audio sounded fake because it wasn’t acoustic; it was run to the board digitized, and then fed back down to me and unpacked.
I didn’t feel like I was making music with my friends, that I was having an organic experience. Could I have gotten used to it with some more time and effort? Maybe. But I’m not sure.
And then there’s just the idea of putting down my tech. A big point of VP is to have the tech move with you. It’s a mobile solution. But often I want the opposite: I want to PUT DOWN my tech. I want to unplug, and go play my piano. Or sit outside and watch the birds, Or – wait for it – talk to my family. Heck, I even take off my glasses and see things blurry just to get away from them and the world they bring to me. VP presents the option of augmented reality so that you can see the real world plus their overlay. Nice in theory. But I think when I’m done doing what needs to be done, I’m going to want to rip it off.
Time will tell. Let me know when you guys have worked out all the bugs and chopped the price way down :-)
The irony is this tech is probably the best way to “get away from it all” ever invented.
I can picture a parent being driven crazy by noisy demanding kids, a phone that won’t stop ringing and beeping, living in a crowded city where it’s hard to find a moment of peace and quiet, putting on this with noise-canceling AirPods, bringing up an immersive environment, and suddenly being transported thousands of miles away to Hawaii or a desert or wherever they consider ideal. The hectic real world is gone and for a few minutes, they are in heaven. It really could be healing.
Whilst it’s expensive I’d pay the money if I thought it worthwhile. The issue is I’m not seeing how I would use it. At $500-1000 (as I voted) it’s more of an affordable curiosity. I believe it will find lots of uses in various fields, just not many for me personally.
Mind you, it could be a slow burner like Apple watch. I didn’t get one until Series 6 and now I struggle to get along without it.
Yeesh. Way too heavy, bad battery life, and who’s using this?
/people reviewing cellphones in the late 1980s.
I guess it depends on whether you enjoy the real world or the fake world more 
I have no quarrel with the price. I can see $3500 worth of parts, engineering, and development in there.
I currently have no particular use for it, but I can imagine such a use materializing. Probably by that time there will be something available for ½–⅔ the price.
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.
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.
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.
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.