Apple Forced To Make Major Cuts To Vision Pro Headset Production Plans (ft.com) 67
Apple has been forced to make drastic cuts to production forecasts for the mixed-reality Vision Pro headset, unveiled last month after seven years in development and hailed as its most significant product launch since the iPhone. From a report: The complexity of the headset design and difficulties in production are behind the scaling back of targets, while plans for a more affordable version of the device have had to be pushed back, according to multiple people with direct knowledge of the manufacturing process.
Apple has already flagged that the $3,500 "spatial computing" headset device will not go on sale until "early next year," a lengthy gap from its June 5 launch. Analysts have interpreted this as being more to do with supply chain problems than allowing developers time to create apps for the Vision Pro. Two people close to Apple and Luxshare, the Chinese contract manufacturer that will initially assemble the device, said it was preparing to make fewer than 400,000 units in 2024. Multiple industry sources said Luxshare was currently Apple's only assembler of the device. Separately, two China-based sole suppliers of certain components for the Vision Pro said Apple was only asking them for enough for 130,000 to 150,000 units in the first year.
Apple has already flagged that the $3,500 "spatial computing" headset device will not go on sale until "early next year," a lengthy gap from its June 5 launch. Analysts have interpreted this as being more to do with supply chain problems than allowing developers time to create apps for the Vision Pro. Two people close to Apple and Luxshare, the Chinese contract manufacturer that will initially assemble the device, said it was preparing to make fewer than 400,000 units in 2024. Multiple industry sources said Luxshare was currently Apple's only assembler of the device. Separately, two China-based sole suppliers of certain components for the Vision Pro said Apple was only asking them for enough for 130,000 to 150,000 units in the first year.
Those numbers all sound pretty high to me (Score:1)
it was preparing to make fewer than 400,000 units in 2024...Apple was only asking them for enough for 130,000 to 150,000 units in the first year.
To me even the 150k units seems pretty large... I am pretty sure I saw a number of sources right around the time of launch claiming Apple intended to sell around *10 thousand* a year at launch!
If they can sell 150k $3500 units in a year I'll be impressed, and this is coming from someone who sees a bright future for the device... this is the first iteration though
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Everyone except a few irredeemable Apple fanboys saw this coming on day one. Apple was clearly expecting a better reception than they got. I can only imagine the panic.
To me even the 150k units seems pretty large.
There might be hope for you yet.
and this is coming from someone who sees a bright future for the device
Maybe not...
this is the first iteration though and it seems like sales expectations should be tempered.
'Tempered' is an understatement. Sales expectations that low are squarely in the 'failed product' category.
Re: Those numbers all sound pretty high to me (Score:2)
To me even the 150k units seems pretty large.
Original iPhone sold 1.4 million units in the first year. Yeah. 150k is "large"
Whoa there, tons of dev support (Score:1)
Especially for one that will have virtually no developer support.
The Vision Pro has lit a fire under the iOS dev community. Many assume (probably wrongly, at least at first) this is the second iPhone and are rushing to finish up many elaborate things before it launches...
It's going to launch with a ton of third party stuff specially built to work with it.
I personally think it will eventually replace laptops and desktops, but this is a much, much slower burn than the iPhone was in terms of growth of use.
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Especially for one that will have virtually no developer support.
The Vision Pro has lit a fire under the iOS dev community. Many assume (probably wrongly, at least at first) this is the second iPhone and are rushing to finish up many elaborate things before it launches...
It's going to launch with a ton of third party stuff specially built to work with it.
I personally think it will eventually replace laptops and desktops, but this is a much, much slower burn than the iPhone was in terms of growth of use.
Anybody who thinks the Vision Pro will have "virtually no developer support" is simply practicing "Willful Blindness".
To wit:
https://developer.apple.com/vi... [apple.com]
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=... [youtube.com]
https://www.roadtovr.com/apple... [roadtovr.com]
https://developer.apple.com/vi... [apple.com]
https://www.apple.com/newsroom... [apple.com]
https://appleinsider.com/artic... [appleinsider.com]
https://vrscout.com/news/apple... [vrscout.com]
https://www.roadtovr.com/apple... [roadtovr.com]
That took 2 minutes of Googling.
SEGA GameGear example (Score:3)
Remember the Atari Lynx? Amazing hardware for the time. It came out in 1989, a few months after the Game Boy. A year later, we saw the Sega GameGear and the NEC's Turbo Express. All vastly superior in every way except battery life. (Sound familiar?) Nintendo ate everyone's lunch with their under powered handheld with the low-quality low-resolution 2-bit grayscale display.
How? By being affordable and having great software that people actually wanted. The lower price translated into more unit sales which in turn attracted more third-party support.
Relevant for the Vision Pro:
The SEGA GameGear is an interesting example, because it still managed some relative success in some market (it totalled ~11 mio sold, an order less than Nintendo GameBoy, but an order more than the next one, the NEC PC Engine GT/TurboExpress).
This was mostly due to the fact that was designed to be backward compatible with the SEGA Master system (which had moderate success in several markets and a large library) -- it was basically a portable and improved SMS+.
So on the day it la
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So on day the Vision Pro hits the store, it will be compatible with, well, nothing much. Only whatever software had been developed or ported between June's public announcement and then.
The library of available applications is laughably tiny.
I seem to remember a mention of iOS/iPadOS Apps being compatible. That would presumably include at least some of the games.
Ah, here it is:
People can also run your existing iPadOS or iOS app as a compatible app in visionOS. Your app appears as a single, scalable window in the person’s surroundings.
https://developer.apple.com/vi... [apple.com]
Explanation of "Compatible App":
https://developer.apple.com/do... [apple.com]
So, that's Hardly a "tiny catalogue" at launch. And no "adapter" needed.
Z80 was also CPM and BASIC (Score:2)
I seem to remember a mention of iOS/iPadOS Apps being compatible. That would presumably include at least some of the games.
The problem with specifically iOS iPadOS Appa (as opposed to 3D games designed to work with VR/AR)...
your existing iPadOS or iOS app {...} appears as a single, scalable window in the person’s surroundings.
Is that they'll show as a flat window. As if you were looking them on an iPad floating in front of you.
That's hardly a killer app, and not exactly what was the intended use of VR/AR glasses (the whole stereoscopic 3D)
To go back to my SEGA GameGear (and MasterSystem) metaphor, that would be akin to saying that these 8bit devices run on a Z80 CPU, so you could port Z80 software like CPM or a Basic interprete
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I seem to remember a mention of iOS/iPadOS Apps being compatible. That would presumably include at least some of the games.
The problem with specifically iOS iPadOS Appa (as opposed to 3D games designed to work with VR/AR)...
your existing iPadOS or iOS app {...} appears as a single, scalable window in the person’s surroundings.
Is that they'll show as a flat window. As if you were looking them on an iPad floating in front of you.
That's hardly a killer app, and not exactly what was the intended use of VR/AR glasses (the whole stereoscopic 3D)
To go back to my SEGA GameGear (and MasterSystem) metaphor, that would be akin to saying that these 8bit devices run on a Z80 CPU, so you could port Z80 software like CPM or a Basic interpreter.
Yes, technically that's doable (and has been done with several gaming consoles which got keyboard attachement. Even the freaking SEGA Saturn has a BASIC interpreter), but that's hardly the point.
A VR/AR should at least demo some of the stereoscopic features. Virtual flat windows floating in the void, while leveraging the same tech (e.g., the anchoring the window in the real space around you part) are hardly going to be system seller, except in some very niche markets.
(The market for very rich guys who would like to use a VR/AR headset with retina-like resolution as a replacement of a giant Apple Pro display. And thinks nReal, Rokid, and the like are too much "plebs" and low spec)
Question: How do you adequately Demo a Stereoscopic Display System in a Keynote Presentation destined to be Viewed on a Monoscopic Display?
Answer: You don't. And Apple was savvy-enough to know not to even try.
However...
Those who have been fortunate-enough to personally have some hands-on time with the Vision Pro, describe at least one Demo-segment involving an (interactive?) encounter with a friendly T-Rex that was reportedly quite believable.
https://www.macrumors.com/2023... [macrumors.com]
So, the hardware is there; the S
$3500 - WTF? (Score:2, Interesting)
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They sound like high-tech beer goggles. $3500 will buy me a lot of low-tech ones.
It's the same strategy they used for the iPhone.
Think back and consider the iPhone vs Blackberry.
The Blackberry had a better UI, better notifications, much better battery life, much more durable, and it was cheaper.
The iPhone had a screen that looked way better and had the ability to run much more extravagant apps that would eat data and battery.
The iPhone won handily.
I think that's the idea behind this headset. The problem with the FB headset is that it's priced (and built) like a mass market device, but t
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The iPhone had a screen that looked way better and had the ability to run much more extravagant apps that would eat data and battery.
The iPhone won handily.
The iPhone had functionality and a compelling use case. It shipped with compelling features beyond any other phone and that was a sales point long before we made an app for everything. This is a completely different launch strategy to the one they are following now with VisionPro.
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The iPhone had a screen that looked way better and had the ability to run much more extravagant apps that would eat data and battery.
The iPhone won handily.
The iPhone had functionality and a compelling use case. It shipped with compelling features beyond any other phone and that was a sales point long before we made an app for everything. This is a completely different launch strategy to the one they are following now with VisionPro.
Look at any contemporary reviews, the Blackberry was way more functional, the iPhone had a lot more graphics capabilities but I'm not sure there was actually a big use case the Blackberry didn't have. The Aside from marketing, the iPhone's big advantage was the big screen looked better, but I don't think anyone really had a use for the screen at that time (maybe it did videos?).
The original iPhone was a device before its time, with a screen too big for batteries to support and data demands too significant f
PDAs. (Score:2)
The original iPhone was a device before its time, with a screen too big for batteries to support and data demands too significant for mobile networks to satisfy.
The long history of PDAs (from Psion, from Palm, and the later windows mobile-based devices look at your sentence and yawn. Featurephones used as "bluetooth modems" roll their eyes.
If anything, iPhone has been a step back due to its craptastic (non expandable) battery life (and much less quick responsive use than PalmOS).
But it's been a slight iteration on concepts which had been existing for quite some time.
When the Iphone released, PDA had been around for quite a while. A lot of use case had already been
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Look at any contemporary reviews, the Blackberry was way more functional
I didn't say "more functional". I said "functional". A base level of functionality is all that is required when launching a build-it-and-they-will-come platform. The iPhone was far more compelling than a Blackberry even if the Blackberry itself was more functional on release.
The problem here is ... it's not more functional. Apple hasn't shown off any functionality that backs their awesome hardware. The things they have shown off are things cheaper devices do as well, and there's no compelling sell for the V
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Honestly, what the iPhone had that the blackberry did not was a functional browser and a larger screen to view it on.
It didn't have much else - no MMS messages, no 3G cell service, no expandable memory, and no app store or 3rd party apps of any kind. Heck, it didn't even have cut and paste until ~2 years after launch.
The iPhone walked into an established market space with a unique feature and took over. I fail to see the parallel with the Vision Pro - VR remains a niche offering and, while certainly cutti
ultra high res display? (Score:2)
I fail to see the parallel with the Vision Pro - VR remains a niche offering and, while certainly cutting edge, the VP lacks a unique and desired feature.
I think Apple's hopes are in the "desktop replacement" thanks to their much higher resolution.
But I seriously doubt it will be as much a thing as fast as Apple hopes at that price point.
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Um... Blackberry phones handily outsold iPhones until sometime in 2013. It took years of endless negative press to kill that giant.
It's a shame too. No one has even come close to matching what we had with BB10. Trying to use iOS and Android still feels like stepping back in time.
Zem of Palm (Score:2)
Trying to use iOS and Android still feels like stepping back in time.
Try to tell that to someone used to the "Zen of Palm" and its insanely good UX.
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That's fair. There are lessons [archive.org] we could still learn today. I used a Casio PV around the same time (a 250 then 400+) for years. It didn't run PalmOS, but it was thinner than a Palm III, instant, and had a similar UI. No Graffiti, but that was slower than a virtual keyboard/stylus, at least for me.
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Um... Blackberry phones handily outsold iPhones until sometime in 2013. It took years of endless negative press to kill that giant.
It's a shame too. No one has even come close to matching what we had with BB10. Trying to use iOS and Android still feels like stepping back in time.
Oh, the iPhone didn't win immediately, nor would I expect the Vision Pro to. But if you can afford it, and if the market is still immature, I think the super-expensive device with a really nice screen (and build quality in general) is the way to go.
It's not about winning the market today, or delivering a refined experience, it's about capturing people's imaginations and setting the standard for the future.
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I think the super-expensive device with a really nice screen (and build quality in general) is the way to go.
I'd think a device with software would be the better way to go. Having better hardware is meaningless if there isn't software to that makes use of it.
Is consumer facing AR useful? (Score:5, Interesting)
Thing is, is consumer AR actually useful? The military have it in, e.g. fighter pilot helmets, but I'm talking about general consumer use.
The tech is cool. Cool algorithms and tightly coupled hardware running in hard realtime and with very tight latency bounds. Awesome stuff. Genuinely. But is it useful?
Even setting aside Apple's design for the headset, all the examples they give for the launch are distinctly meh, and barely AR. It's all people sitting alone in a room looking at a screen floating in space, but, presumably, anchored to their coordinate frame to make it AR.
It's certainly AR in the technical sense of adding something (the virtual screen) to reality, but not in any useful sense. So OK, what's the consumer use for adding things overlaid on the world? HUDs I can kind of see, but I'm talking about AR not a simple HUD.
Every idea I've seen is basically an annoying way of looking at video or an existing piece of functionality that combines the disadvantages of the virtual and real worlds.
Re:Is consumer facing AR useful? (Score:4, Insightful)
If it were useful, sure Meta, which has sunk 10 figures into trying to make it happen would have something interesting and compelling to show... and yet, all they seem to have to show for it is an avatar of the Zuck with big, girly eyes.
(Yes, Meta has demonstrated some really interesting tech, but they haven't demonstrated a use-case for it.)
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The compelling use case for VR is currently cardio. Visual fidelity hasn't so far been good enough to replace screens or to do the tasks you'd do on screens, but for cardio VR kicks ass. Apple is completely missing the ball there so they must be really confident in the visual fidelity improvements.
Are you saying for cardio as in, e.g., VR peloton where you're pretending to be in the Alps or what not?
Does sound cool. How is Apple completely missing the ball?
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How is Apple completely missing the ball?
Well for one thing the expectation is the custom fabric headband would be utterly terrible to mix with an activity that generates continuous sweating ;-).
Seriously though, Apple is missing the ball in their positioning. They are focusing on AR, and production. They envisage replacing your PC and TV, that you'll be taking Facetime calls in VR, have your desktop floating in the sky and AR sensing your fingers typing on non-existent keyboards. This is the poorly thought out scifi-fantasy dystopia of AR.
If they
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Well for one thing the expectation is the custom fabric headband would be utterly terrible to mix with an activity that generates continuous sweating ;-).
Is there any alternative at the moment? I have a Rift and have used a Quest (OG) and neither are exactly comfortable for long term usage.
Seriously though, Apple is missing the ball in their positioning. They are focusing on AR, and production. They envisage replacing your PC and TV, that you'll be taking Facetime calls in VR, have your desktop floating in the sky and AR sensing your fingers typing on non-existent keyboards. This is the poorly thought out scifi-fantasy dystopia of AR.
I'm going to rate this as a "maybe." I'm not that enthusiastic about the Vision Pro, but I'm going to buy one because I like weird tech toys. I'm not writing it off yet., and they may very well be onto something. I AM writing off the creepy uncanny valley face avatars. That's an abomination.
If they thought any differently they'd actually have launched with content. Both Sony and Meta announced in their showcases, games, not hardware without content, and from those games both announced fitness games among them.
There's a minimum of 6-7 months before the Vision Pro is released. You better belie
Portability (Score:2)
There's a minimum of 6-7 months before the Vision Pro is released. You better believe there will be games and other software at launch.
...and then again Apple has painted themselves in corner (that they're desperately trying to get themselves out of with things like their "game porting toolkit") with their insistence of using their own Metal API and not support industry standard Vulkan, etc.
So you're a studio developing a cross-platform App targetting multiple XR headsets. Do you:
- spend tons of resources to retool you development process to target a completely different and incompatible platform? all this for a platform that will sell a c
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I'm saying some VR games (Pistol Whip, Thrill of the Fight, Audio Trip etc.) get my heart rate waaay up. Audio Trip is the one I've played and deliberately practiced getting my heart rate up in the most. I can do >95% max heart rate (202 bpm) easily in it now, assuming I'm sufficiently recovered and not sick. I've never measured heart rates over 200 bpm outside of VR.
Apple is missing the ball by not including controllers and by not having exercise-specific features (being sweat-proof would be amazing)
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The compelling use case for VR is currently cardio. Visual fidelity hasn't so far been good enough to replace screens or to do the tasks you'd do on screens, but for cardio VR kicks ass. Apple is completely missing the ball there so they must be really confident in the visual fidelity improvements.
Have you actually used VR for cardio?
I'd have two big concerns.
1) During cardio I tend to get sweaty, and wearing a headset seems like it would be quite uncomfortable.
2) If the VR environment is at all dynamic I'd be concerned I'd react physically, possibly in conflict with the real world.
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Not the person you replied to but yes:
1) Absolutely correct. Sweat is an issue which is why I purchased plastic pads to replace the fabric / foam ones on my headset. That way I can wipe it down and keep it hygienic. The comfort is not an issue and I'm talking from the perspective of Gen 2 headsets which are insanely heavy and bulky compared to what is hitting the market now. Apple's custom to the user headband makes me thing it will be poorly suited to combine with sweat.
2) I do fitness in a very small spac
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is... not relevant (Score:1)
The compelling use case for VR is
Since we are talking about the Vision device, which is targeted squarely at AR, not VR, it doens't matter if there are compelling sues for VR (I don't think there are generally).
cardio
I don't think that's a good idea to do any workouts that are not in an AR space where you can see the real world around you.
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If it were useful, sure Meta, which has sunk 10 figures into trying to make it happen would have something interesting and compelling to show... and yet
Meta has put barely any R&D into AR. They are in VR. It's a very different thing with a different target market. The latter has actual use cases if nothing more than gaming and jacking off to 3D porn. Also the 10 figures weren't spent on Zuck's ugly avatar, a lot went into hardware design of the Quest Pro and Quest 3 and while the former missed the mark the expectation is for the latter to sell really well because it will be priced within reach of gamers and has actual content.
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Agreed, AR is just VR with passthrough after all. Meta is right to concentrate on getting VR right first before getting too tangled up in the passthrough stuff.
Which means that Apple already has VR nailed, right?
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You're confusing AR with VR. One is a display technology that augments (hence "A" in AR) your vision - perhaps you see a familiar face but don't know their name, so it
Signs of lackluster demand (Score:2)
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It's certainly AR in the technical sense of adding something (the virtual screen) to reality, but not in any useful sense. So OK, what's the consumer use for adding things overlaid on the world? HUDs I can kind of see, but I'm talking about AR not a simple HUD.
These aren't really AR googles. Like you point out, yes, literally they are, but not in a useful way. The vision that Tim Cook laid out isn't really AR in the way we're used to thinking of AR, and that's why you'll note that he never called it AR. Instead, he called it "spatial computing."
As far as I can tell, the entire idea is that you take your computer interface, and make it something you can interact with in 3D with bare hands. And that's it. That's the concept. It seems like the idea is that eventuall
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As far as I can tell, the entire idea is that you take your computer interface, and make it something you can interact with in 3D with bare hands.
Oh boy.
Two words: gorilla arm. I mean I guess, unless all the interaction is really close in like a phone. People have tried this before, in academic proof of concept setups and then commercialized by the hololens and things like that. End result: it kind of sucks. It's horrible holding your up up and out for any length of time and vile if you're trying to do fine
No minority report this time (Score:2)
Oh boy.
Two words: gorilla arm. I mean I guess, unless all the interaction is really close in like a phone.
From the presentation, at least this time some though have been given to it: You don't point with your fingers. You point with your eyesight and confirm/interact by taping/pinching your finger (i.e. while they remain on your lap, not where the virtual object is situated. Vision has separate cameras downward specially to look at your finger's motion).
So the interaction is indeed much closer to tapping on phone or click with on a mouse button: very little movements, limited to fingers.
Not "Minority Report"-st
Yes, could be extremely useful. (Score:2)
Thing is, is consumer AR actually useful?
Apples device is at what I would consider to be the point at which it is minimally useful.
The resolution on it is high enough that it could replace an external monitor (or set of external monitors) and the latency is good enough that you can type on a real keyboard in front of you (even though they also offer a virtual keyboard).
It is also useful to have a large display area (basically anywhere you can see) to review things - images, documents, just about anything.
On
Re: Is consumer facing AR useful? (Score:2)
Maybe, maybe not. But to me, this is a Xerox Park-esque tech development. One of the main guys overseeing the project said that they did things like inventing a new rendering method for fonts so they're still legible in weird situations that come up on the headset. I think it might actually be the case that all the research and dev that Apple did will pay for itself even if the Vision Pro sells very modestly.
My partner saw the keynote and came up the stairs to tell me she wanted one. Get one with a big enou
The bargain basement PhD student (Score:2)
Get one with a big enough battery to last a whole cross country flight, and $3500 is a bargain; you might pay that much for a first class seat. Even just the idea of replacing my monitors so I could use this for programming is temping and it costs less than Appleâ(TM)s Pro XDR monitor.
...but is still cost tons more than a bunch of cheap and/or second hand monitors of the typical PhD student/Linux geek/etc. 's den.
Yes, it might cheaply replace Apple Pro XDR monitor for people who use those. But not everyone is buying those expensive things.
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Thing is, is consumer AR actually useful? The military have it in, e.g. fighter pilot helmets, but I'm talking about general consumer use.
The tech is cool. Cool algorithms and tightly coupled hardware running in hard realtime and with very tight latency bounds. Awesome stuff. Genuinely. But is it useful?
Even setting aside Apple's design for the headset, all the examples they give for the launch are distinctly meh, and barely AR. It's all people sitting alone in a room looking at a screen floating in space, but, presumably, anchored to their coordinate frame to make it AR.
It's certainly AR in the technical sense of adding something (the virtual screen) to reality, but not in any useful sense. So OK, what's the consumer use for adding things overlaid on the world? HUDs I can kind of see, but I'm talking about AR not a simple HUD.
Every idea I've seen is basically an annoying way of looking at video or an existing piece of functionality that combines the disadvantages of the virtual and real worlds.
Wait until you see the VP-enhanced Apple or iFixit repair videos.
Smoke screen for lack of interest (Score:5, Insightful)
My bet would be on all of these excuses for reduced production forecasts are not the real reason. Apple probably just isn't seeing the level of interest they expected because the headset costs $3500.
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Apple probably just isn't seeing the level of interest they expected because the headset costs $3500.
No one is showing off a "killer app" for AR. It's one of those things that's cool, but no one has demonstrated a compelling reason to use it. Also, even for Apple, they should have expected people to balk at that price tag.
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What excuses are you talking about? I strongly doubt that Apple has said a single thing about how many they can produce or how many they think they can sell. They just don’t do that.
They may well wind up selling less than they expected, but rumors can’t be trusted. Certainly not 6+ months before they even sell one of them.
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How would they know the interest level? They haven't opened it up for pre-orders, and they haven't gotten to demo it to a broad audience. They need the interest of 400,000 out of let's say 300 million worldwide who could realistically afford that (which is about 1 in 750 of the people in that demographic). They would have had to survey tens of thousands of people to get a meaningful survey result, so the fact that they were doing such a survey would have leaked. I believe they could have sold the 400,000 be
mostly bullshit (Score:2)
The track record for most of these projections that try to predict Apple production goals and adjustments to them is pretty poor. Apple does not announce production goals, and Apple manages their supply chains quite tightly. A report from one supplier (IF accurate) could also indicate a change in design or a change in supplier, as opposed to a change in the production objective.
Caveat lector! (Prior performance for these kinds of reports is no guarantee of future results, but gives a pretty solid indicat
Inventory low, yeah right (Score:2)
That's too bad. (Score:1)
Not unforeseen (Score:2)
The complexity of the headset design and difficulties in production are behind the scaling back of targets, while plans for a more affordable version of the device have had to be pushed back
Apple is not inept. They know how to design the headset they wanted. The problem was that the market demand for the $3500 headset is small, and Apple doesn't dabble in small markets. So, they need a more "affordable" headset, but the complexity of designing an affordable headset that is desirable is very challenging. Meta already set the bar, so Apple needs something more desirable compared to the Quest 3 and yet also something not $3500.
The super surprising thing is that Apple announced a headset witho
Supply chains are definitely effed (Score:2)
You can poo poo the device all you want but the fact remains that supply chains everywhere on the planet are still completely effed. Nobody is willing to step up and make stuff at the volume and price they did before the pandemic.
Of course China doesn't like Facebook (Score:2)
Oppressive surveillance states don't like competition, and nobody competes on camera-up-your-ass surveillance like Facebook.
Yeah sure... (Score:2)
I'm sure this has nothing to do with the almost universal lacklustre reception summarised as "they are amazing tech and I won't be buying them for that ludicrous price".
They probably went into damage control mode immediately after WWDC.
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>they are amazing tech and I won't be buying them for that ludicrous price
The promise of AR has been amazing for a long time. The technology is getting closer, but it's still too expensive and inelegant. I'd love an intelligent HUD for life that can also be my PC screen or television.
When my regular glasses can do AR, last throughout an entire day, and cost the same as a laptop, that's when they'll have hit the required milestones for mass adoption. Not one of those points has been crossed yet.
Reasons (Score:2)
Those that want it can not afford it