I will say, like @stroughtonsmith, I have concerns about the lack of an Apple event around Vision Pro and the seeming "drop it with a press release" nature of the release. For a brand new product category, that raises a lot of questions.
@film_girl@jsnell@stroughtonsmith Just spitballing, but could it all be because we're in the quiet period between quarter end and the earnings call (which is 2/1)?
@film_girl@stroughtonsmith same. It’s making me rethink my purchase. I was hoping to see some new functionalities shown off or at the very least some major apps working with it.
@film_girl@stroughtonsmith Yeah. That one is super weird. Especially since we’re all suspecting that there’s also some other hardware releases in the pipeline that could have been bundled with the Vision Pro in some sort of event in the spring.
Or even some services stuff (Apple TV+, Fitness+,…)
It just feels like a wasted opportunity
Why does it have to ship in January? Why is there so little info in the press release?
Why isn’t there the usual Pre-Order page with options and prices?
Maybe we will get a surprise commercial for it? Isn’t January 24th the 40th anniversary of the Macintosh and the showing of the legendary Mac intro ad?
@jotkailay@stroughtonsmith then you don't announce the preorder in a press release on the 8th and you don't have preorders start the 19th. I don't understand why people are putting themselves into pretzels to make something that does not make sense make sense.
@film_girl@stroughtonsmith Let's assume that this release of Vision Pro is aimed at developers (see it being lavishly introduced at last year's WWDC), they may not want to call too much attention to it by the general public which would be disappointed by the price of this version of the product.
When it moves beyond developer focus, you will see that public reveal. #VisionPro
@jrholmes@stroughtonsmith then you call it a dev kit. You don't market it like a consumer product. I just did a whole thread about how imho, you cannot be both. You cannot claim this is a dev kit but then market it as a consumer product. You have to choose. And Apple seems unwilling to call this what it really is, which I think has only confused developers or would-be devs even more.
@film_girl@stroughtonsmith As others have said, this is going to be a severely supply constrained product for the first year. I’ve seen multiple articles about how Sony only expects to be able to make between 800k and 1 million of the screens and each Vision Pro will need 2 of those. If Apple can only make between 400k-500k units in the first year, they’re likely to be backordered for months from the existing demand. They don’t need to drum up more hype in that situation.
@film_girl Could that be because unlike their existing devices it’s just so hard to show? Or they think they have enough demand already for the very limited supply so it’s not worth promoting?
@foobarsoft I mean, I think all of this is just making excuses for the reality that a $3500 product is going up for preorder with no easy way to check it out or demo it and no new information outside of this anemic press release. My problem continues to be that Apple is positioning this device as a dev kit while explicitly calling it a consumer device.
@film_girl@stroughtonsmith When has Apple ever (or even most recently) had an event for a product (part of WWDC in this case) then had yet another event when it actually became available to buy?
@ztj@stroughtonsmith I mean, it really depends on how you're classifying this because if you're talking about the OS, they do that every year — the WWDC show-off and then a separate event for iPhone and sometimes also Mac. And I'd argue the Apple silicon transition they've done countless events around since its first WWDC announcement.
@ztj@stroughtonsmith but not related to WWDC, the most obvious example is the Apple Watch. Which is a direct analogy as it was also a brand-new category. They did the huge unveil at the iPhone 6 event in 2014 and then had. separate Apple Watch even in March of 2015.
@film_girl@stroughtonsmith Right... I remember now. I also remember chalking up the overall weirdness of the Apple Watch launch to them trying to appeal to two major worlds of interest at once: fashion & tech.
With Vision Pro, the launch feels a lot like iPhone: extremely high (perceived) price, massive shift in consumer expectations, low goals (1% market share), quality focused, with certain weird design decisions (recessed headphone jack on iPhone, external battery on Vision Pro)
@ztj@stroughtonsmith OK, but even the iPhone, which had the best device event of all time in January 2007, was still featured prominently in the WWDC 2007 keynote two weeks before it was in Apple Stores. So I don't buy this analogy at all, sorry. I think this is a weird and concerning way to launch a brand new category of consumer device.
@film_girl@stroughtonsmith Maybe they figure this product doesn’t have mass market appeal, so they’re focusing on a niche group, maybe? I’m grasping at straws.
@khalidabuhakmeh@film_girl@stroughtonsmith My first thought was maybe a supply chain thing - given how long it took to bring to market after the first round of announcements and hype, I wonder if they don't have enough units ready yet to handle a huge launch, but wanted to get something out the door
@daveaglick@film_girl@stroughtonsmith At $3500 a piece, I can’t imagine they will have a supply and demand problem unless they have like 5 of these things.
@khalidabuhakmeh@daveaglick@stroughtonsmith But beyond that, Apple knows supply chain better than anyone. I firmly believe they would withhold or delay a launch before they would do a half-assed one if supply chain was really the issue here.
@film_girl@khalidabuhakmeh@stroughtonsmith Fair enough, and maybe makes more sense if there were a competitive time component and they had to get to market before ramping up production. But with Quest 3 already out the door, and nothing else on the horizon (?), that probably doesn't make sense either.
@daveaglick@khalidabuhakmeh@stroughtonsmith I mean, nothing else is at all competitive in this space, but I also do not believe this is about supply chain. Again, Apple does that better than anyone.
@film_girl@daveaglick@stroughtonsmith I think your take on “dev kit” is probably right. Typically these launch events by Apple have a lot of partners and users who show use cases. If they don’t have that, then they don’t have an event.
@khalidabuhakmeh@daveaglick@stroughtonsmith bingo -- and that's concerning to me when you're explicitly marketing this as DTC on your website and even your press release. You might assume the high price will insulate you, but this is Apple, plenty of people will buy it sight unseen just because. I worry about how finished the software/experiences are and I worry about the expectations being set for the wider user base. And I worry b/c you typically only get one shot at this
@film_girl@khalidabuhakmeh@stroughtonsmith I think you've nailed it with this concern. The closest (only?) competitor, major differences aside, is the Quest. And it's an order of magnitude less expensive. If everyday consumers get the Vision Pro in hand and discover that today it's mostly like the significantly cheaper Quest but with fewer games and most of the "apps" are just your iPhone apps but REALLY BIG, I'm with you that it'll sour the whole thing for a while, and maybe for good.
@daveaglick@khalidabuhakmeh@stroughtonsmith right -- that is my real concern. Sentiment spreads in weird ways and even Apple isn't immune from that. I just wish they'd call this what it really is until it is ready to be what they want it to be
@film_girl@daveaglick@khalidabuhakmeh@stroughtonsmith Apple Watch and iPhone both also had pretty severe limitations at launch though… wouldn’t many customers be willing to wait 1-2 iterations before judging? Judge the first launch more on the potential than the reality?
@markv@film_girl@khalidabuhakmeh@stroughtonsmith I think that's an easier proposition the cheaper something is. For most folks, I suspect the Vision Pro falls into the "this better be worth it or I'm going to be really disappointed/pissed" category - over $3k is a lot to most people, and some number of consumers are going to stretch to buy this thing...with $3k expectations.
@daveaglick@film_girl@khalidabuhakmeh@stroughtonsmith That’s fair. On the other hand, this is the first time Apple has ever launched the “Pro” line before the regular consumer version - they are clearly signalling that this is the more expensive, early adopter proof-of-concept and the price will come down in future & more refined versions…
Anyone expecting a fully polished mature product hasn’t been paying attention 🤷♂️
@markv@daveaglick@khalidabuhakmeh@stroughtonsmith I don’t think anyone but Apple believes that “Pro” designation, however. Also, MacBook Pro and PowerBook series both launched before MacBook and iBook fwiw.
@film_girl@daveaglick@khalidabuhakmeh@stroughtonsmith When you say nobody believes the “Pro”, do you mean in the sense of it being targeted at professional users, or in the sense of a cheaper product being expected to launch later?
@mikebrew@film_girl@daveaglick@khalidabuhakmeh Sony, who (solely) makes the displays in the device, have put a number on how many they can produce. I think only way Apple can ramp it up is if they can build up another display manufacturer to that tech level and yield (or, alternatively, reduce the quality of the displays)
@khalidabuhakmeh@film_girl@stroughtonsmith I'm not so sure - there are a lot of Apple fans with a lot of disposable income. A soft launch (at least as far as availability goes) may help even out orders with production. Just a total wild ass guess though - I agree the relative quiet for an Apple launch is a little weird.
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