Comment by jarek83

3 years ago

Name with "Pro" in it already, might suggest lower-tier versions coming in some future?

Device looks promising, and I wonder if they plan to allow 2 devices to show the same content simultaneously to say watch 3D movies with someone else in the same room.

Some say $3499 is a high price, but being able to carry huge design studio with you is heck of a value to me.

I get the impression this model is intended to introduce the product line to the market and give developers something to build on while Apple fine-tunes the hardware. The thing is way overpriced for the average consumer but the tech inside it is wild. I expect we'll see more consumer-friendly models in 2024-2025.

I've never spent even $1500 on a single tech product before, let alone $3500. They might as well have made it $9999. Its pricing puts it in the business buyer / wealthy Apple enthusiast league with Mac Pro, not consumer hardware. This is not priced for the market of middle class consumers worried about a recession.

The Quest 3 is $499. This headset looks GREAT but is it really 7X greater than the Quest 3?

  • Tech is so cheap now. When the Macintosh II came out in 1987 [1]:

    > When introduced, a basic system with monitor and 20 MB hard drive cost US$5,498 (equivalent to $14,160 in 2022). With a 13-inch color monitor and 8-bit display card the price was around US$7,145 (equivalent to $18,400 in 2022).

    Even the Commodore 64 was expensive [2]:

    > Volume production started in early 1982, marketing in August for US$595 (equivalent to $1,800 in 2022).

    If the experience is worth it and there's no cheaper competitor, people have the money for these things.

    And honestly, as a big user of the Quest 2 -- the Quest 3 isn't anywhere close to the same ballpark as this. Apple Vision Pro looks absolutely more than 7x better, the only question is whether it's worth it for you.

    [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_II

    [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_64

    • Absolutely. I’d rather have companies making these type of high quality products even if I can’t afford them to not having products like this in the market at all.

  • I'm totally getting a quest for fitness. This thing doesn't look like it is designed for fitness at all, although I might get one in the future if (a) I have disposable income for it and (b) the experiences are compelling? $3500 isn't that much these days (unfortunately).

  • You don’t own a car?

    • Cars are hardly 'tech products.'

      Just because there's tech in something doesn't make them a tech product. Your microwave oven probably has tech built in, doesn't make it a 'not appliance.'

> Some say $3499 is a high price

As a golfer I can assure you plenty of people will happily spend that amount and more on their hobby.

  • Yeah, Apple doesn't make products for niche hobbyists though.

    This isn't remarkable or xReal.

    • This will sell like hot cakes for flight sim consumers, if they could somehow show a virtual cockpit. It will be gone in seconds, flight simmers will pay more than that. I consider myself a starter and I already spent 2k+ just on flight sim hardware.

23M pixels across the field of vision of two eyes doesn't meet the requirements of a design studio. A retina display is minimum 60 pixels per degree. This will be around 30.

  • What about of distance and and field of view? I haven’t seen any metrics to complete the picture.

    • 23 million pixels is 6kx4k (or maybe a slightly different aspect ratio, but whatever). That would be a 100 degree horizontal field of view at 60 pixels per degree. That would be a fairly narrow fov, but not unusually so for an HMD. I suspect they'd go for a much wider field though.

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  • Agreed - we don't know what the actual PPD will be, but it will surely fall short of 60 given that the VR display covers more of your field of view than a 4K monitor in front of you.

    That said, it'll still be higher than the current VR headsets and I expect many people will find it sufficient for their work.

That's already making an assumption that this is a valid category that isn't doomed to failure like every other attempt since 1985.

Enter the story of the Nintendo Power Glove.

  • Did you ever use the power glove? I had one and it was the worst piece of tech I’ve ever had from a major company.

It was quite odd that they branded it Pro but then demonstrated 90% consumer applications for it. Very mixed messaging about who the target market is.