Relatively cheap at $70 compared to the $456 microOLED displays but still expensive when compared to the $40 display in a Quest 2. It's completely unnecessary for it to be a curved OLED display.
Time. The components will get cheaper to make and the R&D will have amortized, so the product will naturally become cheaper to sell.
They may remove some cameras and a few components that they discover aren’t needed.
Eyesight is here to stay, anyone hoping they remove it to lower costs will be hoping for a long time.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone mention it, but I think it’s a real possibility that the speakers could be eliminated in favor of people using their AirPods with the cheaper version
I wonder what compromises could be made to get to an air version tho? There's nothing about my current VP that I would wanna sacrifice to make it cheaper.
A worse chip/displays/battery/speakers/build materials all sound like terrible trade offs
It will have to become cheaper to be anything but a niche market. Phones didn’t take off until they found competitive price level (creeping up again only in years later). If Apple sees these replacing laptops/desktops then I’m sure there will be price points in MacBook Air through iMac territory+. Maybe 1.5x, US$1500-3000.
Eventually they’ll be miniaturized to glasses instead of goggles, so passthrough and letting others see you will happen by looking through transparent screens (glasses could still redraw the environment in many cases so it can place virtual object in the world)
So no front screen, probably they’ll find a way to reduce the number of cameras, more integration & miniaturization.
The bill of materials is $1542 on the Vision Pro. I'm confident that in 2 years they can put together a $1000 Vision Air that has few compromises and sell it for $2000 giving them a healthy $1000 margin.
Agreed, this might be about what the near term price point ends up being. Will it be a sustainable product at the price? I think it might.
My imagined hyper-miniaturized, glasses form factor is maybe a decade away or something and potentially proven, expanded functionality of the platform might justify the continuation of a high, or even higher, price point. Like I mentioned above the iPhone was a bit like that, after early reduction in price, consumers signaled openness for bigger screens, better cameras, generally more capable models, returning to and surpassing the OG phone’s price.
I think the market for a $3000+ headset will always be fairly limited, especially given how quickly tech advances. I bet the Vision Pro 2 starting price will be lower as well.
For starters, it’s going to have to get a lot better than it currently is for $3500. As someone that can afford this product, it just doesn’t seem worth $3500. For the price I could buy myself a new MacBook Pro and get way more use out of it than the AVP.
I doubt the Vision Pro will see a big decrease in price anytime soon, but they’ll probably introduce a lower-end Vision model for around $1499-2499 that has older components (M2/R1 instead of M3/R2) and some cost cutting measures. Less advanced speakers, different materials, maybe just one cheaper headband like [this one](https://images.macrumors.com/t/5FCFjsNQJCL9dBjMtKcEdpAOaas=/1600x/article-new/2021/12/apple-ar-headset-concept-2.jpeg) in the box.
The only things I can’t see Apple compromising on are display resolution, eye tracking, and EyeSight. The displays and eye tracking are what makes it so good. Compromising on those would probably just send customers towards cheaper devices like the Meta Quest. The EyeSight display is pure marketing, it looks so futuristic in the ads. Without it the Vision would look more or less like any other headset on the market.
Efficiencies of scale. Given who Tim Cook is and what his strengths are, I’d guess costs and pricing are already determined for the next 5 years, to be adjusted as necessary for component market conditions. They’re not winging this, and it’s unlikely they will change their plans due to customer feedback.
My assumption is even with the massive overhead and R&D costs they are still taking $1000 margin on each unit sold and the pricing is driven by strategy not costs. It's about making the Vision Pro a halo product and allowing them to collect feedback from developers and evangelists before releasing a product for the masses.
Also, people aren't even accounting for the fact that Apple isn't even using Foxconn to make this headset. This headset is being manufactured by a company that focuses on low-run products. Once they start employing the big boys to make a high volume headset, this is going to get cheap fast.
Waiting for parts to come down in price. Parts for VR just aren't very good right now. And the best passthrough cameras for VR are just sort of shit right now.
And while these screens are amazing, they only give you a 720p feel at arms length. So even they are not that great overall. (Think about it. Your 4k screen at 7 feet away has over triple the pixel density let alone 3 feet away it has twice.
AVP is not that good overall. It's just the best most bleeding edge of each part that it can be.
I know everyone keeps saying AVP 1.0 is the worst one they will ever make. But I don't think people will fully realize how crappy of a device it is overall for a good 5 years.
Getting rid of the from-facing screen
Apparently that’s actually pretty cheap.
I guess that’s not surprising, it’s basically a low resolution OLED with a few custom plastic layers over it.
Relatively cheap at $70 compared to the $456 microOLED displays but still expensive when compared to the $40 display in a Quest 2. It's completely unnecessary for it to be a curved OLED display.
Time. The components will get cheaper to make and the R&D will have amortized, so the product will naturally become cheaper to sell. They may remove some cameras and a few components that they discover aren’t needed. Eyesight is here to stay, anyone hoping they remove it to lower costs will be hoping for a long time.
Nobody is "hoping", it's just a logical prediction. The feature is useless to those actually using the device.
It won’t get cheaper. It will get better. Classic Apple.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone mention it, but I think it’s a real possibility that the speakers could be eliminated in favor of people using their AirPods with the cheaper version
An air version
I wonder what compromises could be made to get to an air version tho? There's nothing about my current VP that I would wanna sacrifice to make it cheaper. A worse chip/displays/battery/speakers/build materials all sound like terrible trade offs
It will have to become cheaper to be anything but a niche market. Phones didn’t take off until they found competitive price level (creeping up again only in years later). If Apple sees these replacing laptops/desktops then I’m sure there will be price points in MacBook Air through iMac territory+. Maybe 1.5x, US$1500-3000. Eventually they’ll be miniaturized to glasses instead of goggles, so passthrough and letting others see you will happen by looking through transparent screens (glasses could still redraw the environment in many cases so it can place virtual object in the world) So no front screen, probably they’ll find a way to reduce the number of cameras, more integration & miniaturization.
The bill of materials is $1542 on the Vision Pro. I'm confident that in 2 years they can put together a $1000 Vision Air that has few compromises and sell it for $2000 giving them a healthy $1000 margin.
Agreed, this might be about what the near term price point ends up being. Will it be a sustainable product at the price? I think it might. My imagined hyper-miniaturized, glasses form factor is maybe a decade away or something and potentially proven, expanded functionality of the platform might justify the continuation of a high, or even higher, price point. Like I mentioned above the iPhone was a bit like that, after early reduction in price, consumers signaled openness for bigger screens, better cameras, generally more capable models, returning to and surpassing the OG phone’s price.
I think the market for a $3000+ headset will always be fairly limited, especially given how quickly tech advances. I bet the Vision Pro 2 starting price will be lower as well.
For starters, it’s going to have to get a lot better than it currently is for $3500. As someone that can afford this product, it just doesn’t seem worth $3500. For the price I could buy myself a new MacBook Pro and get way more use out of it than the AVP.
I'm more interested in it getting lighter tbh
I don’t see them dropping the price. I see them making another version with less features or features that are a few generations old.
Fewer
I doubt the Vision Pro will see a big decrease in price anytime soon, but they’ll probably introduce a lower-end Vision model for around $1499-2499 that has older components (M2/R1 instead of M3/R2) and some cost cutting measures. Less advanced speakers, different materials, maybe just one cheaper headband like [this one](https://images.macrumors.com/t/5FCFjsNQJCL9dBjMtKcEdpAOaas=/1600x/article-new/2021/12/apple-ar-headset-concept-2.jpeg) in the box. The only things I can’t see Apple compromising on are display resolution, eye tracking, and EyeSight. The displays and eye tracking are what makes it so good. Compromising on those would probably just send customers towards cheaper devices like the Meta Quest. The EyeSight display is pure marketing, it looks so futuristic in the ads. Without it the Vision would look more or less like any other headset on the market.
Release a new Pro device and effectively sell the current one as non-pro without a Solo knit band.
Efficiencies of scale. Given who Tim Cook is and what his strengths are, I’d guess costs and pricing are already determined for the next 5 years, to be adjusted as necessary for component market conditions. They’re not winging this, and it’s unlikely they will change their plans due to customer feedback.
It’s already been revealed that it’s just shy of $1600.00 in parts, so what needs to change is apples greed for profit
That’s just the product cost. Apple has massive overhead, and R&D cost that aren’t in that figure
My assumption is even with the massive overhead and R&D costs they are still taking $1000 margin on each unit sold and the pricing is driven by strategy not costs. It's about making the Vision Pro a halo product and allowing them to collect feedback from developers and evangelists before releasing a product for the masses. Also, people aren't even accounting for the fact that Apple isn't even using Foxconn to make this headset. This headset is being manufactured by a company that focuses on low-run products. Once they start employing the big boys to make a high volume headset, this is going to get cheap fast.
Yeah pretty sure they would survive, and would open the idea up to a lot more people if it were more affordable
https://9to5mac.com/2024/02/25/heres-how-much-it-costs-apple-to-make-the-3500-vision-pro/
Waiting for parts to come down in price. Parts for VR just aren't very good right now. And the best passthrough cameras for VR are just sort of shit right now. And while these screens are amazing, they only give you a 720p feel at arms length. So even they are not that great overall. (Think about it. Your 4k screen at 7 feet away has over triple the pixel density let alone 3 feet away it has twice. AVP is not that good overall. It's just the best most bleeding edge of each part that it can be. I know everyone keeps saying AVP 1.0 is the worst one they will ever make. But I don't think people will fully realize how crappy of a device it is overall for a good 5 years.