The weird price fixation and doomerism here is weird. People said the AirPods were overpriced; half my uni has one. People said the AirPods Max were overpriced, and I see it all the time in co-work spaces and libraries. People said the M1 Pros were overpriced; they're literally everywhere, used by almost all of the professionals I know. People said the Pro Display XDR is excessively overpriced; more than a few consumers I know bought it. $3500 is high but considering it is a phone, laptop and massive display bundled into I'm pretty sure there's a more than sustainable market for it.
That aside, I'm curious whether it will be more like the mac or more like the iPhone. Will we be able to "sideload", i.e. install things without papa apple's approval? Can we use a web engine that's not WebKit? Things like that will make the difference for me, not the price.
I think this is more in the "Pro Display XDR" overpriced territory of "it costs more than many can afford to buy on a whim" instead of "it costs more than it should" of things like AirPods. Where the Pro Display XDR gets away with that is, at the end of the day, it's just a display for content the same as any other. Where the Vision Pro will need to do some fighting is traditional content is a much harder sell for a AR/VR device. I think Apple is trying their best to tackle that software problem head on trying to improve integrations and offer day 1 native options, which is what they always aim for, but it's still clearly going to have some penetration difficulty due to price and small target audience at first. Of course, Vision "Pro" suggests maybe they have a non-pro plan for that in the works already, in which case it would help the ecosystem sustain even more.
I agree that it isn't in the "everyone and their grandmother will have it" pricing territory. It will definitely sell well at least within a niche but won't have the deep penetration other products have.
If you recall, for many years, an iPhone was a luxury status symbol; the equivalent of a mid-range hand bag or a low-end luxury automobile. Expensive, but still within the reach of the an average person with at least some disposable income. It's why everyone seems to have an iPhone and EarPods.
The pro display, like many VR headsets before it, is really a niche product that will be limited to a standard deviation of what I would call "enthusiasts" or "power users".
(1). Even pre-iPhone, having an iPod, especially a premium one, was a status symbol.
(2). Non-iPhone devices are generally scoffed at in many circles, green text message bubbles being associated with budget Android devices and not the expensive Android flagships.
My guess is that Apple will push A/VR into the mainstream and establish social norms with the category. Facebook and others will sell to the middle-to-bottom end of the market.
> I think this is more in the "Pro Display XDR" overpriced territory
It's the same price as Microsoft's Hololens 2, but the tech looks much more impressive, and Microsoft seems to have laid off most of the Hololens development team.
And how many people have Hololens? Vs How many people have a Meta Quest 2?
Again, the other things named above were just "Apple tax" expensive, i.e an extra 50% more. This is almost an order of magnitude more expensive. Doesn't Meta Quest go for around 400$, 350$ on sale? Literally a tenth of the price.
I'm not saying they're the same product, it's hard to convince something to pay 10x for a product.
How many times did Microsoft iterate on and improve the hardware before laying off the Hololens team and giving up? Once. The answer is once.
Apple is a company that releases a new platform and keeps iterating on it for year after year.
This version of Apple's hardware isn't intended to be the cheaper mass market consumer version of the tech. That will come later in what has been referred to as Apple Glass.
Someone in my coworking space bought a Pro Display XDR. He's a movie maker who is shopping around a documentary to some major OTT players in my country. He said his work pretty much demands a really good screen and Pro Display XDR is the best he can buy as an independent filmmaker - his previous employer, a large studio, had screens that were slightly better but cost $20k+
Apple also provides a credit card with no interest on Apple products. They could "hide" the price as cellphone providers hide the price, by rolling it into a monthly payment.
Pro Display XDR is also in a market segment where it's the last step before getting a calibrated display that's 10x the price. When looking at the specs it's actually a great display at a good price point.
> Of course, Vision "Pro" suggests maybe they have a non-pro plan for that in the works already, in which case it would help the ecosystem sustain even more.
Like every other platform products, the V1's audience is... developers. Once there are a few killer apps, Apple will commoditize and unleash a much cheaper version.
There's a ton of hidden bias in this assessment. Have you considered that you either live in a wealthy area or are surrounded by people who are more prone to seeing having iDevices as a status symbol? Because
> People said the AirPods Max were overpriced, and I see it all the time in co-work spaces and libraries.
Is absolutely not true in my experience.
> People said the M1 Pros were overpriced; they're literally everywhere, used by almost all of the professionals I know.
And how many of those laptops are corporate assets that were provided by their employer? How many of those professionals actually use Macs anywhere outside of work?
AirPods are not a status product for most, the quality and the way it works is why it’s selling like hot cakes. It does show people you know about quality stuff by wearing one. The AirPod Max I would agree it is in the show off territory
>There's a ton of hidden bias in this assessment. Have you considered that you either live in a wealthy area or are surrounded by people who are more prone to seeing having iDevices as a status symbol?
Obviously those people are going to be the ones buying this product, like all Apple products.
AirPods are popular, sure, but I have quite literally never seen AirPods Max in the wild. People in the market for premium noise cancelling headsets are all buying Sony or Bose.
And it isn't just about price. There are plenty of AR/VR headsets out there that have the same feature set and are far cheaper, and they still haven't found product market fit. The problem isn't that they need more polish.
With Meta winding down its reality investments Vision Pro is pretty much the last shot this entire sector has. If this device fails then we have no choice but to accept that VR/AR is at best a niche hobby, not the world-changing technology that we so desperately want it to be.
Definitely going to be anecdotal here – around my neighborhood (brooklyn NY) I'm floored by how many Airpod Max's I see. It's by far the most common over-head wireless earphones I see.
Yes, but based on anecdata
from that same sampling, you can also conclude everyone’s profession is podcast host and primary mode of transportation is by fixie bike.
Fixies haven’t been hot out here in 10 years (or more) but I get your point. However I was providing anecdata as a corrective to the parent comment, in order to suggest that such observations aren’t sufficient to build an argument on.
Meta Quest Pro has much of what the Apple device offers while providing controllers for a significantly better gaming experience for $2500 cheaper. Considering the strongest consistent use case of VR thus far has been gaming, Apple has a huge miss IMO.
Apple will never own the type of old-school, enthusiast gaming that VR gaming has roots in (of course they do quite well in mobile gamin, but that’s something you do with a device you already own; you don’t buy a device for it). If the former type of gaming is the only application, they didn’t really have a shot to miss with. So, they are adding a bunch of extra functionality that isn’t directly related to gaming. Of course their device will not provide the best bang-for-the-buck in gaming.
If you are going to claim that Apple’s VR system needs to use meta’s style if controller in order to be successful at gaming, I think that’s short sighted.
It's standard for gaming with a regular screen. Not having VR controllers is a huge detriment for VR gaming. Yes there are some games which can work just using hands, but most existing VR titles will not work, and any titles developed for it will lack input complexity of ones which do support it.
Will they? It seems like tracking hands and objects directly provides much more information than gripping the two sides of a broken in-half Xbox controller.
Controllers also provide haptics (beat saber makes it feel like you're slicing a block with a light saber), a thumb stick, trigger and two buttons. we've got 40+ years experience with gaming with joysticks and buttons, this is hard to undo.
Lol what if they had to change their name again. Maybe something about having to come to terms with their revenue and expenses... face their books... Facebook?
I think the AirPods Max are a lot more hit and miss than the others... for myself and people I know, they were just too heavy/uncomfortable compared to eg the Sony WH XM series.
I'm wondering that too, but from the presentation it looked a lot more "iPhone" than "mac". The only thing they demo'd that looked like a real desktop was an actual mac being mirrored in the display. Everything else seemed like an app you had to install through a new app store.
Most people didn't say the M1 was overpriced. Most people said it was a good value for once. That's partly why it got so much attention. In this case, most people are saying this device is overpriced.
Yeah, I read/watched many M1 reviews when it first launched and the general sentiment was that M1 devices were an amazing value proposition for its market segment. Even the most staunch Apple critics admitted it was not just competitive; it blew the competition out of the water.
The response to AirPods was more in line with OP's description, but I don't think the AVP is comparable. Everyone had a need for earbuds, there was relatively little competition in the wireless buds space at the time, $159 was within the realm of possibility for most consumers, and Apple's removal of the headphone jack forced many peoples' hands. The AVP doesn't have any of that going for it.
I mean Apple hardly ever makes any budget price-to-performance stuff, the high end luxury overpriced market is more their thing. I'm not sure why people are surprised?
Apple's largely been affordable luxury that 100's of millions buy. They're more akin to buying Starbucks over Dunk donuts. Their products usually would be in the price range of 1.3-1.5x more expensive than competitors but offering something which is uniquely good. This product is 3.5X more expensive than the next comparable device while missing key capabilities.
Well depends on what you compare. Smartphones and tablets tend to be on the more affordable side, but everything else not so much. Their monitor stand is about 8-12x the price of a top of the line competitor while still just being a hunk of metal.
What? Millions of people have personal laptops that are M1+ Macbooks. For people who can afford it and aren't Linux people, why would you buy anything else?
(well some people have issues with buying things from Apple and I don't blame them but Microsoft is busy making Windows as unappealing as possible so Apple wins for me)
Have lots of layers, accountants, execs, and a few surgeons in the extended family, especially on my wife's side. Most of them use Macs as their personal computers, and some of them have already upgraded to M1 and M2 mac pros.
Lot's rich people out there, bro. Some of them probably suffered to adapt to Mac OS after years of using Windows, but since every new version of Windows is now a different OS from the UX perspective, they all adapted themselves to Mac OS, because they wouldn't want to be seen in an airport lounge or an expensive coffee answering their emails in plastic Samsung book.
Also, most people never upgraded their laptops, this is simply not an important selling point, and even less in the premium segment. Repairability? From the user's perspective, It is repairable, they have Apple Care, and they drop their broken laptop in a counter, and sometime later they collect a functioning laptop.
And why they wouldn't like the hardware? The CPU is fast, it hardly ever heats enough to spin the fans, the screen is great, the keyboard now is good enough, and the touchpad is still probably the best one on the market.
Your plenty of reasons don't seem very solid to me.
> Yeah but most people aren't paying for those: their employers are.
which is wrong, and you seemed to not be aware of that. Your reasons are all arguments why _some_ people don't buy them, and they're obviously correct, but lots of people also do buy them.
Er. I didn't try to argue everyone buys one. Just that 'most are bought by employers', as though people won't pay for them themselves, is obviously silly .
I like Apple. I'm find this new release quite cool. But you fanboys are a bit much. Sigh.. guess I'm going to do this.
> Who doesn’t like macos? Like it is objectively better than windows, and is able to actually work decently without set up pain (like linux)
Not really objectively better any more, no. With WSL2 developing on Windows is actually pretty darn great. It's the best of both worlds: first party support of most applications and devices that I care about, and a really good OS for development.
> Who doesn’t like the hardware?
Overall Macbooks are almost unbeatable with e.g. the screens or sound for instance. But I still find the port selection to be baffling. It's been many, many years since the release of USB-C and I still need USB-A ports.
I also really do not like the sharp edges on the new Macbooks. They're visually appealing, sure. But if I'm on a train and they're cutting into my wrists it's not great.
> What is unrepairable about macbooks? It’s not an iphone, i ve replaced hard drives, fans and other components on a macbook countless times.
Aha, please try "replacing your hard drive" in your new Macbook.
Also the attitude and track record of Apples behavior towards repair shops is abysmal.
> Who really wants an upgradable laptop? I’d give you desktop perhaps, but with laptops i struggle to see the usecase
You just said you have "replaced hard drives, fans and other components on a macbook countless times" so I struggle a bit with this one.
In general it's a good idea to make devices last longer. Y'know, with the planet being almost being on fire since we're over-consuming? No?
I promise i am not an apple fangirl. I am trying to be objective here.
I’m not claiming that windows is somehow “unusable”. Obvs not. But I can’t think of any beef anyone can have with mac os except that some software doesn’t run on it. But I don’t think this falls under the umbrella of “don’t like the os”.
Re: hardware. Again objectively apple has the nicest hardware. That doesn’t mean “perfect” for every user scenario, but I just can’t imagine someone who objectively prefers a chromebook to a macboo because of hardware. I could imagine that during the butterfly keyboard era though.
Re: repairability. You got me there i have not replaced shit in my new laptop. But i have replaced the hard drive and the screen housing on my 2015 macbook it was no more difficult than any ikea assembly.
My 2015 macbook still works totally fine with almost daily use. I recently donated my 2009 imac and it’s probably at the point when it’s unacceptable for any kind of professional use. But in all seriousness how long do you expect a computer to last? I don’t know the answer to that tbh, but I do think that macs are better in terms of longevity than other hardware
I believe all Macs are fully recyclable with very little waste in the process. Repairability comes at a cost that most customers don't want to pay (any one of: more $$, heavier, thicker, more prone to breakage, etc...). In the end these are devices that cost about the same as a couch, last a few years, and then are meant to be recycled for raw materials that go back into a more efficient device.
I don't like Macos. Windows without games and Linux without deep customisation, variety of choice, and visibility. It's not bad, just useless to me. It only runs well on very specific, overpriced, unrepairable hardware too. Lame.
The hardware is okay, but overrated, there are far sturdier laptops, especially for protecting the display.
The only macbook I ever had had soldered on RAM. Even the PS4 has a replaceable HDD. Being able to replace the storage is not impressive, it's table stakes. I want a laptop for which every sub-board is replacable(without soldering or a heat gun) so I can repair it indefinitely. Apple also have more expensive parts. This counts as less repairability to me.
I want an upgradable laptop because I like laptops. And I like fast laptops even more. Upgrading the laptop instead of replacing it means less money spent on parts I don't need to replace, meaning I can either save money or spend more on performance.
I suppose what is the difference between trading in a laptop for an upgrade vs doing it yourself. The number of people willing and able to replace parts on their computers gotta be not that large.
The upgradability comes with trade offs, in reliability, price, size and weight.
I totally understand how in a perfect world i could just swap parts on my macbook, but if it makes it twice as thick and heavy, with shitty plastic panels everywhere I don’t think I want it all that much
Doesn't matter whether you do it yourself or turn it in for repair. If it's harder to repair on your own, it's gonna be way more expensive to do through a shop too. Apple are notorious for designing their laptops in a way that one component dying means the whole board must be replaced.
And yes, it's possible to design repairable laptops without making them "twice as thick and heavy, with shitty plastic panels everywhere". This is a made up problem.
If apple are so much better at "design" than everyone else, why are they so much worse at repairability? Is it too hard for Apple? Is that really your argument?
Name me a piece of software that ain’t buggy, I’ll wait.
I work on both windows and macos. I haven’t seen the screen of death on a mac in literal years, but the windows laptop does it weekly.
I’m by no means saying that macos is perfect software. It took apple literal years to fix the airdrop for example. But i would not say it’s more buggy than windows or linux.
Mac/MacOS is piping hot garbage, I have one through work and I only ever use it as a 4th screen (aka Slack and Email machine) to the left of my actual work setup, since the thing shits itself whenever you try working with more than a single extra screen connected.
When forced to use it due to being in office or whatever I just ssh into my home setup & control it through Parsec, every time I have to actually use the thing I get the urge to toss it out of a window
I hate MacOS. I've used it as my daily OS for over three years, and never "grew to like it" (as everyone said, "just give it time"). I feel like a kid when using it, everything is hidden away to look fancy instead of usable.
The hardware is okay, I guess. I envy the M1 chips. But I don't like the keyboard layout (even after 3 years it feels off..), or how they've for years not have included necessary ports so it's a dongle-show. I also don't like the value per dollar of their hardware. If my employer pays it's fine, but I wouldn't pay the Apple tax myself.
I'm not here to start a flame war. Just to point out that you speak as if your preferences are a global truth, but plenty disagree.
I mean, yeah if you come to any os with an explanation that it works exactly the same as other os you are going to have a bad time.
I use windows for CAD work and macos for everything else and the switching is annoying for sure.
In terms of functionality (given you actually take time to learn the UI paradigms) neither windows or mac are inferior. You can do all the same things on both. So it all really comes down to familiarity such as “i hate using cmd key instead of ctrl”.
I don’t disagree with people saying “i am more used to windows” - it is true. But there is nothing about macos that is worth not liking.
Try opening finder and going to your home directory. Where is it? Heck if I know.
It's ridiculous that I couldn't right-click, click a folder hierarchy, search, or anything! No visible indicators, no hints, no way at all to just get to your dang home directory. I had to Google it and apparently the magic incantation is Cmd+Up. I quickly pinned it to my favorites so I don't lose my home directory again. Ridiculous.
For all of windows pain points, of which there are many, at least I can click "My Computer" and actually see the contents of my computer. Even Linux (Ubuntu) doesn't hide it from you.
Yeah but the vast majority of people don't actually use home dir directly and the people who do also know enough to enable it in finder options, search for it using help or the help search soertcut, bookmark or search for it using spotlight.
Spotlight (cmd space) also means you pretty much never have to navigate to a file/folder.
Fyi home is cmd + shift + h which you can find in the go menu or by search for home in the help menu.
TIL. Sometimes it's very frustrating trying to transition from Windows to Unix, and menu bars being at the top of the screen is one of those things that still doesn't quite stick with me. Hopefully it'll stick this time :)
Most people would like to have a macbook. That they can't afford it is a different point. Most people who get a macbook can adapt to macos. Those who can't are the minority. I never said that macbooks are number one selling laptops in the world.
Apple is successful no doubt, but the point is, that its OS doesn't appeal to everyone. I also can't stand it and get used to it. The weird docking behaviour, mouse acceleration, annoying jumping animations, weird window management etc.
Can't find anything with spotlight. Spotlight results jump when I'm about to pick something. Glitchy window resizing animations. With multi display, windows keep disappearing from me when moving from one display to the other etc.
Windows 11 remembers my window positions. MacOS forgets my monitor configuration and also requires resetting my dock weekly for some reason to recognize my monitors.
Consider that there are also many people who won't even consider that. I'm saying having that opinion or knowing those differences about operating system and devices is already a specific somewhat invested subset of people.
Many people literally only know windows and office and haven't even used a Mac.
A laptop that can’t be upgraded likely also can’t be fixed by the user.
I’d like a realistically user-fixable laptop - especially as I (unfortunately) bought a 2017 MB Pro which has had a screen failure, a prematurely dying battery, and the well-known butterfly keyboard issues.
I can't get over how badly MacOS works with external monitors; I have a fiddly 5ish minute Mac boot cycle process somedays because there it just refuses to output anything.
FWIW, that's really not the usual macOS experience with external monitors, and you should try doing standard connectivity troubleshooting like replacing the cable, etc.
I've been using multiple monitors (more than 1 simultaneously) with Macs forever; the experience has gotten smoother with the Apple Silicon Macs, but it worked OK on Intel, and PowerPC before that, and the old classic Macs before that.
The pace of renewal / refurbishment for work related and personal may not have the same frequency for most folks.
Work laptops updated every 3 years approximately (at least in tech). Personal use may be 5-12 years. I bought a Macbook Pro in 2012 for myself. The next personal purchase I made was 2022 when I bought the mac mini. For everything else I used the computer which was given to me at work.
Depends very much on the person and the company, I've known many people in similar situations as you, but also many people (in business, rarely roles like developers) stuck on old, slow work laptops - even managers in companies like Dell - while having shiny new personal devices they'd bought themselves (and would, if their company allowed them, use those for work where possible - ofc companies like Dell that's a no-go, but many smaller companies are happy when their employees work on their own more expensive and more productive computer).
Yeah people buy those too. Do you think they don't?
When my current MBP dies, I'll be buying the one with the latest chip on the market (although admittedly a lower spec version than I would presumably get from work --- but that's just because I'm not doing planning on doing huge compilations or video editing on it).
I realize that they have had many failures in their long history but it seems like they have been on a roll since the iPod release 22 years ago. Do you know of any product flop from Apple in the last two decades? I'm genuinely curious.
- AirPower. That was straight-up cancelled.
- The larger HomePod was pretty crap.
- Butterfly switch failures
- Apple Maps was garbage upon first release
- Ping was 13 years ago, but it was one of those things that everyone knew was doomed to fail
- The trashcan Mac Pro was not really made for professionals. I don't remember many selling.
I don't see this as one of them. The only thing thats an issue is the price. The tech looks streets ahead of everyone else. With time the price will come down and the features will grow like all Apple products.
For comparison the original Macintosh was $2500 in 1984, equivalent to $7000 today.
If this is as good as the demo was showing for pro applications it's revolutionary as a computing interface.
Since you can use it to view your mac's screen it seems there are no app restriction per say, but the built in app I imagine will be like all other Apple walled garden apps only loaded via the app store.
Did people really say that the original Airpods were overpriced?[1] IIRC back in 2016 BT earbuds (that weren't connected by a band) were mostly pretty shitty, which I think was the root of most people's skepticism, not the price?
> People said the AirPods were overpriced; half my uni has one. People said the AirPods Max were overpriced, and I see it all the time in co-work spaces and libraries. People said the M1 Pros were overpriced; they're literally everywhere, used by almost all of the professionals I know. People said the Pro Display XDR is excessively overpriced; more than a few consumers I know bought it.
The salient difference between those devices and this one is: none of those require software developers to do anything special to support them.
Granted, Apple had some success in the past telling developers considering a Mac port of their software "these are not the droids you are looking for."
In theory this does not require software developers (other than Apple's) to do anything special to support it either. visionOS has windows and kb/mouse support which means there is potentially no barrier to entry.
I'm guessing "full-screen" or similar deep integrations with visionOS will require some custom code. But it seems like most sites + apps could potentially "just work".
I don't know what, if anything, will be the killer app that makes this thing take off. I know that it needs a killer app, and I highly doubt it will be a two-day port of a regular mac app.
There's a huge difference between the lifetime of a pair of headphones and a VR/AR headset (or at least there should be). Bluetooth will be around for a while. This the second generation Vision Pro is going to absolutely kill the first generation... so why even bother getting the first if it's at such a high price?
> Will we be able to "sideload", i.e. install things without papa apple's approval?
I’m sure we all know the answer to this.
> web engine that's not WebKit?
rofl
The AirPods, Pro Display XDR, even the iPhone were just improved and streamlined improvements of a established products with clear use cases. This is something completely different.. At this point this is just an expensive gimmick. That might change when people figure what they can do with it or it might not.
> it is a phone, laptop and massive display bundled
But there were already tons of people using earbuds, headphones, laptops, and monitors. They brought a high-end product to an already mature market. Whereas here, they are introducing a very expensive device into a segment, VR goggles, that has flopped over and over again with consumers everywhere. Apple might be able to pull off their magic, who knows, but it's way more dubious than with the other things you mentioned.
> That aside, I'm curious whether it will be more like the mac or more like the iPhone. Will we be able to "sideload", i.e. install things without papa apple's approval? Can we use a web engine that's not WebKit? Things like that will make the difference for me, not the price.
This is where the product gives me pause. I am very happy to early-adopt this thing but if I cannot "do what I want" then I will pretty disappointed as I would not expect a comparable product to enter the market for another 5+ years as all this specialized hardware experiences commoditization.
I am very happy using my Linux desktop, slightly less happy with my Linux laptop (fingers crossed the 15" Framework changes that" and am not kidding myself by holding any expectations for what the F/OSS A/VR future will look like in the near-to-mid-term.
I think you probably see more than the national average. It's a fantastic pair of headphones if you're using them a lot. It's the only pair I've seen that had consumer grade features "normal users" care about while having pretty close to audiophile audio quality.
Do you honestly think the price fixation is “weird”? $3500 is insanely expensive for a consumer product - so expensive that it is flat out unobtainable for many Americans, and an extremely hard sell for many more.
And they were almost a pro only market at that price. Personal computers were c64, atari or amiga, personal pc arrived when they were much cheaper, mid 90
Emphasis on progressive web apps in macOS is a good hint with the first wave of apps this will have. Similar to how iPhone first didn't allow for third party apps, this will take the first year to sort out all the HCI before allowing for app store uploads.
This is very much nReal but polished, and those goggles are dim and not as immersive as this. Magic Leap went with the wrong direction it turned out.
this opinion seems more influenced by the writer's environment than not.
i will be cautious to oversell its current use case. like it has been speculated by some youtubers, this might be more of a mvp like scenario like with apple watch in the best case scenario.
although i am glad this is making quest 3 look more acceptable.
Including 3d video recording, which is under-appreciated in many of the threads.
Two GoPro Hero cameras + rig would cost minimum $500, and you might have to edit photos and videos in post. And Apple does this automagically for you.
Probably be a little wary on just doing a casual visual inspection. There's a wide range of airpod knockoffs at this point which are much cheaper but look almost identical at least at first glance.
there's no doubt that with is onw appstore and os is more like the iphone and
you will not be able to install anything that Apple has not approved, neither buy anything without Apple taking its cut
Yes, and that's really obnoxious. But the ability to use it as a display for your Mac (and presumably PC via VNC or similar) should mitigate that to some extent.
It's neither a phone nor a laptop. It can provide some of their functionality in limited situations, but it's considerably less flexible or portable than either.
It also captures a new kind of content: spatial video. Upper middle class families with toddlers are going to want this. To relive the children's childhood forever.
Given you can use your mac’s screen on it, it’s almost moot depending on the app or latency involved. But knowing Apple it’ll probably be more iPhone since they’ve even been pushing App Store on Macs more too
The AirPods you see all the time is because wearing them is a fashion statement. You're "hip" or "rich" or whatever you want it to signal. Airpods are advertising themselves by people wearing them and influencing others to buy them. That's what driving the sales.
No one will be wearing this in public. And if anything, the person in the office using this first will look dorky. So I can't see it having the same appeal/free advertising.
> The AirPods you see all the time is because wearing them is a fashion statement. You're "hip" or "rich" or whatever you want it to signal. That's what driving the sales.
Exactly the opposite is true among the people I know. People feel like dorks wearing AirPods in public, but often find themselves doing it anyway because they're convenient. (I know this, because it still comes up in conversation all the time.)
Not sure this tells us anything much about the Vision Pro, though--except, perhaps, that some people will happily use the product even if it looks dorky, if the user experience is on point.
Precisely. I prefer the AirPods Pro because they’re even smaller and are less visible. I use them because they’re mine blowingly convenient and nice. They’re one of those few products that really brings joy. I wear them constantly both on the go, and at home.
But why did so many end up on exactly that model, when there are so many other brands? Because they're vastly superior, or because we're social animals and seeing lots of other people wearing them signals that they're a safe bet and will keep you in the in-group?
My point here is that the visibility of them on others help drive the sales. "If so many wears them, they obviously can't be bad". For this headset, you will not get that same kind of influences from others.
I agree with the point that seeing people using AirPods serves as a sort of social endorsement of the product. (Which is fairly different from your original assertion that "The AirPods you see all the time is because wearing them is a fashion statement.") Though I think the much stronger endorsement comes from talking to people you know and trust. The problem with merely "ambient" signaling (as in, you see people wearing them on public transit, etc.) is that you don't know anything about the preferences of the people you see wearing them. I see (or at least used to see) lots of people wearing Beats too, but I only ever heard bad thing about them from people I know and trust and, therefore, never considered trying a pair.
Vision Pro may not benefit from the latter (weaker) form of social endorsement, but it should be able to generate plenty of the former (stronger) kind.
Do you own a pair of AirPods? My Gen2 AirPod Pros are what I consider to be the best purchase I have made in the last 10 years. The small package and ANC is fantastic. Before purchasing AirPods I would walk around with ATH M50X (Great headphones; not fashionable) and these have replaced that.
> The AirPods you see all the time is because wearing them is a fashion statement. You're "hip" or "rich" or whatever you want it to signal. That's what driving the sales.
Exactly the opposite is true among the people I know, FWIW. People feel like dorks wearing AirPods in public, but often find themselves doing it anyway because they're convenient. (I know this, because it still comes up in conversation all the time.)
I don't know about that. My AirPods just work in a way that no other wireless headphones do with my iPhone. Using them is delightful. I still rock a Gen 1 pair which would no longer be "cool"
Ok.. please you probably can "build such a system yourself quite trivially by getting an FTP account, mounting it locally with curlftpfs, and then using SVN or CVS on the mounted filesystem. From Windows or Mac, this FTP account could be accessed through built-in software."
How is the old dropbox dismissal relevant for my comment..?
What I'm saying is that airpods are advertising themselves by people wearing them and influencing others to buy them. This headset will not have that effect.
Well, not the same, but people like to bash anything Apple. The Apple naysayers. usually they are heavy windows/linux users (there’s not much else)
I bought the AirPods because I wanted exactly that. Sadly the batteries died in 1.5 years, so I’m boycotting the AirPods for now.
Nobody I know bought AirPods because they look cool or because they want to show off they’re rich. AirPods are very affordable.. they just work really really well. Why is that so hard to believe?
And yes, people are more aware of items which are visible.. but that’s a different story.
WRT the vision pro, sure you won’t walk around outside with them, but if they work as advertised, they don’t have to.
The M1 air didn’t sell a gazillion times because of its looks. In fact, you couldn’t tell it from the older models, so that point simply is not valid.
People talk, people ask opinions, if the majority of the opinion from experience is positive yes it will result in more sales.
That aside, I'm curious whether it will be more like the mac or more like the iPhone. Will we be able to "sideload", i.e. install things without papa apple's approval? Can we use a web engine that's not WebKit? Things like that will make the difference for me, not the price.