Is Apple's Vision Pro Worth the Hype? Analyzing the $3500 Headset

Vision Pro. It's going to be a tough sell. You know, it's $3,500.500. I think that most of these are going to get purchased up by scalpers. In fact, Ming Chi Quo had a story this week. I'm getting ahead of myself here, but I think this is relevant. Apple will only produce up to 80,000 Vision Pro headsets for launch. Sellout is likely. Griffin was saying that he wants to buy one of these and just keep it in a box for 20 years and then sell it at Sethabees for. $35,000

We don't even know Vision Pro is going to be around in a year or two

I honestly am not even sure if this product category, I see I see your wins over there, Griffin

But if this thing bombs hard. You think he'll is going to cancel it after one year? That's crazy

Well, I mean, Apple HighFi man. Apple High Five. One year where they sell out all of them

Yeah, yeah, no. Yeah, let's cancel this. It's not going anywhere. I, well, if they get sold out and then 75% of them

get returned, then I think that might change the math. But you're right. They probably won't

cancel at a year. I'm being a little bit, maybe a little bit conservative with my estimate there

But I wouldn't be surprised at a certain point Apple did cancel this project entirely because

this is a huge confusing product category. And the fact that they are going to be trying to

demonstrate what this product can do and it's going to take 25 minutes to explain

So let's go back to this story or army. Apple's Vision Pro will have a lengthy sales pitch that will include a 25 minute demo

So when you go into the store, you make your appointment, you go in

This is from the Germanader, by the way. They're going to have this huge demo and it's going to last about a half hour

That's, I may be appropriate, I guess, for a product that costs $3,500

But the iPhone made sense. The iPod made sense. the Apple Watch makes sense

AirPods makes sense. They don't need a demo like this. And the fact that they need a long demo like this

I think it's indicative of a paradigm shift in computing. I think that's fair

But also it an uphill it an uphill push right Like you really have to tell people and educate people on why they should be spending this much money beyond the the hardcore Apple fans

who are going to be buying this no matter what, beyond people who are going to be trying to scalp this

beyond YouTubers who are going to buy it just to return it. For regular people, you really have to help them understand why Vision Pro

is something that is worth as much as Apple is charging. And every time I look at videos on YouTube about Vision Pro

they all get low views. People don't seem to care. And this is it

This is the moment that we've been waiting for. Can Apple make a case now that this product is real

Can they show you why it's special? Can they paint you a story from where you are to where you'll be

and convince you that this is going to be a shift in computing

and will maybe even replace your iPhone at a certain point? So far I don't see it, but I haven't done the demo yet

So when you go in for your demo, maybe it will be a different story. Yes, Griffin, take it away

I feel like saying that Apple needs to give you a 25-minute demo so that you can even

understand the product is a bit of a cynical take on it

Whereas, like, the difference between the Vision Pro with all the other products is that, like

they can set up a table of IMAX or a table of iPhones or, you know, a giant row of watches

where you can mix and match watches and bands. And, you know, yeah, the customers can just, you know, feel free to, like, rummage through

and try them out and see how they work. all that. Vision Pro, they're only going to have a couple of them in the store. It's going to be so

volume that they can only have like one demo unit that's available to people. It's not like they

can have like a giant shelf of Vision Pros that people can just put on and try themselves. The purpose

of a 25 minute demo is like it's just a structured way to give people a full experience of the

product if they want to try it out. Like the details of the demo like Mark German said that like

you know, they're going to play like clips of movies. They're going to have like an app demo where you're walking across the tight rope, they'll show you a bunch of apps and stuff

like that, you know, for productivity. Like the 25-minute demo is just to show you everything that it can do

It's not like Apple's like desperate to get people through this pitch so that they can

try to sell the product. I sure Apple is well I sure that Apple is where aware that a lot of people are just going to try them on who have absolutely no intention of buying the product They just want to they just wanted to show it to everybody because the more people know how it works and know how it different to every other crummy headset out there

the better. Norbert from the chat saying it's going to be like a timeshare presentation

You get a free vacation to Disney if you just come in and try the thing on and get it fitted

I mean, think how many moving parts they're going to be for this. They have to make your own special face seal, right

they have to... Cushion. The cushion. They got like supposedly 25 different sized cushions, right

25 different cushions. And then two light seals is what I've heard

And then all the different lines is... The light seal is the same as the cushion. I don't think those are different. The light seal is the cushion

I don't know about that. And I remember, I think I remember hearing that they had a bunch of different sizes

Oh, sorry. Prototypes. But now that they're in production, they have like two different sizes

What's going? Are you having a birthday party over there, Lewis? It's two cushion sizes, 25 shapes for the light seal, excuse me, had that flipped

Okay. But so part of that is scanning your face with the app, you know, like using face ID that figures out, you know, what shape of melon you got

And they, oh, this is the thing that most closely approximates your, you know, weird facial setup, right

And then they, they got to, and also deal with the glasses, as we were mentioning

Like if you wear glasses, they have to scan your lenses, that's not going to take for long

But, I mean, how many, they're going to have to have, like, racks and racks of those Zeist lens inserts, right

Unless, I mean, what they got in. Yeah. Exactly how close this is, you know, like, if you, you know, God forgive me, I don't actually know how they, you know, what the measurements are

But let's just say, my left eye is a one and my right eye is a seven and a half, you know, it's going to be like, oh, here's a one and here's a six

you know, because six is close enough to seven and a half. I don't know how exact these things will be for the inserts

but yeah, they got to do all that before that 20 to 25 minute thing even starts

But before you actually, they hand you the thing and say, go ahead, put it on

I'm going to just read this. This is actually a really good piece by German. Let's see here

So this is the actual process. Let me see if I can find this. Why do we have Al Gore on here

I must have scroll too far Here we go The retail employee will allow users to place the device on the their own heads Once the headset is on customers will need to calibrate the device with various tracking and tapping exercises so it can follow their eyes and hands That includes looking at a circular

dot or circular dot patterns set at different brightness levels and a hand scan in the field

of vision of the device. After all that's done, the demo begins. Users will be directed to the

photos app to view still images that are similar to the ones preloaded

on Apple's other devices, followed by examples of panorama shots. I bet that's pretty cool

Then the demo starts to get more interesting. The customer sees 3D images that Apple calls spatial photos

in this case of a kid hitting a pinata. Oh, dude, you know what this reminds me of is Blade Road of 2049 of this girl who's like a

like a, what do they call it? She's a memory designer. And she uses like this little interesting hand machine

to spin things around in 3D space and design memories. That's what it's going to be like

You're going to be able to, or minority report, you'll be able to watch these videos in lifelike 3D spatial video

I bet that's going to be a pretty big selling point, especially now that you can do video on your iPhone

Like that, that could sell it right there. The next part of the demo shows how to use the device as a computer or iPad replacement

Good luck typing. It explains how to position multiple app windows in space

and scroll through web pages in the Safari browser. customers are then showed 3D and immersive movies including clips of wild animals

the ocean and sports there's also a compelling scene that makes users feel as if they're on a

tightrope oh dude i don't know about that although i guess they will not be what they won't be

doing is watching netflix movies am i right oh i mean it's going to be i'm sure this

presentation is going to be incredibly polished and it's going to make those dollar bills

float out of your pocket like you're going to go in there thinking that there's no way you're

buying the time share, you're walking out of there with a two-week time share. And you may just be walking out with the Vision Pro

I'm still on the fence. Once I see it in action, maybe I'll be convinced, especially if I can somehow get a discount

on one of these things. There's no way I'm spending $3,500 on it because after taxed in here in Seattle

that's almost $4,000. It's kind of a lot for something that seems to be an iPad replacement, but wrapped on your face