Post #1767280

Finishing David Pogue's “Apple: The First 50 Years” and wondering whether Apple should have shipped the Vision Pro as essentially a pro monitor/display device (with some additional input device niceties like improved gestures), essentially a peripheral. “Here's an amazing device for working with things spatially” for the audiences where it's having success, i.e. helping people think through or understand or approve massive architecture projects, or esoteric 3D imaging things in healthcare and science. The $3500 price tag is cheap for those audiences, and from what I've heard anecdotally, it seems to be doing well there. (Though if I'm in that group right now, I'd also be concerned about investing too much in the platform, since it's not clear where Apple is headed with it, since the lack of huge success is kind of a black eye for them, so they've been abandoning it. When was it last a focus—or even mentioned!—in one of their big events?) Across the street from our studio, Mass General Hospital is doing a multi *billion* dollar renovation project. Think about how many people need to understand how it all fits together—from the architects to the decision makers to the builders to the city and state officials. Even as a monitor—“here's a 100-inch display for long flights that doesn't take up any room on a tray table!” is a lot more compelling. And for that use case, really focus on making it less creepy overall as the design prompt. Not clear if that's actually doable… but FFS projecting googly eyes on the front ain't it. There are some amazing industrial designers out there who should be able to figure it out and get to something less cringe than “ski goggle face computer.” By narrowing the use case to not be competing-not-competing with Quest and similar devices, it seems like you could also get to a much better spot hardware-wise. It makes a lot more sense as a third monitor option next to Apple's other $1600 and $3300 displays (setting aside the rationalization for those prices). If I'm spending $1-2k minimum for coast-to-coast or international flights as part of my work, $3500 is a drop in the bucket if I can be legitimately productive in that time. (On my laptop that already costs a few grand…) Over time, they could have iterated on the device further, making it far more useful, and more of a “game changer” once the components were small enough and cheap enough and the use cases worked out. The first iPod was expensive as hell and kind of a joke at the time… ($400 to carry around a spinning disk in your pocket. Don't shake it too hard on your run! ~$740 adjusted for inflation.) But man after a few years it really turned into something useful as evolved to different sizes and price points and capabilities. (And wow, what a shame that they've killed it off completely now. But that's another topic.) It seems like management at Apple was too focused on proving that they could innovate, rather than whether or not the device was ready. Too much hubris there, and an assumption that all the developers (after years of treating them like s*t) would bail them out. Steve Jobs gets way too much credit (usually for others' work), but one thing I think he *did* do exceptionally well was understanding the timing of when to introduce a complex set of technologies to a wider audience (the market), and identifying the correct combination of tradeoffs to make that happen.