Vision Pro could redefine tech interfaces with its advanced design and features. Challenges may arise, but if Apple improves its approaches to market strategies and partnerships, it has the potential for significant success.
I have my doubts about whether Apple’s Vision Pro, which was announced last week but will not be available until 2024, will be successful.
My doubts mostly revolve around Apple’s current strategy, which is to avoid collapsing existing markets, something Apple had to do to make the iPhone successful, and because the company partners poorly and will need a lot of focused partners to make this product work.
But one thing is certain: the announcement of this head-mounted display just made it real. There is a significant potential revenue opportunity for someone, including Apple, to make a huge splash with this very disruptive and potentially revolutionary way to interface with technology.
Don’t get me wrong; there is little about the hardware that isn’t impressive. It’s Apple’s current marketing approach that opens it up to the kind of competitive challenge it didn’t face with the iPod or iPhone.
Let’s talk about the Apple Vision Pro this week. Then we’ll close with my new favorite smartwatch: the TicWatch Pro 5, which comes as close to the Apple Watch as any smartwatch I’ve tested.Can’t Fault the Design
Apple Vision Pro is a well-designed product, but if all it took to create a successful offering were a good design, then the French Citroen would be the most popular car in the world rather than a brand that is mostly only known in France.
The Vision Pro is about as close to a no-compromise, head-mounted computer system as we have seen.
Yes, it has new hardware and software and doesn’t yet have a robust ecosystem, but neither did the iPhone or especially the iPod at the start, and both were massively successful.
Vision Pro’s high resolution and superior ergonomic design make other AR and VR products look archaic by comparison. While the $3,499 price is in nose-bleed territory, it is generally better to first release a high-quality, exclusive product than to do what Facebook and Microsoft did and release products that hit attractive price points around $500 but were sub-standard in quality.
If you initially set a high bar and cost-reduce it with a focus on the experience of a few, then you build a potential market foundation for what could be an iPhone- or iPod-like market success. Tesla is an example of this. Its cars were exclusive and initially priced high, but with outstanding performance and utility, then cost reduced to make that company massively successful. Tesla is about as close to the Apple model as you’ll get outside of Apple.
While I’d prefer the Vision Pro in black, it does have some nice utility, and it isn’t wedded to the metaverse, which is good because, while the Nvidia commercial metaverse has been successful, the Meta (Facebook) effort was not.
