By: Nick Gambino
Apple began selling their mixed-reality headset, the Vision Pro, on January 19th and in just under two weeks have sold around 200,000 units, according to MacRumors.
When pre-orders opened for the Vision Pro, they quickly sold out for both home delivery and in-store pickup, a sign that people were anxiously awaiting the arrival of Apple’s first VR/AR/MR headset.
While selling out a quarter of a million headsets in such a short time period is impressive, what’s really surprising is that they accomplished that with a product that costs $3,500 at its starting point. That’s expensive even for a VR headset. For comparison, the Meta Quest Pro fetches a much more reasonable $1,000.
Reviews of the Apple Vision Pro aren’t strong enough to justify that high price point. I wouldn’t be surprised if they decide to lower the price over the next year, something Meta wasn’t afraid to do and which certainly proved popular.
The idea behind the mixed-reality headset, that if it truly delivers might justify forking over that kind of dough, is to make it part of your all-day everyday. They want users to plug into the Vision Pro and use it to enhance productivity, communication and entertainment.
This would mean users taking calls, working on important documents, listening to music, watching their favorite movies and so on. Think of it like your Apple Watch, iPhone or iPad being strapped over your eyes.
One of the ways they intend to accomplish this is with the exterior display and transparent goggles that allow you to see the world around you while plugged into another reality. This also allows other people in your vicinity to see your eyes so you don’t look completely inaccessible.
I wouldn’t count Apple out on being able to accomplish this. They’ve done this time and time again, creating a hardware product that becomes ubiquitous. They did it with the iPod (for a time), iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch and AirPods. Maybe we’ll see the Vision Pro in every corporate office in the near future.
