Here's why the $3,500 Apple Vision Pro headset is so expensive
(www.cnbc.com)
from catculation@lemmy.zip to technology@lemmy.world on 25 Feb 2024 14:51
https://lemmy.zip/post/10521561
from catculation@lemmy.zip to technology@lemmy.world on 25 Feb 2024 14:51
https://lemmy.zip/post/10521561
The $3499 Apple Vision Pro reportedly costs $1542 to make.
Edit: Archive link https://archive.ph/u4BCi
threaded - newest
That’s not unusual for componsation for overhead and development costs. I’m honestly surprised its that expensive to make.
Thats probably 1500$ in apple parts. These parts most likely already include R&D costs as well as the additional increase for their brand.
That’s not how that number works. It’s the manufacturing cost before markup.
I believe he’s implying that apple essentially is selling the parts from one division to another so their own markup is included in the visions total cost
Got a link that’s not paywalled?
Archived link
Thank you!
Yeah there’s no way it doesn’t cost an absolute fortune to make a Vision Pro. The display is nuts, and if reports are to be believed, extremely difficult to make and with a very low yield. Then there’s a bunch of other high tech stuff in there.
It’s pretty much a polished prototype for Apple to simultaneously explore possible design avenues in the VR space, gather data on and overcome unforeseen obstacles in new VR tech and its development process, and get the ball rolling on VR software development on the Apple side.
The one perplexing thing is that right now VR has two main usecases: gaming and wanking. Apple takes a dim view of both. I think that’s something they’ll have to re-evaluate as they work to bring out more consumer-focused, sub $1k VR devices.
Yeah if you watch the iFixit tear down it’s obvious these things are just packed to the gills with tech. I’m not mega surprised they ended up costing so much. It’s really bleeding edge.
That said it’s way too expensive for me to get on board and I think they made some poor choices. Especially the outer display. The amount of weight, battery drain, fragility, and (presumably) expense that display alone added is just plain dumb. And it looks a lot worse IRL than in their videos.
I also think the aluminum looks great but I wonder how much lighter the headset would be if it were plastic without the outer display and glass.
It’s basically got a full fat Mac arm PC in it, it’s wild
Wearing a display on your head just seems like an awful experience to me. I always wondered as a kid what my “old people just don’t get tech” thing would be and I think this is definitely over that line. I just got no desire for this shit. It’s frustrating to see people chase it cause I know I’m going to have to deal with it eventually if they do.
Totally disagree with you. VR even in its currently pretty early stages is an absolute blast. Some of the most fun I've had gaming any time recently has been on a Quest 2. And I grew up on 8 and 16 bit consoles so I've been through the gamut of gaming experiences.
When the technology does another 5-10 years of advancing it's going to be absolutely huge.
And to your point about old people not getting tech, my grandmother and mom both love VR and play games and do workouts on Quest together. They actually use them more than I do.
Gaming at least I feel like they’ve been trying to support more as a company for several years. It hasn’t necessarily translated to results, but it seems like they’re trying a lot more than they did a decade ago.
For wanking; it still has Safari, and Pornhub still exists 👍🏽
Good luck streaming a 30 to 60gb video.
It works great with my DLNA server and can play in stereoscopic 3D with the moon viewer app
Unrelated. I was referring to the fact that PornHub only has very short and/or very low res video available for vr.
Oh, I wouldn’t know. Pornhub is basic. Streaming 3D porn over a VPN with DLNA is where it’s at
Spoken as someone who clearly has never used a VR headset for any sort of video content. To get even passable framerates at resolutions that don’t look atrocious, you’re looking at multiple GB for scant minutes of VR video content.
Unless you just want to watch the same crap you already do, but on an effectively building sized flatscreen, bandwidth and even local data storage and transfer rates become an issue fast.
It has 3D video apps too…
Yes. I make digital products for a living and our process is continuously informed by usage statistics from our customers. We also do focus group testing, and it has its place, but live data feedback gives us statistically meaningful readings of how people use our products and this tells us what to focus on to make them better.
Apple has been in pure focus group testing for a decade+ on this product and they absolutely just need to get into the field and accelerate their development with usage statistics. It doesn’t have to sell in the tens of millions. Remember focus group participants number in the dozens or hundreds, and a secretive company like Apple can’t afford to have too many of them.
The Vision Pro marks the end of prototyping and the beginning of actual product development. This is why I don’t care at all about the v1 product. It’s a starting point. Everything interesting happens from here on.
This isn’t a VR headset though…
They can call it whatever they want, but as far as I’m concerned a VR headset with very good video passthrough is still a VR headset.
The big deal is that this is a mobile VR headset. I don’t know of another VR headset you can walk around in.
The Quest range. I’m sure that the passthrough isn’t as good quality as Apple’s (some glitching at the edges of objects), but it’s easily enough to walk around in, especially the Quest 3.
Would you call Google glass or hololense a VR machine? No you wouldn’t. Apple fits right in there with them
Glass was just a heads-up display in the corner of vision, nothing like any sort of vr/ar/xr system. I don’t know why you would consider that comparable to any of the headsets. Hololens and Magic Leap were augmented reality, but by not using camera passthrough they were limited filed-of view and could not do opacity. Quest 3 is much more similar to the Vision Pro in terms of what it can do (aside from the outer display). For instance, it’s possible to place large browser windows around your room, and replace your monitor with a larger virtual version.
Glass were glasses with a small HUD.
Vision Pro are goggles with a full opaque display and video passthrough. Like an Oculus/Meta device. Just higher quality passthrough.
It’s a VR headset, despite how much apple insists on it actually being a “spacial computer”, and some people saying it’s an AR device.
They seem to be pushing it on the productivity angle, but until someone makes a super light weight and open air headset I’m not wearing it for 8 hours a day.
The VR wanking and gaming markets are too saturated for Apple to bother with. They want the VR computing market, which is essentially vacant.
Because Apple
/thread
$1000 monitor stand
$80 to undo what you did to slow down my phone.
What did they do? Prevent it from randomly shutting down? Because I’ll take a slower phone or a random hard shutdown any day of the week.
Was it wrong? Yes. But what else does any handset manufacturer do?
It’s useless, folks here will never believe that other devices do the same thing. I think they’d rather just have their device shut down at 25%.
On my original battery five years into having this iphone and it’s still screaming fast…
Agreed. Love how the Reddit act of downvoting has transferred to Lemmy /s
Here it’s just “someone enjoys iOS?! NOT ON MY WATCH”
I’ve got three Linux machines, six? Maybe seven? Windows machines, and I love the shit outta my iPhone. I was a first-adopter of Android with the Dream and loved it. But when I realized iPhones can last for 5-6 years with full updates AND STILL BE FAST with no effort, reformatting, or thinking about them… that’s all I want from a phone.
That and the privacy is better. It’s not perfect, but it’s lightyears better than ANYTHING google.
But on Lemmy, that makes me a baby toddler noob that knows nothing about computers, because if I just got this google device and did all of these mods to it and installed all this software and maintained it and BRAINED HARDER I could have a similar experience to my five year old iPhone
Didn’t they sell $700 casters for THEIR Mac pro. FUCKING CASTERS!!!
Shitty coasters too :) they didn’t even have locks on them did they?
The tech inside is great, but Apple also knows its customers are happy to pay a hefty premium over cost. I hate Apple but they are amazing at branding at end of day.
Apple are almost certainly planning a non “pro” model that will be much cheaper and the pro’s high pricing drives discussion, exclusivity, which leans in on their aspirational brand modus. Thus, the non-pro model will likely have absurd sales as people rush to finally buy in at their price level.
I don’t support it or like it but Apple have been following this playbook for decades now and unfortunately it really works.
It’s also easier to engineer the thing first without heavy cost pressure then reengineer it to be cheaper. With added benefit of better understanding the market and demand
God I hope this thing flops
Why?
Because Apple.
It seems like it is the answer for this thread!
Welcome to the circlejerk, stay a while
I don’t like how hard the article tries to make it seem like the markup is justified because of all of Apple’s other costs. Apple will sell the product at whatever price it thinks the customer will pay, and the margins only matter to determine whether the product is worth it for Apple to sell (I’d love to see what the payback period is on the project though). The cost isn’t that outrageous if this COGS is correct, maybe slightly on the higher side for a tech product.
The real discussion should be whether the product is worth the price they are charging based on the utility and the cost of being essentially a beta tester as an owner of a 1st gen product.
“Because some dipshits will buy anything to be better than others, and also some people have just fucktons more money than they probably should “ - there, saved you a click
Apple financial statement for 2019, page 17.
The lady in the thumbnail looks like she stoking someone nipples like they’re radio dials.
Where do I get that game?
On the app store inside the headset
Gotta subsidize that lobbying and bribes to keep slavery strong on their assembly lines somehow.
The reason: Apple.
Unjerk for a moment. How much should something like this cost? Serious question. Seems like it can do things other devices really can’t. Saw a video yesterday from a programmer who said it could replicate an impossible physical setup. I don’t have a need for it but maybe someone else can see the value.
The Quest 3 is capable of the same stuff and is only $500.
Adding the Valve Index is a another high end model that does all this and more for $1000.
The big difference is the Apple’s AR features
I’d agree with you, but the index isn’t a standalone device. Pack all the computing power into the index and the price is going to skyrocket.
Edit to add: index doesn’t have eye or hand tracking.
They already did, the VIVE XR Elite, and its $1000.
What? That’s… an entirely different headset? Not even the same manufacturer. There’s also some fairly significant differences between them. The person I replied to said that the Index does all the same stuff that the Vision Pro does which is empirically incorrect.
Every single reviewer is saying that the quality of the VR and specially the AR blows any competition out of the water. I highly doubt your comment is true.
The quality is better but it still does “the same stuff”. A PC with a 1080p display and Nvidia 3050 does the same stuff as a 4k display and an Nvidia 4080.
Some titles may run at higher FPS on the 3050 build XD
It costs 10x more. It sure as hell better do things better than the quest.
I have both and the Quest 3 is definitely not capable of the same stuff.
Kevin Sorbo and Kevin Costner are capable of the same stuff too but there is a clear difference in performance and value.
I get the point but you could have picked at least one good actor instead of two mediocre ones. Sorbo vs Spacy. Big difference in both acting ability and how shitty they are as people.
I get your point too. Kevin Sorbo was the name that came to my head first, for some reason, and Kevin Costner followed. TBF though, Kevin Costner has won 2 Academy Awards, one for Best Director (Dances with Wolves in 1991) and has been nominated for a best actor award. He does have a long list of industry accomplishments in various roles. Kevin Sorbo doesn’t have anything close to that. I’m not a big fan of Kevin Costner but objectively speaking he is accomplished in his career.
Kevin Spacey wouldn’t have been better though, with his rapey background and all that, wouldn’t feel right putting him forward as something to aspire to.
Maybe Kevin Sorbo and Kevin Kline would have been a better comparison.
.
50% margins aren’t that high for a “cutting edge” low volume product.
Civic cars are high volume with an established market and consumer base.
Not everything is an apples to apples comparison.
I’ll never buy one because I use Arch BTW, but there needs to be a profit incentive for new tech to be developed, otherwise we get rehashes of the same old same old.
.
What products specifically are you considering?
They’re socks
The Apple Vision Pro supports only one 4k display for your Mac. I’ve seen some unreleased app dev stuff claiming to support another display, but as far as I know today there isn’t any way to do it.
The one I saw was a single 5K but he was running it at standard resolution (not retina) and making the screen equivalent to 50”. He also used a couple native safari windows on either side, which helps mitigate the single screen issue.
Good question. I don’t have a good source, but this one guy tried to come up with a breakdown a few months ago and in parts alone he estimated $1529.
Inner and outer display including display lens: $840
Silicon content including M2 and R1 chips: $240
Sensors and cameras: $120
Battery: $18
Spatial Audio: $11
Housing, PCBS, cables, connectors, and packaging: $170
Assembly: $130
It aligns with the number in the article. The rest seems like a business decision.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
one guy tried to come up with a breakdown a few months ago and in parts alone he estimated $1529
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
And the software development. I wouldn’t be surprised if the total cost is close to the market price. Apple doesn’t really need to make profit with this, but to create a market first.
Status costs, you can’t want to be a gossip wannabe WO spending anything…
Please read it, it’s just another version of the “the iPhone cost 500$ to make”. Research and especially marketing can sometimes be as much as the material and assembly cost. Id be surprised that apple doesn’t make a profit on it, but it might not be close at all to 100% .
It quite clearly seems to be some kind of public beta test product and enough rich people seem to be happy to pay for being the test hamsters.
I really love that you said test hamster instead of guinea pig.
I’m using this from now on.
<img alt="" src="https://discuss.tchncs.de/pictrs/image/24be7412-e3a1-493b-b6e2-fb2d7491f07b.jpeg">
It costing that much in materials seems a bit much though I heard its casing is milled from a brick (probably not literally) of aliminium. Combing the other high tech and mass production aspects I feel like it costing 1k is more believable. But what do I know not even employed in any manfacturing job.
The sensors and optics and custom very high DPI display panel alone pushes the price up
Makes sense for the remaining $$$
Totally forgot those.
Here’s why Apple users are delusional.
The thing is essentially a public dev kit. If you aren’t stupid rich and you can’t write it off on your taxes for business, it’s not worth picking up yet. And Apple knows that.
Give the tech time to mature. There were people who talked shit about the iPhone when it came out, and now we ALL use smartphones. I genuinely think AR (in a different form factor) will be a big deal. Possibly the thing to unseat smartphones, if manufacturers can start nailing transparent screens. But admittedly there are a few leaps in technology that will need to happen first.
I’m still talking shit about the iPhone. Where else do you see people using a glass keyboard? I don’t care if a billion idiots like it. There is virtually no choice in the market, everything boils down to the lowest common denominator. We need open and reusable technology, not this proprietary throwaway shit that you can’t maintain.
As somebody with big sweaty clumsy fingers, I actually liked mobile phones and software for them (J2ME) before touchscreens.
Those keyboards were hard to use, but understandably so due to size.
But why did they replace them with something even harder to use, even when at home sitting in a chair, I can’t fathom.
I think the best mobile device I’ve seen is PSP Slim, if we imagine a similar phone, buttons on the right could probably be replaced with a phone-like numpad fit for text input, the arrows and the joystick were perfect.
I had smartphones way before the iPhone but ok…
your reply is n=1, when op is clearly talking about mass adoption
Nokia s60 were mass adopted. Blackberrys were as well
I think you’re attributing more grandeur to Apple’s decisions than is warranted.
Apple’s iPhone was not the first phone to use a touchscreen - that goes to IBM in the 90s. Apple did produce a PDA the same year with a touchscreen, though it used a stylus-based touchscreen. During that time touch tech was still developing. If you follow the overall evolution of touchscreens, Apple actually deployed its touchscreen phone about as early as they could - probably because every other company was also eyeing making one but were waiting until touchscreens were cheaper and more reliable.
It also was not the first smartphone. Again, that IBM phone with a touch screen also had e-mail capability, a calendar, and various other features, and phones being able to access the web and play games along with various PDA functions was almost standard as we got into the 2000s.
The touchscreen rectangle smartphone was already on the way - Apple just grabbed the bag first.
What Apple consistently does is act brashly by deploying a usually obvious future product before the tech is actually developed enough to fully support it. They then sell it at a stupidly high price which trims off who buys to mostly just futurists with rose-tinted glasses on. It’s a very effective strategy to get credit for innovation and leading the future while avoiding bad PR, and it fools massive amounts of people.
Apple is a company that is insanely good at corporate strategy. In fact, if there’s anything that Apple has truly pioneered, it’s the modern predatory, anti-repair, designed obsolescence fashion-tech environment we currently see.
Just because it costs this to manufacture and develop does not mean it is worth this to a consumer in terms of customer value.
This. That’s why some things are intentionally sold at a loss to increase adoption to be bolstered by post purchase sales on the back end.
Like the Oculus Quest 2 (go to Hell Zuck)
This is especially true right now, when the enormous gulf between the wealthy and poor is the worst we’ve seen in living memory.
People are struggling to pay their rent, and yet Apple is over here selling this bullshit to people.
As long as people keep buying, companies will keep selling.
because it is apple?