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Apple reportedly cuts production of Vision Pro headset after poor sales (www.theguardian.com)
submitted 10 months ago by to c/virtualreality@lemmy.world
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Poor sales have reportedly forced Apple to cut production of the Vision Pro headset that it had hoped would herald a new era in “spatial computing”.

The tech company also reduced marketing for Vision Pro by more than 95% last year, according to the market intelligence group Sensor Tower in figures first reported by the Financial Times.

Apple continues to sell iPhones, iPads and laptops in the millions each quarter, but analysts say sales of Vision Pro headsets, which cost at least £3,199 ($3,499) each, have been sluggish.

Apple has not released sales figures for the device, but the market research group International Data Corporation (IDC) estimates it will have sold only 45,000 in the last quarter of last year.

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[–] 17 points 10 months ago (5 children)

I'm still not convinced that the Apple Watch is even technically a good product considering the price vs. features vs. durability vs. etc. comparison with all of its competitors. It's a successful fashion accessory.

It seems a frequent reminder is required that Apple is not a tech company. They're a marketing company, and a very successful one. Whatever it is they actually make is a side project compared to trying to convert it into a status symbol that'll replicate the popularity of the iPod and iPhone.

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  • [–] 5 points 10 months ago (4 children)

    lol if they really thought a face computer so big and bulky and limited and heavy would be a status symbol. I think they genuinely thought that they’d have people on planes wearing these making people jealous enough to fork the money, but it was never practical for that.

    The Apple Watch is only a successful product because of the iPhone. It is just a convenient second screen for that, that also happens to track some useful health measures under a guise of privacy.

    If Apple is forced (as they are in the EU) to allow third party devices like withings and garmin to interact with notifications as first class citizens, then Apple Watch sales will likely drop off a cliff. Or Apple will innovate. My bet is on the dropping off a cliff though.

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  • [–] 0 points 10 months ago (3 children)

    No they didn’t lol it was essentially an expensive dev kit. They needed devs to make a ton of cool apps before it could reach mass appeal.

    Obviously no one knows their internal sales projections, but I highly doubt they expected to sell a ton of them.

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  • [–] 3 points 10 months ago (2 children)

    This article is literally about them cutting their projections of sales, so they clearly expected to sell more than they did / project to.

    The comment I replied to was talking specifically about their belief that Apple wants things that are status symbols. I was stating it’s laughable if they wanted that for this device, because it was never an appealing device.

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  • [–] 6 points 10 months ago*

    It was weird that they thought they could sell enough of these at this price point for it to make sense to release it as an actual product instead of a dev kit at all. I don't think anyone besides them and Apple fanboys looked at this and felt it made any sense from a business standpoint. Not even people who are very much committed to VR being the future.

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  • [–] 1 point 10 months ago

    The article is a ton of assumptions based on a single fact. Apple cut production of Vision Pro.

    Do you think apple expected to keep production at the same levels since the time of release?

    Every single product they make produces at maximum levels close to release, and then ramps down as time goes on, minus a few exceptions. I would imagine apple didn’t expect one of their most expensive products to be an exception.

    It seems like the article takes a single fact, and then tells you what to think.

    You are correct about one thing, their belief that apple was expecting people to buy this simply as a status symbol is indeed pretty stupid.

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