There’s a lot of speculation at present about what clues Vision Pro availability may give regarding the popularity of the device.
Whatever happens, we can expect breathless headlines about Vision Pro being either a runaway success or a flop, depending on how quickly or slowly delivery dates slip …
Vision Pro availability won’t mean much
Initial availability is going to be limited. A supply-chain report last week suggested that Apple will only have 60,000 to 80,000 units in stock on day one.
Although that might sound like a lot, given that Apple is reportedly only expecting to sell 400k units across the whole year, it’s really not that many. We know from the iPhone experience that a huge number of initial orders are placed within minutes of pre-orders open – and that effect will be even stronger for Vision Pro.
Why? Because this is the ultimate early adopter product. Anyone who is willing to shell out $3,500+ on buying Vision Pro at this early stage likely wants it on day one. So of those 400k people, it’s entirely plausible that more than 80k of them will be in the queue to buy the moment it goes on sale.
We could easily be in a situation where delivery dates slip almost immediately without it meaning that the product is a massive success.
Conversely, given the limited size of the total market, the opposite could happen. Apple might have enough stock to satisfy initial orders, with production then keeping up with ongoing demand. So Vision Pro availability might remain immediate without it meaning that the product is a flop.
So neither possibility tells us much.
This is probably just a stepping stone to Apple Glasses
Whether initial orders are brisk or slower-paced really means very little at this stage. Vision Pro is an extremely expensive initial model which isn’t going to set the world alight in terms of sales.
It will likely take years of iterations and variations before a mixed reality product becomes a mass-market one, and likely a decade or more before we have any real sense of whether this is a product category which propels Apple to new heights, or whether it all ultimately fizzles out – or somewhere between the two.
If I had to bet, I’d imagine that the most popular mixed reality product Apple makes will be some kind of Apple Glasses type product, not a fully-enclosed and clunky headset. I think it’s way more likely to be an iPhone accessory than a Mac or iPhone replacement, and that it will effectively fit into the same kind of space as the Apple Watch: an appealing accessory at a price significantly below the iPhone.
But even if I’m wrong, early sales mean little
But let’s suppose I’m completely and utterly wrong, and that Vision Pro is the new iPhone. Even then, early sales numbers tell us almost nothing.
Top comment by John Atkinson
I think comparing the Vision Pro to the original iPhone is a bit more disingenuous, the iPhone was entering the phone market and by that point a phone was something needed by everyone for at least their professional life but was becoming something needed for daily life meanwhile the Vision Pro is entering the augmented reality market which isn't something that has an established need for work or social life so its more of a entertainment/comfort product. There is also availability; the original iPhone was available in the US, Germany, UK, France, Austria, and Ireland where as the Vision Pro is exclusive to the US so there is a much smaller reach.
The Vision Pro is going to be something interesting to watch but I think it's most important to get a good range of apps available for the device and be able to prove its usefulness. The Apple Watch didn't sell great originally or even for the first few series but became a juggernaut particularly around the time of the series 4. The original HomePod didn't sell great but the HomePod mini sold amazing.
We're very likely to see prices come down as the hardware and market mature, a historical example is with the original Apple TV with 160 GB hard drive which sold for $329 in 2007(equivalent to $480 today) where as the 3rd gen Apple TV 4K (7th gen) with 128GB of flash storage costs $150;
In 2007, Apple sold 1.39M iPhones. Absolutely nobody back then could have foreseen that this would become the most important product Apple has ever made, now exceeding over 200M units per year, and turning Apple into the most valuable(ish) company in the world.
The difference between Vision Pro today and whatever mixed-reality products Apple is selling 16 years from now is completely unimaginable. So too are the likely sales numbers a decade or two from now.
So let’s not get too carried away, whatever happens with day one Vision Pro availability.
Image: Apple
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