Apple Vision Pro

Can I have some of what they're smoking? I don't see them getting anywhere near half of that in the first year, not even close. VR headsets are great, but extremely niche still because of their high price for entry....this VR/AR monster is gonna be worse in every way except for having an Apple logo on it, and I don't see that moving anywhere near that number of units.

They really expect to sell 800k in the first year? Damn, that blew my mind when I read it.

I dunno. There are lot of curious developers out there who can write off 3.5k as a business expense.
 
Can I have some of what they're smoking? I don't see them getting anywhere near half of that in the first year, not even close. VR headsets are great, but extremely niche still because of their high price for entry....this VR/AR monster is gonna be worse in every way except for having an Apple logo on it, and I don't see that moving anywhere near that number of units.

They really expect to sell 800k in the first year? Damn, that blew my mind when I read it.
That's what I saw some stock analyst types talk about.

I think it was even before the unveiling and the price was known for a fact.
 
It's a big world.

Some people pay more than $3.5k for a pair of socks.
I just have a really hard time seeing it sell in those numbers. Wait and see I guess.

Someone compared it to a common configuration of the MacBook Pro which could run about $3500.

He said the MBP would have more utility but Apple still sells a fairly high volume of laptops priced in that range.


Actually I paid exactly $3500 for my iMac, with storage upgrades at the 5K screen, mostly for photo editing, about 6-7 years ago.

I'm not saying I would buy this thing. I'd have to see how good the display looks, whether it would make me sick, how good photos look on it.

I may be too old to learn new tricks, though I've gone through DOS/unix to GUI to mobile but we're really talking a span of 30 years, which isn't that long overall -- it's an epoch in technology though.
 
How large do you think that number is?

They sell about 200 million iPhones a year. I think Samsung is around the same or even more.

Are all 200 million buyers those zealots who will buy anything with an Apple logo?

If they position this initially as a desktop replacement, I think the annual unit volume is maybe 20-30 million in a very good year for them.

Estimates I've seen are in the area of 800k units in the first year. With a couple of price cuts or lower-priced iterations, maybe they can approach 10 million units. Maybe a good-sized fraction of that gets them a toehold but it's going to take a lot more to convert maybe the tens of millions of desktop users who would spend $2000 or more for a computer.

That's not even addressing the hundreds of millions of higher end smart phones sold each year.

I'd say a realistic conversion of that 200 million iPhone sales a year would be maybe around 0.05% - 0.10%. So, maybe 100k - 200k. Then again hardcore Apple fans generally have more disposable income so it wouldn't be unreasonable to think that it could possibly be more.

Of course, it's anyone's guess. Perhaps the artists who use Apple hardware (graphical artists, pro-sumer artists, etc.) would flock to it if there was a "transformative" 3D art creation app released for it? The iPad Pro sells a fair amount each year, much of it due to how good it is at content creation. I doubt the VR headset would approach anything like those numbers. But if it can get enough of them, then potentially 1+ million sales are on the table.

Then again I could be completely underestimating the "Apple Effect" in overcoming the rather bulky and relatively invasive nature of HMD VR headsets.

Regards,
SB
 
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One thing The Verge guys mentioned was that AR objects would be lit by real lamps in the room, that is rendered to shade the object as if the light source for the shading was coming from the real lamps.

That's kind of a cool detail.
 
They showed the woman lounging on a couch while wearing the AVP but a more common scenario is people sitting at their desk with keyboard and pointing device nearby, for selecting multiple objects in a Finder window, for instance, or selecting and manipulating text not to mention inputting text.

Unless dictation works flawlessly.
 
One thing The Verge guys mentioned was that AR objects would be lit by real lamps in the room, that is rendered to shade the object as if the light source for the shading was coming from the real lamps.

That's kind of a cool detail.
The environmentally-lit UI is exactly what Bob Burrough, a former Apple engineer, was pushing for years ago.

 
Sources said Sony’s capacity means Apple will only be able to ship hundreds of thousands of Vision Pro at most next year.
At most, the Japanese company can supply between 100,000 to 200,000 units of OLEDoS per quarter.
Cupertino had asked Sony to expand its OLEDoS production capacity but the Japanese company refused, sources said."
 
That might explain the price tag - massive margins defined by supply constraints well below potential demand.

It's funny searching this up. Different outlets go with different headlines including demonising Sony...

Sony has refused Apple’s request to increase Vision Pro’s display production: Report​

Sony refuses to build more screens for Vision Pro​


There are zero details on Sony's manufacturing and decision making, and just one line and word in one article, but let's pass judgement anyway. :rolleyes:
I guess at some point Sony will explain to investors if not before.
 
Sony doesn't think Apple can move enough devices.

But if Apple signs a contract to buy x number of displays from them, what do they care?
 
But if Apple signs a contract to buy x number of displays from them, what do they care?
Precisely. If Apple were asking Sony to take the gamble, it's understandable they'd decline. If Apple are confident and will pay up front, it doesn't make sense for Sony to turn them down. Unless to cost to expand is more than the contract is worth and Sony doesn't see revenue from that expansion as offsetting the investment.

To understand the corporate decisionating involved, we need to know what the negotiation was. But Apple must have known Sony's position when they went ahead with Sony as a supplier.

Here's some investigation :


April 18th 2023:

We're learning today in a surprising supply chain report from The Elec that Apple's XR Headset will first use Sony's OLEDos displays. This is due to LG Display delaying investment in their OLEDoS production line. The delay could be significant, as in years.

The delays from both LG and Samsung could provide Sony with a multi-year lead for OLEDoS for Apple's XR Headset.
So Apple were looking at LG, Sony and Samsung, but LG and Samsung aren't able to supply, leaving just Sony. Presumably the issues affecting LG et al have some baring on Sony's position in growing the tech.

Samsung bought a US OLEDoS firm in May.

So short of going to another supplier like SeeYA, Apple are limited until LG and Samsung ramp production, or until Sony increase production. The most interesting question now being why Sony aren't keen to do that seeing as this is inevitably a growth market and they are one of the few companies able to supply at this point?
 
Maybe Sony wanted Apple to commit to years of production runs and Apple wouldn't do that, as they like to use multiple suppliers and play them against each other.

So maybe one production run would have covered Sony's costs but they wanted some longer-term guarantees than Apple was willing to give.

In any event, if Apple wants to sell this product at volume, they may look to reduce costs and maybe not use a display tech which is relatively new, so new that a lot of manufacturers don't have their lines up yet.
 
Growing oled layers on this big chunk of silicon is quite a fairy tale IMO &/or pet project. 4Kx4K on glass was already demonstrated by LG+Google years back. Probably the non-pro will be LCD because it's better fit with the pancake optics(pre polarized), handles short persistence better (possibly even line sequential), handles narrow wavelengths better (it was demonstrated by FB this can be the most important aspect for size reduction) even handles mura better and has better yield.
 
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Apple has been known to drop suppliers and hop to other suppliers or make the stuff themselves. I wonder if its just sony not wanting to have to invest money in a larger production capacity for a part that Apple can ditch at any time.

But also this could be a god send to Apple. If demand fell around this amount they could just blame it on supply.
 
Sony Eye-tracking?? Then why are Sony using Tobii? Or is Sony implementing the Tobii silicon?

Actually, some of this stuff seems to be coming from the photographics side. the Micro OLED displays are from Sony's EVFs for their digicams. These also incorporate eye-tracking for gaze-based focussing. I guess this is akin to what PSVR2 would be if designed by Sony Corp instead of SCEE and given a limitless pricetag!
 
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