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2026:

“its hard to imagine life without augmented reality. Now google and Microsoft have their own offerings that are actually good. I love just looking at something in the real world and the system overlays important information over it that i can interact with. Before i would have had to take my phone out and search but this is so much more interactive. The sharing features are cool too“
This is when Apple would historically jump into the market and change it. When there is a clear use case and an identifiably large market. Nobody knew this better than Steve Jobs. Apple has never created a successful product for which a use case and market did not already exist.

You made an earlier comment about the iPhone and watch. The use case for these products existed prior to the introduction of Apple's products and the market size was already 10's and 100's of millions of users.

Perhaps if they do announce this product, it is a safe bet they will target the only use case and market that presently exists, gaming. Gaming is indeed an existing and large market. It would be an unusual step but Apple did say they were take a long view on gaming. So, maybe this whole AR/VR thing is more than goggles. Perhaps it is not simply a display device but an entire console reimagined?
 
If these estimates are true, my guesses that it would be under $2000 are wrong (does that make me an analyst? I can guess like anyone else). It has to be close to $3000 for Apple to break even including R&D and everything else.

Depending on features and function, I’m interested in this for an educational setting. It would be perfect for one of my courses.
It's not necessarily a given that Apple intends to break even on this first gen product. Margin isn't an issue on an early product entry that's is mainly intended to seed a larger long term business opportunity.
 

For context, here's a post from ColdShadow about the Apple Watch on July 7, 2015:

I'm not surprizes at all.
it failed because:

1-it was an un-necessary accesory for iPhone.

2-it has no real unique function in other words it was useless.

3-poor battery and it heavily drains iPhone's already average battery charge.

4-design was bulky and un-attractive.

5-the pricing of pladtic rubber bands was an insult to every human with average to high IQ.

I personally wouldn't want one even as a free gift.

Apple Watch will now become a hobby niche product.it will never change any body's life.it's nothing more than a fitness tracker.
 
No… no.

Comparing the ski goggles to spectacles is absurd.

I wear these pretty much all the time when I am at my Mac… Hours at a time. No problem. I cannot imagine strapping anything I have seen so far (from all manufacturers) to my face for hours on end, never mind that it has an extra battery pack?

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Okay you also missed my point like the other quote.

I know goggles aren’t glasses. I said if we can eventually get there. I understand this is not there yet. I’m talking about in 10 years glasses as a device would be useful.
 
People don't wear prescription glasses by choice. Sunglasses aren't commonly seen in bad weather either. Apple's headset needs to do more than overcoming the inconvenience of wearing glasses and having some neat but ultimately gadget-y tech built in.

Come to Australia 😎
 
3DTVs didn’t even take off because of the inconvenience of wearing glasses. I am skeptical
I'm skeptical of your claim that 3DTV's didn't take off because of the inconvenience of wearing glasses. It's one of many contributing factors, but I don't think they would have been significantly more successful if glasses had not been required.

Also, not all 3D glasses are created equally. I find shutter glasses to be visually uncomfortable because of the way they alternate between blocking the left and right eyes.


The Nintendo 3DS had glasses-free 3D, yet Nintendo didn't carry the technology into the Switch.
 
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I don’t believe that Apple will showcase a new product in a non-live (recorded) event.
 
Apple lost money on every single Airpods it sold for the first few months because the designers refused to compromise on the curvature of the case. No one has a clue what these things are going to actually cost.
This sounds like ********. The kind of old wives tales that you tell your kids so they don’t sneak out at night.

Edit: no offence to you personally
 
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It's pretty much a given that any new Apple product category is met with overwhelming skepticism while the competition pretty much gets a free pass. I would be more dismayed if there wasn't any (which would suggest a certain degree of indifference). The Apple Watch, Airpods and HomePod were each skewered at the time of release for various reasons, but consumers saw the value of the first two right away while the HomePod seems to have had a resurgence of late.

Likewise, what product team won't have its share of internal drama, conflict and back-and-forth along the way? I am also guessing that because Apple is currently working on multiple different form factors for their VR / AR headset, this has led to conflicting accounts because people may be conflating different rumours from different products and treating them as though they are all originating from the same source.

If you ask me, the more important considerations are in assessing the problems that headsets are tasked with solving and the product category’s feature runway. The long-term feature roadmap ends up being more important than what is announced at launch. However, those items have not received much discussion in the press ahead of WWDC, probably because they have no way of knowing as well.

One adage that has yet to let me down though - is that one bets against Apple to their own detriment.
 
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You have a (rumored) $3000/month mortgage payment? 😲 Even if Apple sells it at cost; you have a $1500/month mortgage payment? How oversized of a house do you have?
Where I live (outside of NYC) a "regular" 3-bedroom 2-bath 1600sqft house is $650K, which is a mortgage well over $3000/mo...

Where do you live, Nebraska? lol
 
LOL, Absolutely no one is looking for these things. how apple thinks this is a winner is beyond any rational thinking.
 
Going with the mentioned conservative cost of $1,600 (including labor and shipping), I'd predict a sales price of roughly $2,300.

Seems reasonable, especially considering it will include a suite of interesting productivity apps.

No doubt many here will still insist on clinging to the $3,000 price, a rumor that's been floating around for a long time here.

That gives people an opening to label the device a major flop. Which is always a crowd-pleaser here!
So profit margin will be 0?
 
Don’t focus on Apples cost instead focus on what it has and more importantly what can it do
 
Medical, hospital, surgeons, engineers, power plants, microbiology, botanic, security, AI..., Endless possibilities to be sold and used by the 1000'. Not just basement gamers: but the professional world is very much on need of instruments to advance their search and, or their “modus operandi”> The success is already assured. And Apple knows. Meta, Microsoft, and Alphabet were nothing but boys’ toys
Medical, hospital, surgeons = medical industry
engineers, power plants = energy & construction industries
microbiology, botanic = life sciences

That's three, possibly four industries.

So far, Apple has courted the consumer dollar more than the corporate dollar. Gamers aside, the consumer market for VR/AR headsets has proven tiny and very niche. If the corporate world had been hankering after VR/AR headsets, Microsoft and Google (who've tried VR/AR headsets and failed) would've beaten Apple to the punch long ago.

I think Tim Cook's credentials as a innovator are seriously on the line. For these headsets to be successful, they'd have to be an era-defining breakthrough – like the iPhone was. Tim Cook isn't known for being a visionary, he's a man who takes small, tentative steps into existing markets (such as wearables or earphones) with price points that are premium, but won't break the bank e.g. watch, earphones, smart speakers. Then, in typical Cook fashion, the price incrementally increases. That's vintage Cook.

These headsets are the first true test of a new product category where its competitors have already failed in a market that is tiny, at an eye-watering price point. The odds are that these headsets will either be a spectacular flop and it precipitates wider questions over Tim Cook's acumen, or conversely, Cook redeems his reputation as a one of the innovators of our times. My money is on the former.
 
People don't wear prescription glasses by choice. Sunglasses aren't commonly seen in bad weather either. Apple's headset needs to do more than overcoming the inconvenience of wearing glasses and having some neat but ultimately gadget-y tech built in.
Just checked... yep I have glasses on which I wear by choice instead of contacts or lasik. I like they way they look.

I'm not Corey Hart, but I wear sunglasses when it is bright, even on a cloudy day.
 
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