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Apple Technology

Apple AR Headset Could Cost Consumers Over $2,000 (appleinsider.com) 67

Posted by msmash from the how-about-that dept.
Apple's long-rumored mixed-reality headset could cost consumers over $2,000 when it eventually ships, with a report claiming the expensive development and components justifies the potential price. From a report: The lengthly development process of the Apple VR headset has resulted in a long wait for its release, with a possibility of a launch in late 2022 or delayed into 2023. While it is anticipated to be a premium device, with pricing rumors between $1,000 and $3,000, Apple may be planning to go closer to the middle of that range. Apple has internally discussed price points for the headset "above $2,000," according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman in his "Power On" newsletter. Though Apple usually does charge a premium for its hardware over its rivals, the company is apparently doing so because of "some of its internal technologies."
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Apple AR Headset Could Cost Consumers Over $2,000 More

Apple AR Headset Could Cost Consumers Over $2,000

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  • Reasonable Price. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by splutty ( 43475 ) on Monday January 17, 2022 @12:27PM (#62180993)

    To be honest, that's a completely reasonable price for that kind of hardware.

    People will probably compare it to the Oculus or similar, which is only cheap because Facebook data mines the fuck out of everything you do, and would be double or triple the price if Facebook wasn't involved.

    • Yeah, it's really not an unreasonable "premium" price for something that doesn't require a separate GPU. Apple seems to be trying to follow the iphone strategy. Suppress the market with press releases until others develop the hardware to a certain point, then release a solid, competitive product, sell it for a premium while ignoring all previous and contemporary products and pretending they "invented it". I think it is not quite clear yet what will be the VR/AR breakaway hardware point that the capacitiv

      • Pfttt! Current pricing for VR/AR is doing a well enough job of suppression. Apple is just following the trend. You all want cheap you'll have to wait eight years till it's "old and busted, and the new hotness" is coming up.

    • Are we talking AR or VR? If VR then it would be comparable to the Oculus or similar but if we're talking true AR then the most comparable competitor would probably be the Microsoft HoloLens which, iirc, runs at about $3,500 and really isn't aimed at the consumer market (yet).

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Pascoea ( 968200 )
        This took more digging than it should have, yay editors. "Mixed reality: VR and AR" https://appleinsider.com/insid... [appleinsider.com] (It does say "mixed reality" in the summary, but I don't follow this tech that closely, I had no idea what that meant.)

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by tgeek ( 941867 )
      Reasonable price? Internal technologies? All bullshit. Apple is simply charging (or planning to) what the market will bear. If consumers are willing to pay a premium price for an Apple product comparable to other manufacturer's products, they'd be crazy not to charge it. Apple has been called many things, but rarely "crazy".

      • If there's one thing I learned from the "Is It Wrong To Mock People Who'd Opposed Covid Vaccines and Then Died of Covid?" thread,

        Here's to the crazy ones.

    • Re:Reasonable Price. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Monday January 17, 2022 @01:58PM (#62181319)

      which is only cheap because Facebook data mines the fuck out of everything you do

      No. It's cheap because a company like Facebook can easily absorb the development costs of a little side product. The hardware is not hyper expensive, and there's little reason for a headset to be worth $2-3k unless it's made of magic.

      But why compare it to Oculus? Does Valve mine your data to hell and back? I mean sure it's slightly more expensive but then it's also significantly more capable. What about Sony? What about HP, and HTC?

      None of these companies are producing headset in that price range. Stop excusing the Apple tax with whataboutism.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by Xenx ( 2211586 )
        In my opinion, it's over priced for the current consumer market. It's not overpriced, or at least not excessively so, if the pricing and hardware rumors are accurate.

    • Only for an Apple product

    • Re:Reasonable Price. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by real_nickname ( 6922224 ) on Monday January 17, 2022 @03:59PM (#62181699)

      To be honest, that's a completely reasonable price for that kind of hardware.

      How can you tell? You have no idea of what kind of hardware it is. It is unlikely to be crap but shit happens.

  • Does it come with a used car?

  • Track record for predictions on Apple (Score:5, Informative)

    by david.emery ( 127135 ) on Monday January 17, 2022 @12:35PM (#62181021)

    If you look at how accurate items predicting new Apple products, features and delivery dates, you'll find they're generally -piss poor-. But anything on Apple brings in the clicks, and the authors/hosting sites just hope no one remembers their previous failures.

    Caveat lector!

    • You mean like the iPod? https://slashdot.org/story/01/... [slashdot.org]

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by fermion ( 181285 )
      In fact this seems reasonable. Google Glasses were around this number. I did not buy them, although I had an early slot, because Google tends to not support consumer products.

    • Supply chain rumors can be fairly accurate, even a year or two out in some cases, but those just tell you what they’re working on, not what it’ll be called, when it will be announced, or what it will cost. That’s why perennial sharers of accurate rumors like Gurman and Kuo can nail technical details on the MacBook Pro months or even a year out, but rarely have a clue what the price might be.

      Which is to say, this rumor falls into the camp of “has no clue”. Apple’s pricing

      • Supply chain checks on Apple's complex and deliberately opaque supply chain don't work very well. There are times when they feel like "a stopped clock." In particular, the various supply chain rumors on the last couple years of iPhone production have often been way off. But here's a hint: Apple routinely reduces orders around this time of year for the current model. In part that's to switch production for next year's model. Keep that in mind when you read about "Apple cutting orders."

        (And I agree wi

  • That's nothing (Score:3)

    by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Monday January 17, 2022 @12:43PM (#62181033)
    wait till you see how much a set of casters for the thing'll cost.

    • Forget the casters, remember this thing will have 2 lenses. TWO. That means you'll need to buy twice as many overpriced Apple branded polishing cloths.

  • With the inflation at the current levels [washingtonexaminer.com], $2000 may not be all that much by the time the product is, actually, available at stores. Wait, did Washington Examiner said, 6.8%? How quaint — the Treasury [treasurydirect.gov] already says, it is (at least) 7.12%...

    • The Washington Examiner? That bastion of truth in journalism??

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by fermion ( 181285 )
      Typically tech equipment does not inflate t the prevailing rate. This is why most people do not buy stuff until it is needed. Wait six months and the cost will be less. The first MacBook I bought cost around $7,000 in todays dollars.

    • The prices of tech gadgets normally go down more than 7% a year. Unless they're Apple gadgets. Current chip supply issues will not last forever.

  • It's hard to say since it's still sorta vaporware, but that price point might actually be fine, depending on the market they are targeting. If it's commercial/enterprise and not consumer, then they could be going after MSFT's HoloLens niche initially, and then over time work their way down to "prosumer" and then consumer markets.

  • Rumored product has rumored price! News at 11! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by OzPeter ( 195038 ) on Monday January 17, 2022 @01:04PM (#62181101)

    So a product that nobody knows the specs of, has a retail price that nobody knows about. Colour me shocked.

  • This is basically in line with the initial product pricing, like the first Homepod pricing - too expensive for most people, so it's mostly just going to be a beta-toy for the rich folks.

    • Putting aside question of whether Apple products are overpriced, I'm amused at slashdot people who think purchases of a thousand or few are only for "rich" folk. Are most of them bag boys? Tech geeks can make north of $100K a year easily.

      • Putting aside question of whether Apple products are overpriced, I'm amused at slashdot people who think purchases of a thousand or few are only for "rich" folk. Are most of them bag boys? Tech geeks can make north of $100K a year easily.

        I keep wondering the same thing.

        I am by NO means wealth...but I have plenty of disposable cash that I save and by toys with.

        I generally drop a few $K on cameras and lenses of late, but I'm always looking for something fun.

        Hell, I mean $1K is only like 10 really good bar

      • Perhaps, but there's considerably more people that can more easily pay $200-300 than there are those that can pay $1000+ (simply because that second group is only a subset of the first).

        • Here in Chicago we have people at poverty level with $700-1000 phones... priorities in life not income seem to dictate if $1000+ thing is bought/financed

  • You'll have to pay extra for a special headphone jack and you'll only be able to use it with apple games. When non-apple game support is granted as an extra, paid-for feature it'll marke the other games in a funny colour.

  • More Bloomberg fabrication (Score:3)

    by presearch ( 214913 ) on Monday January 17, 2022 @01:18PM (#62181151)

    Apple hasn't disclosed anything about the product, if it's in development, features, or pricing.
    Yet, Bloomberg can keep churning on their own fumes, spinning air into clicks.

    It might as well be holographic retinal implants, powered by body heat and alpha waves.

  • But then Apple customers have amazing brand loyalty along with money to burn.

    • It's said that Sony is making the screens for this VR device, and it's also said that the next PS5 VR will be very high res as well -- implying that both devices use the same screen.

      It'll be interesting to see what the specs are, and how much PS5 VR costs compared to Apple VR. If I can get either without audio, gaze-tracking, head-tracking, and controllers (preferably for less cost), I think I'd be in on that. When I can read text in a VR headset, it's now a privacy screen -- and a screen that (with head tr

    • Even with "money to burn", both the use case, and software library is small for that money. It's like buying a Lamborghini and not being able to drive full speed and as reckless as one wants.

      • " It's like buying a Lamborghini and not being able to drive full speed and as reckless as one wants." and yet there are those that do. That's what keeps Apple blowing the roof off.

  • Bloomberg has a reputation for 'leaking' information that later turns out to be incorrect. They are more anxious to spread rumors than they are interested in verifying them.

  • Here's another report on it;
    https://arstechnica.com/gadget... [arstechnica.com]

    "this product is not the long-rumored, mass-market consumer AR glasses, which are still planned for several years down the line. Rather, this is a mixed reality headset (capable of both virtual and augmented reality) that is expected to cost at least $2,000."

    It smacks of Google Glasses, but maybe they have figured things out better.

  • I'm picturing Blade Runner 2049 or something similar.

  • I'm just not sure the technology itself really does?

    I mean, though I've seen a few "edge case" scenarios where VR gear makes a lot of sense (such as a training simulator for surgeons to practice doing procedures)? The general public is really only using this stuff for some video games right now.

    Ultimately, I think there's more of a future for augmented reality -- and even good AR relies on hardware that you can easily wear and forget you've even got it on. Big goggle type headsets are clearly NOT in that c

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