Andrew Orr
Apple has established a reputation for introducing innovative products, albeit at a premium price point, and the potentially higher cost of the Apple Vision Pro may not necessarily impede its success.
On Monday, the company finally unveiled the highly anticipated mixed-reality headset. Due to its initial price of $3,499, the launch trajectory of this product may deviate from Apple's typically more affordable offerings.
But the latest report from Consumer Intelligence Research Partners (CIRP) points out that Apple products consistently maintain a premium price point and still manage to be highly desirable and widely adopted. At this stage, it's impossible to predict if the Vision Pro will become the next essential device, but Apple isn't at its peak yet.
The seamless integration of software, services, and hardware within the Apple ecosystem contributes to the company's competitive edge. The report examines the iPhone, iPad, and Mac and the statistics of their ownership.
For instance, over 40% of Apple device users who are under 45 years old possess all three products, indicating their strong commitment to the Apple ecosystem. Conversely, among users aged 55 years or older, slightly less than one-quarter own all three products, suggesting a comparatively lower level of adoption within this age group.
It might be expected that older, potentially more affluent customers would have a higher prevalence of complete ecosystem ownership due to the premium prices of Apple products. However, this assumption does not hold.
Number of Apple products owned by age of owner as of March 2023Older groups, typically less familiar with technology, are less inclined to own multiple Apple devices. On the other hand, younger people who own Apple products tend to own multiple devices and actively engage with the Apple ecosystem.
These younger customers have many years of technology purchases ahead of them. Like their parents, they will continue to acquire and use machines that weren't yet in existence during their youth, but they will already be established as Apple customers when those devices are introduced.
As Apple continues to enhance and refine the Vision Pro, the headset's price will likely decrease over time. This price reduction may make the product more appealing to younger users who may not possess the same financial resources as their older counterparts.
Consequently, they may be more inclined to purchase the headset and drive its adoption. Even if the Vision Pro doesn't supplant the iPhone as a primary computing device, it probably won't fail as a product.
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Malcolm Owen
Amber Neely
Christine McKee
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Marko Zivkovic
21 Comments
I love the product vision - but my concern is that it's just too expensive especially for first gen product. You know that there will be annual updates and in the first few years enough advances that will make this obsolete very quickly. The product execution, however, sure puts Meta's VR headset to shame. :) Can see this more as an enterprise tool in the future - especially as a tool to control remotely automation, robotics for enterprise and government/military segments. I personally don't see myself sitting around all day at work wearing this. I don't even wear head phones.
Young people didn’t see any cool games and won’t spend 3,500 for the headset, so it won’t be successful then
I agree with the article. While the price for this is high, it’s not that simple. High end gaming headsets require a special high end computer to go with it, bringing the total cost equal to this, or to exceed it. Younger people are buying those. But these are also much simp,er headsets. They in no way equal what thus does. Even what they do that this does isn’t done as well.
but there are headsets that are being made, and sold to business. Many of those exceed $3,000 and even $4,000. They still don’t equal this. Microsoft has a contract with the military here for $1.5 billion, for a militarized HoloLens, but that hasn’t been successful yet, after several years. Still not as good.
Apple doesn’t expect to sell millions of this first gen. device. I’ve heard numbers bandied about from 100,000 to almost a million, in the first year. No doubt a second gen. will be less expensive.
I believe that the younger generation will buy into the concept, but not the price. Even though they may have the money, they’re not buying up other headsets because most of the others dont have a use beyond gaming, except hololense and they’re more expensive and do a lot less.
“For the rest of us.”, which means a price that can be swallowed during this era of financial insecurity. If not, this thing is another cube.
I don't think the problem with at least some of the older groups is lack of familiarity with technology. It's just that older folks are less enamored with shiny objects, less likely to buy things they can't afford.
I'm not in line to buy. I'm in one of the "older" groups and I've got plenty of Apple stuff - MacBook Air S1, HomePods, apple tv, iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, probably more. $3,500 is just too steep. Maybe I'll change my mind.
There will be plenty of killer applications for this device and the price will come down. Can't you imagine how the online dating apps are going to use this tech?