Comment by spiralganglion | Hacker News Reader

Comment by spiralganglion | Hacker News Reader

> Apple’s Vision Pro isn’t an iPhone moment, or at least, not exactly. At $3,500, it’s very expensive in the context of today’s consumer electrics market, where the iPhone launched for $600 (without subsidy, and then rapidly switched for $200 at retail with an operator subsidy)

This doesn't sit right with me. The iPhone launched at $600 into a market where most consumers were paying between $0 and $35 for a dumbphone. So while the absolute prices are different, the orders-of-magnitude difference between "what the typical consumer pays for a product in this category" and "what Apple is charging for their radical entry" is about the same.

(No, I'm not trying to say that Vision Pro is the iPhone moment for VR/AR — I agree that it's probably not. I just don't agree with this particular argument.)

It was $600 without a telco subsidy, which was a mistake, and one reason the first model really didn't sell. Then it went to $200 with subsidy in the USA (more complicated elsewhere). I presume you know that '$0' feature phone was actually $100 or so but subsidised to $0.

Absolute prices matter though right? People's salaries and expendable income is not relative in the end.

Well in my opinion cost is relative to the value it brings. I think by proposing such a jump in price, ($60 to $600 for iPhone, $300 to $3500 for Vision Pro) Apple is implying they believe that this breakthrough is worth more value to the end user. Whether they’re correct is for the markets to decide. But if I were to wager, I believe their constrained release of a (rumoured) million units will drive demand and carve themselves a nice premium chunk of the market.

So while absolute price does matter, I would say this product will result in the consumer waiting on upgrading their TV, sound system, or computer. With the vision pro, I’d be willing to trade off not having ‘bleeding edge’ tech in semi-stagnant fields such as display panels, audio interfaces, and laptops.

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