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Comment by PedroBatista | Hacker News Reader

It's an expensive toy for rich people. The good news for Apple: there are quite a few rich people in the World and Apple is a respected brand.

I also thought the Apple Watch was a gimmick, but apparently they have been selling tons of those.

This Vision Pro thing is different from the watch but also might not be that different, just "up scale".

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This is the cheapest and most polished dev kit ever.

Compare it to the Playstation 1 dev kit. In 1994 dollars it cost $15,000 for a full devkit.

[1] https://www.retroreversing.com/official-playStation-devkit

Except for every device that doesn't need a separate dev kit for development.

A better comparison would be 2024 Quest dev kit which costs less than half of Vision.

Except that wouldn't be a first-gen product and doesn't have the same capabilities so no... that wouldn't be a better comparison. Does a Quest Dev Kit even exist in 2024? I thought you just buy the headset now?

> Except that wouldn't be a first-gen product

And that's... a downside?

I never said that. I was only arguing against the idea that that was an equal (or more suitable) comparison.

It seems like it’s also a dev device. Reports are that Apple is working on cheaper versions so the Vision pro provides an early adopter market and high spec device for developers. In a few years when they go for a mainstream launch there will already be an app and game ecosystem.

Different from a watch, some kind of mixed reality wearable will eventually replace phones and laptops, I am sure. It might still be several decades till the technology fits in a pairs of eyeglasses.

Consider this your 2050 preview, like the Apple Newton to your iPhone.

So true. The same is valid for many other (almost ridiculous) expensive items: watches, bags, shoes, cars, wines, perfumes… There are many rich people out there that need to differentiate themselves from us plebeians :-)

I recently watched a video that speculated that middle class people mostly bought those designer brands to appear rich. Rich people generally don't need/want Gucci and whatnot plastered all over their person. I'd buy that argument.

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