Serial leaker Jon Prosser this week released a video concerning Apple’s forthcoming AR Glasses including the design concept, name (“Apple Glass”), price ($499 plus prescription, if needed), release date possibilities (Q421 or Q122), and more.
Gene Munster and Andrew Murphy for Loup Ventures:
Across its entire product ecosystem, including hardware and software, Apple has monetized its design advantage to achieve scale quickly. Apple Watch, for example, became a $5B business in less than three quarters from launch. Apple is now the world’s largest watchmaker. Apple’s core competency in design is widely appreciated by Apple users but under-appreciated by investors as an economic driver.
We continue to expect Apple to launch some sort of AR glasses in 2022.
The launch timing is uncertain, but one thing is clear: design will be central to Apple’s success in the glasses market. Apple’s track record with wearables, dating back to the EarPods, gives us confidence that Apple will lead the way in the augmented reality glasses category as it emerges over the next few years.
As wearables become the dominant mode for our digital interactions, Apple is well-positioned to own the future of personal computing.
MacDailyNews Take: Apple were “well-positioned to own the future of personal computing” with iPhone, too, yet Google, Samsung, etc. were able to steal the product with impunity or, in Samsung’s case, a slap on the wrist – just as Microsoft had done with the Mac prior.
As soon as Apple shows them how to do it, the copycats will be working overtime to knock off Apple’s innovations as always. Apple is, and has long been, the R&D center for the tech industry. As always, the ignorati of the world will snap up fake Apple smartglasses to go with their fake iPhones like the cheapskate value-illiterates they are.
The good news is that, in the case of the iPhone, Apple did and continues to own the market as measured by revenue share which is infinitely more important and valuable than unit share (anybody can ship boatloads of cheap junk at break even or less to amass unit share, as Samsung and 600+ other fragmandroid peddlers know all too well).
See also: Apple’s iPhone X made 5 times the profit of 600 Android OEMs combined — April 18, 2018