Apple is expected to release a mixed reality headset in the coming year, but sticker shock is likely to be induced among the masses.
The best-selling virtual reality headset, the Meta Quest 2, retails for $400 and accounted for 78% of the nascent VR market in 2021, according to IDC. Consumers who want the next-generation technology are going to have to spend multiples of that.
Meta’s forthcoming high-end headset, codenamed Cambria, is expected to cost at least $800, the company said earlier this year. Apple’s unannounced device could reportedly cost thousands of dollars. That’s a hefty load for products in a category that’s yet to go mainstream. Just 11.2 million VR units were shipped last year, IDC said. Apple sells that many iPhones every few weeks.
Believers in mixed reality say that we’ll eventually be able to condense the technology into a lightweight pair of glasses with transparent lenses. But that’s for the future.
MacDailyNews Take: We can hear the simpletons already: Apple’s headset is the most expensive phone in the world and it doesn’t appeal to business customers because it doesn’t have a keyboard which makes it not a very good email machine.
Of course, Apple’s first mixed-reality headset won’t be for the mass market consumer.
The big, “pricey” VR headset will, in part, exist as a means for developers to build the next killer AR apps for true, light, powerful Apple smartglasses. — MacDailyNews, February 4, 2021
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An unknown product, with unknown features, and an unknown price will always provide fodder for definitive failure or success.
For a hardware platform looking for a killer app, this is exactly the right strategy.
This is why Apple card will allow paying in installments.
Existing 3D-world games will be first.
Remember: iPad was going to “start at $999 and go up from there. No way Apple could do anything else… well, unless that anything else meant planning in near instant scale and selling minions of them, with a starting price of $499!…
Most will say they will cost from $2k – $3k.
Cook is going to iPad the market sending Meta and everyone else totally scrambling…
Starting price: $999
MDN’s take: perfection
ugly design
You mean the design that we haven’t seen???
So, the company that made “the computer for the rest of us” is going to make a headset that “won’t be for the mass-market consumer”?
Adjusted for inflation, that computer for the rest of us cost over $7000.00.
It will just be interesting to see who their intended audience is. I am the owner of an Oculus Quest 2 and am waiting for the next iteration from Meta because I want higher resolution. All I use it for currently is the Supernatural workout app.