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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