At $3,500, the Apple Vision Pro is an expensive piece of kit. That money could pay for three iPhone 15 Pro handsets and still have enough for an Apple Watch Series 9 afterwards. Needless to say, it’s the kind of thing that’ll be too expensive for the majority of people to justify actually buying. But that still might not be enough to curb stock shortages.
Analyst Ming Chi Kuo believes that the Apple Vision Pro is likely to sell out very fast, “thanks to demand from Apple’s core fans and heavy users”. Kuo is predicting that the headset is likely to sell out shortly after pre-orders open at 8 a.m. EST/5 a.m. PST on January 19.
Should this be the case, anyone hoping to pick up the Apple headset is going to have to buckle down and wait a while for it to arrive. Because, at this stage, we have no idea how many headsets will initially be available or how quickly Apple would be able to manufacture more to fulfil backorders.
But the speed of initial sales is only one part of the equation. Kuo notes that sustaining that demand “after the novelty has worn off is even more important”. That’ll all depend on whether the headsets “product positioning and key applications are clear and correct”. Or, in other words, whether the early adopters are satisfied with the fact they just dropped almost four grand on a brand new kind of product.
Of course Apple says headset prices “start” at $3,499, which gets you one with 256GB of storage. That suggests there may be more expensive versions, possibly with 512GB or even 1TB of storage inside.
Before you get an expensive case of FOMO, just remember that the Apple Vision Pro won’t be the only Apple headset to be developed. We’ve already heard rumors about the prospect of a cheap Vision headset coming in a few years time, and it seems Apple is already looking ahead to that day.
Changes in the iOS 17.3 beta 2 code appear to have pulled the word “Pro” from any mention of the Apple Vision Pro headset. So a string that previously said “ “Mac, iPad, and Apple Vision Pro Apps” now says “Mac, iPad, and Apple Vision Apps”. Apple’s website also lists the product range as “Vision” rather than Vision Pro — though the headset itself retains the same name.
It’s an early indication that Apple is thinking ahead to the future of the Vision series. Ensuring that everything, even the depths of iOS’s code, are prepared for the possibility of future mixed reality headsets.
Who knows when that headset will actually arrive, but it should still be coming. So if you can’t get hold of a Vision Pro right away (assuming you have the money), it’s not like it’s your only chance to enjoy Apple spatial computing. And hey, the next generation may be cheaper. Possibly $1,500 to $2,500 according to Mark Gurman. While pricey, that’s still a pretty hefty price cut.
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