Vision Pro: has Apple finally understood its mistake (if it was one) ?

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For years, Apple has continued to send signals showing its interest in augmented reality. And this year, it finally entered this market, launching the Vision Pro helmet. First offered in the United States, the headset is now arriving in France (and other countries). Opinions on the Vision Pro helmet can be divided, but in any case, if the product is not necessarily bad, we have reason to think that this first model will not have a huge commercial success. Indeed, although Apple customers are used to buying expensive products, the price of the Vision Pro is much too high. In the United States, the headset is sold for $3,499. And in France, it's worse, since the starting price of the Vision Pro is 3,999 euros.

Moreover, in the United States, if the Vision Pro was a hit during the pre-order period, signals subsequently showed a drop in demand for this mixed reality headset. As early as April, analyst Ming Chi Kuo indicated in a blog post that Apple had revised its production forecasts downward due to the reaction of the American market. “Apple reduced its orders before launching Vision Pro in non-US markets, meaning that demand in the US market fell beyond expectations, causing Apple to take a conservative view of demand in the markets non-American”, also indicated the analyst.

How Apple could rectify the situation ?

Did Apple overestimate the purchasing power of its customers ? Or, did the firm deliberately choose to launch the most advanced model possible, for this first version to better highlight the potential of augmented reality ? In any case, it seems obvious today that Apple must make an effort on price if it hopes to democratize its mixed reality platform. And the good news is that the latest rumors suggest that Apple has already revised its agenda to take into account the market reaction. A few days ago, The Information site (via The Verge) published an article indicating that Apple had indeed suspended work on a more advanced version of the Vision Pro and would now focus on the development of a more affordable model .

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The code name for this project would be N109. And the idea would be to offer a mixed reality headset with a high-resolution screen, like the Vision Pro, but on which certain features would be absent. In any case, in addition to lowering the price, this would also make this affordable version of the Vision Pro lighter. In fact, the weight would be reduced by a third. And the objective would be to market this new helmet from 2025. For the moment, we do not know how much the affordable version of the Vision Pro could cost. But other sources have suggested that Apple will aim for a U.S. price of between $1,500 and $2,500. In any case, if Apple manages to develop a headset that has the price of an iPhone 15 Pro Max with 1 TB of storage, without making too many concessions, sales could take off.

< h2>AI would also be a catalyst

Price is an important element, but for mixed reality to become popular, the uses must also be numerous. And the good news is that Apple has already made huge progress on this point. At the WWDC conference, the Cupertino firm indicated that the VisionOS catalog already offers more than 2,000 “spatial” apps designed for this platform. But in addition to this, users can also install more than 1.5 million apps designed for iOS or iPadOS, and which have been adapted for the Vision Pro. Via its Apple Arcade subscription, it also offers video games designed for mixed reality.

However, the arrival of AI on this headset could make it even more attractive. Unfortunately, Apple has only announced Apple Intelligence (a series of features based on generative AI) for a list of compatible iPhones, iPads and Macs. But Apple suggests that it could later launch Apple Intelligence on other products. “Certain additional features, software platforms and languages ​​will be available over the course of next year,” we read at the bottom of the press release published by the firm on June 10.

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