Build suspense, then force your audience to sit through a two-hour presentation before announcing that your eagerly awaited, long-delayed virtual reality headset won’t go on sale until next year.
When Apple unveiled its VR goggles on Monday, the stock had fallen below an intraday all-time high. Possible culprits include a lack of engaging content, a high price and a 2024 release date.
Apple excels at elegant design and high-quality presentation. But is the VR headset a good place to put its $166 billion cash and securities hoard to good use? Limited battery life and bulky size still plague the industry. Meta’s VR unit reported declining revenue last quarter and an operating loss of nearly $4 billion. Apple has not released figures showing development costs.
The company’s curved ski goggle-style headset looks more comfortable than most. Twelve cameras and various sensors film the real world, which is then overlaid in VR – meaning wearers can immerse themselves in online life without tripping over shoelaces. The controllers are not handheld, but manual or voice activated. There’s a weird-looking display that shows the wearer’s eyes if someone’s nearby, and an annoying wire that connects to an external battery pack.
Display quality is high. The headset has 23 megapixels. As Apple says, it’s not just a 4K TV in front of each eye. It’s powered by Apple’s own M2 chip and a new one called the R1, part of its ongoing determination to reduce its reliance on outside suppliers like Qualcomm and Broadcom.
Apple is rarely the first to ship. LG Electronics released a touchscreen smartphone before the iPhone, and Samsung sold a smartwatch before the Apple Watch. But it has a track record of selling popular high-quality hardware versions.
However, Apple didn’t price its Vision Pro at $3,499 to suit the mass consumer. For example, they are seven times more expensive than the latest version of Meta. However, the presentation is not enterprise-centric either. Maybe it wants to start a new app marketplace from third-party developers.
To replace the iPhone’s importance to Apple’s revenue, it would need to sell nearly 60 million headphones a year. This seems unlikely. Fortunately, Apple has a way to experiment. Last year’s free cash flow was five times that of Meta. CEO Tim Cook is in a position to try out VR without betting Apple’s future on the technology.
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