The “aspirational brand” value is a bit of Apple-ception, though. The really, really, luxury-level wealthy people buying Vision Pro, to inspire the just really wealthy people to buy the Vision Basic or whatever it’s called. It still is the price of the highest-end iPhone, and it’s far less functional.
I wouldn’t be surprised if they treated the Vision Pro as Apple’s version of the beta product - top-down rather than bottom-up testing.
I don’t see any evidence that this product line is intended only for rich people. Things are generally more expensive in the early adopter stage, and Apple doesn’t make anything that they don’t want to see widely adopted.
The original iPod held 5GB and cost $400 ($700 in 2024 dollars).
The original iPhone came in a 4GB and an 8GB model that cost $500-600 ($700-800 in 2024).
The iPod is gone, replaced by the ubiquity of the iPhone that it evolved into. The cheapest iPhone today is the SE at $430 and it wildly outperforms the original hardware.
If you want an MP3 player with as close to the specs to the original iPod as you can find, you can get one for about $20, and it still outperforms the original iPod.
If the Apple Vision line is successful, I expect to see $20 generic VR headsets that blow everything we currently have out of the water by 2040.
The “aspirational brand” value is a bit of Apple-ception, though. The really, really, luxury-level wealthy people buying Vision Pro, to inspire the just really wealthy people to buy the Vision Basic or whatever it’s called. It still is the price of the highest-end iPhone, and it’s far less functional.
I wouldn’t be surprised if they treated the Vision Pro as Apple’s version of the beta product - top-down rather than bottom-up testing.
I don’t see any evidence that this product line is intended only for rich people. Things are generally more expensive in the early adopter stage, and Apple doesn’t make anything that they don’t want to see widely adopted.
The original iPod held 5GB and cost $400 ($700 in 2024 dollars).
The original iPhone came in a 4GB and an 8GB model that cost $500-600 ($700-800 in 2024).
The iPod is gone, replaced by the ubiquity of the iPhone that it evolved into. The cheapest iPhone today is the SE at $430 and it wildly outperforms the original hardware.
If you want an MP3 player with as close to the specs to the original iPod as you can find, you can get one for about $20, and it still outperforms the original iPod.
If the Apple Vision line is successful, I expect to see $20 generic VR headsets that blow everything we currently have out of the water by 2040.