When was the last time you bought a gadget purely because it was good for your usage? Although we all would like to think our decisions are unbiased, there’s always someone or something that influences our purchasing decisions. It could be MKBHD rooting for Apple products or Jerry telling you Apple isn’t using too much titanium in their iPhone 15 Pro Max. It could be your friend asking you to check out this cool new smartphone. One such great example is the *entire* Apple product range.
No matter if you walk past YouTube Reels, TikTok, Instagram Shorts, or any video streaming platform, you will see people wearing that futuristic-looking “Apple Vision Pro”, isn’t it? Apple managed to add everything from XrOS to R1 chip to countless sensors, the majestic EyeSight display to a processor that can power a 16-inch Mac, all in a headset that users can wear and enjoy a seamless augmented reality experience that Apple calls ‘Spatial Computing’.
What if I tell you it is just a fad? Maybe the tech is futuristic, however, Apple is more likely leveraging its age-old strategy to make its product stand out as a status symbol and using internet influencers to channel the same vibe.
Apple Vision Pro: Gimmick or Groundbreaking Tech?
Apple Vision Pro, the Cupertino-based giant’s answer to the Meta Quest Pro series VR headset, made its announcement late last year. It has only been a few weeks since the $3,500 Apple Vision Pro went for sale and to be honest, it seems like it is everywhere. No matter if you check out your YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, or some other place else, you will find countless videos of people flaunting the futuristic gadget on a metro train, in a bus, on a flight, or even on a commode to name a few.
Vision Pro is a $3,500 spatial computing headset that made approximately $20 billion spent on R&D and for good reasons. Apple had to create everything from the software development kit (ARKit) that gave us 600+ Vision Pro-compatible apps today. Apple developed ARM core processors for the Vision Pro that could power a 16-inch laptop and yet, it sits on the headset. Countless sensors are keeping an eye on and contemplating your every move to make the changes in the spatial environment (since Apple doesn’t want us to call Vision Pro an AR or VR headset). Thus, a hefty $3,500 justifies all the tech that went into the making, right?
However, Apple is by far known as a tech company that leverages its products as a ‘status symbol’ rather than just a gadget. iPhones, Apple Watch and Apple Watch Ultra, AirPods, and Macbooks are all a part of Apple’s identity as a tech brand where if you have it, you have all the money in the world or at least that’s what the user would seem like to have.
In this age of virality thanks to short-form reels and shorts, Apple was able to don the cap of a tech company making futuristic gadgets with the Vision Pro enabling users to do almost everything while sitting on their couches. It is more like you aren’t holding an iPhone (as a status symbol anywhere) but the Vision Pro does the talking.
Okay, Vision Pro can do a lot of things but hey, at a quarter price, you can do a lot with VR headsets such as the Meta Quest series. It seems like Apple fans can do anything to get their hands on a trending Apple product even if it burns a $3,500 hole in their pockets with little incentive once you buy it.
According to popular sentiments, Apple won’t be selling too many Vision Pros due to the exorbitant pricing. The next thing you see, the second-gen Vision Pro is almost half the price and the sales numbers would eventually skyrocket. It could be Apple’s strategy to exploit more demand while constricting the supply creating a whole new category of users who would look out at Apple Stores when Apple would stock back the Vision Pros only to stock it out in a couple of days or so.
What do you think about Apple Vision Pro? Do you think it is a futuristic gadget that can satisfy many of your use cases or rather just a product of virality thanks to videos on TikTok and Reels that are disguising Vision Pro as gold dust?
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