When Steve Jobs Introduced the Macintosh computer 40 years ago This week, there seemed to be no limit to what this futuristic device could do or how many units Apple could move into it.Several 72,000 Macs shipped Sales in the first 100 days of release far exceeded Apple’s goal of 50,000 Macs, even at a price equivalent to $7,300 in today’s money.
But we would have made a big mistake if we treated these numbers as a sign of a company’s health. Apple would be unable to manufacture this machine at scale and would lose his PC war to the makers of knock-off beige boxes running MS-DOS and its successor, Windows. Within a year, Jobs would be ousted due to a boardroom feud. His company was destined to spend the next 12 years in the wilderness.
Apple’s Vision Pro is sold out
History does not repeat itself, but it rhymes. Something similar is happening today with Apple’s Vision Pro. Pre-orders for the $3,500 augmented reality headset are sold out. Apple hasn’t disclosed the number, but analysts estimate it to be more than 160,000. The price of the first Macintosh was halved and sales more than doubled his, but in 3 days instead of 50? Clear space on your technical history wall!
the bots are coming
It’s not that fast. The deeper you dig into these numbers, the worse things appear for Apple. Not only did sales appear to slow after the initial rush of early adopters, but not all early adopters did well. Most of them were scalpers, buying large quantities of headsets at a time so they could sell them on eBay.
Apple’s safeguards to prevent unscrupulous individuals from purchasing multiple Vision Pros failed, and “thousands” of units were reportedly sold to bot accounts. Mr. Kasada’s report, a company specializing in bot protection. Technically, he can only buy one Vision Pro per Apple ID, but Kasada discovered a script that allows him to get around that restriction. We also demonstrate that just one bot can generate multiple IDs and successfully check 1,592 Vision Pro pre-orders.
given that eBay sellers are already offering Vision Pro for up to $10,000 — a clear profit of more than $6,000 per unit — a huge incentive for scalpers who use bots to break the rules. Even at a modest price increase of $2,500 per unit, each bot selling a lot “equates to $4 million in profit,” Casada says. That’s quite a payday for a weekend job.
Therefore, the pre-sale numbers were distorted by scalpers. But even more bad news for Apple may be the fact that the Vision Pro’s ship date has remained consistent at around five to seven weeks from order. Comparing this to the iPhone, he says, the number of weeks he has to wait for a new model to be released can reach double digits.
Stable wait times “indicate that demand may taper off quickly after core fans and heavy users place orders.” Ming-Chi Kuo wrote, an analyst at TF International Securities and Apple’s global supply chain expert. Kuo called the Vision Pro a “niche product” and noted that pre-orders for the headset sold out with just 0.007% of Apple’s global user base.
So who is it for?
With Macintosh, the value proposition was clear. Here was the first mass-market point-and-click PC designed to be used by almost anyone. Graphic design, word processing, spreadsheets, everything is now accessible for the first time.
But when it comes to Apple Vision Pro, Apple has a hard time explaining exactly who needs it and why.of black mirror-style’s launch video is a great example. Its protagonist, Will, has never used Vision Pro before, and while an Apple product manager walks him through the steps of viewing a photo, entering an immersive environment, and launching an app called Encounter Dinosaurs, he says, “Wow! “That’s amazing,” I repeated several times.
But so what? What keeps Will coming back to Vision Pro after the “wow” factor wears off? Where are the repeatable “must-have” aspects, the sales-driving features known as killer apps? (No, killer dinosaurs don’t count).
To be fair to Apple, this is a common problem for VR and AR headset manufacturers. Interesting fact: 3 of the last 4 citations were “Killer Apps” in Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary These are all from articles pointing out that neither Meta Quest 3 nor Vision Pro has it.
Perhaps the killer app is the game. Perhaps it’s the fact that you can open multiple virtual monitors on your real desktop. (However, as someone who has purchased several external monitors over the past year, I’m really glad I no longer have to use a bulky, battery-hungry device strapped to my face.)
While we wait for the killer app, the mood of most technology observers is becoming hostile. After an initial burst of exciting articles from Apple’s hand-picked reviewers, we seem to be in the backlash phase. The headset gets buried in the closet.and how Vision Pro’s weight can cause neck pain and muscle fatigue.
Sales to date show that Apple is targeting its 1% (or 0.007%): wealthy hipsters who want to make their friends go “wow” before anyone else. It just means that they are successfully appealing to the public. Demonstrate new technology. And it succeeded in attracting scalpers who knew they could make huge profits selling headsets to hipsters, people who couldn’t afford to wait five weeks to show them off. did.
Perhaps a killer app will be found, but in that case Tim Cook will look more like Steve Jobs circa 1997, when the founder made his triumphant return. But at the moment, his appearance is a bit like Steve Jobs circa 1985. And these supposedly strong sales numbers aren’t helping.
