Apple’s cheaper Vision Pro follow-up still won’t be cheap - The Verge

Of course it won’t . It’s Apple.

An iPhone is a useful communications device. I own one.

A MacBook is a useful usually-stable daily driver for work. I own one.

A VR/AR headset is a toy. And until, somehow, it isn’t, the Quest will continue to dominate on their lower end model simply because of the price point. If Apple do not want to compete for that market, that’s their choice. But I, for one, will not pay the prices they want for a toy.

This is the best summary I could come up with:

Mark Gurman writes in his Power On newsletter for Bloomberg today that the more affordable follow-up to the Apple Vision Pro will “likely” ditch the external display to help it reach an internally-discussed price point between $1,500 and $2.500.

Gurman also reiterates what he wrote in June — that the more affordable version will probably run on an iPhone-grade chip, have fewer cameras, and get lower-resolution screens inside.

Ditching the external display means Apple would lock one of the Vision Pro’s marquee features — EyeSight — behind the paywall of the more expensive versions.

EyeSight is the thing that lets you see an on-the-fly render of the wearer’s eyes so they can “look” at you when you’re talking to them, and so you can tell, at a glance, if they’re occupied or if they’re actually seeing what’s in front of them.

Gurman writes that in deciding to prioritize getting a friendlier-priced version out into the world, Apple shifted people to that and away from its technically-challenging AR glasses project.

Especially if the company has any hopes about drawing in people who haven’t yet decided if they want this sort of thing in their life — a challenge that’s far from unique to Apple.

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