There are 270+ Apple stores in the US, I don't have the figures to hand but an overwhelming percentage of the country's actual population live within an hour of an Apple store. They are common, frankly.

I'm not defending the decision to require a store visit here, but lets not paint a picture of Apple store availability that doesn't exist. The number of people with disposable income in the US to purchase a 3500 dollar headset and actually want to buy one who aren't living under an hour from an Apple store is likely a very small list.

But I will to buy electronic gear or even to get my right AirPod replace that I dropped in the water when I was on a boat in Cabos…

If I were in the target market for the vision pro I would totally schedule an appointment and drive a couple of hours to get a curated experience and feel confident I'd come home with the right combination of lenses and everything.

In my dads case, music gear

I even know people who would drive from the even smaller places than where my parents live who would drive to my home town to go the mall, movies and Olive Garden.

Sounds like a serious shortcoming if you can't share the device with friends and family.

I get what you’re saying and it’s hard to describe (and never really does it justice) the experience of this technology. It’s something you have to experience yourself to understand.

Do you share the use of your tv with friends and family?

But there will be enough people who will by the headset for them to sell all they can make in the first year.

Likely the upfront issues would be getting everyone their personalized lenses, but actually using seems like it would be easy.

As for getting lost, Apple already has their AirTag technology. While I don't know if that's already in these lenses, it doesn't seem like it'd be difficult to add.

Heck, my dad loses his phone multiple times a week, necessitating a quick phone call to track it down. Are the lenses going to include built-in AirTags so people can locate them?

Heck, I’m even skeptical of the iPad. I own one and I use it so seldomly that I have to charge the thing up from 0 every time I use it. But I recognize that a lot of people love them as consumption devices and a few as creation tools for some niche purposes, such as digital painting.

Essentially pile up a bunch of mirrorballs. Point projectors at it. Then map where each pixel from each projector ends up on the walls/ceiling/floors.

Consoles, AppleTV, and iPads are at the lower end of the price range here, right? (Well, you can get an expensive iPad of course).

Laptop are expensive but personal, phones… definitely personal, tend to be a little more expensive maybe?

I dunno, it isn’t a straight line correlation but I don’t think the fact that the Vision Pro is expensive tells us much.

In have a Rift CV1, I enjoyed showing it off to people and got some party-game type things (Keep Talking And Nobody Explodes is great for showing the device off). But I don’t use it much solo, and I’ve shown it off to all my friends already, so I don’t use it much. Don’t get me wrong, it was fun, but it hasn’t integrated into my daily life.

If I were Apple—word of mouth is good, but I’d hope the Vision Pro becomes something that sort of gets embedded in people’s lives to the point where they don’t care to show it off (either because it becomes personal like a laptop, or because it becomes boring like a monitor).

I think we’re pretty clearly talking about a small number of contrary data points, here? I’m not trying to prove a general trend at least, just point out that we should at least double check the assumption that expensive implies shared.

If someone is really invested in that idea I’d love to see an argument for it, rather than silent downvotes.

Wrecking your first car is almost a teenage rite of package.

Again we are talking about people who are willing to spend $3500 on a headset. Not exactly the demographic of people who are “sharing a family car” and that don’t statistically have separate cars for the parents and don’t either buy their kids a car or subsidize them in some way to help them buy their own.

I know I never let either one of my sons drive my car alone and I bought myself a new car and handed my older one down to my older son and bought my younger son a car before he had a license.

However, we're talking about a 3500 US dollar (without tax) device and a novelty. Of course people are going to share it if they can.

As someone that wears glasses with VR, it’s awful. The light gasket presses against them, gets tangled. The band presses against them. I can see why they didn’t bother making it an option, since I often put my headset away because of the discomfort. This is why the quest pro has optional light blockers, and why I never use mine. Leaving enough room for comfortably wearing glasses would make things huge.

for the enthusiastic, apple is going to make it as low-friction as possible.

this is a slow game.

> for the enthusiastic, apple is going to make it as low-friction as possible.

Going to a store is not low friction for an enthusiast. We've already established that the price tag shuts out all but the enthusiast.

Apple enthusiasts will do anything to buy Apple products.

besides, not all apple enthusiasts are wealthy. some will prepare last minute, by selling furniture to make space and help fund the headset. it doesn’t matter if that sounds silly, if it happens.

this is why apple goes slow. bring the ecosystem enthusiast to the object by attempting to integrate the object into the ecosystem first. start with the most eager, guide them in, let them deal with the growing pains, convert enough to full believers in the new object.

public-ish beta with an exclusive-ish signup fee.

apple isn’t merely training enthusiasts in how to use a headset. they are training fans that sell product. enthusiasts talk. easiest way into the ecosystem is with a guide, and even better if that’s a friend or loved one not getting paid to do so.

the least important part about this product is the product. it’s expanding the ecosystem into new territory. show apple enthusiasts that perhaps they want to be xr enthusiasts.

There is still 4 U.S states that lack an Apple store entirely. It's not like Wal-mart or even Best Buy.