The first to cross the river with Apple's Vision Pro was actually this Chinese company

你会买Vision Pro吗？

Text/He Yiran

Editor/Liu Yuxiang

Half a year after its release, the long-awaited Apple Vision Pro is finally going to be launched.

On January 19, local time, the Apple Vision Pro, which starts at $3,499, officially opened pre-orders, and the first batch of products will be sold in the United States on February 2. Apple CEO Tim Cook said: "The Vision Pro's revolutionary and magical user interface will redefine the way we connect, create, and explore. On his social account, he said passionately: "This will open the era of spatial computing." ”

Eighteen minutes after the sale, the U.S. website showed that the stock was sold out, and two hours after the sale, the shipping date was scheduled for March. The news that "Apple's first headset is on pre-sale is hot" immediately made prominent headlines in major media outlets, with some commentators even exclaiming that "VR has ushered in an 'iPhone moment'".

This exceeded Apple's previous pessimistic expectations. Because of the high selling price, the media unanimously questioned that it may be affected by this. According to supply chain news, Apple has significantly reduced orders for headsets from 1 million to 400,000 units in mid-2023, while delaying plans to launch a lower-priced version. At the end of 2023, Ming-Chi Kuo, an analyst at Tianfeng International, revealed that Apple's Vision Pro was only stocked up initially of 6-80,000 units.

With such a small supply, Apple only needs to rely on the support of the world's senior technology enthusiasts to create a hard-to-find scene.

The price increase of Vision Pro in the market has also risen, and the purchase price of domestic scalpers was once as high as 90,000 yuan, although the price has fallen now, but the purchase price is still between 33888-46666 yuan.

This scenario is a bit like when Google Project Glass went on sale in April 2012, when the AR (augmented reality) glasses were priced at $1,500 (about 9,300 yuan), and the purchasing price was 12,000-20,000 yuan. and the HoloLens glasses for commercial institutions launched by Microsoft, priced at 27,388 yuan, but the market price can be sold for 42,800 yuan.

It is generally tech enthusiasts who spend a lot of money on these products. If the money is not enough, you can also choose Huaqiangbei's "low substitution". In Huaqiangbei, you can find a headset product similar to Vision Pro, "special price 1999", but in addition to watching movies, "I can't do anything else." ”

01

Huaqiangbei can't be copied for the time being

Vision Pro is not a pioneer in AR/VR, or even belated.

IDC estimates that global AR/VR headset shipments will be 8.5 million units in 2023, and Meta, as the absolute leader in the industry, occupies 50.2% of the market share, with more than 4.3 million units. Using this as a standard of comparison, the production scale of the Vision Pro shows that Apple's expected market share in 2024 is only in the single digits, which is completely incomparable to Apple's position in the mobile phone industry.

But obviously, Apple's style of play is still very Apple's, that is, to come up with products that are ahead of the market with breakthrough innovations and occupy the highest-end market.

Vision Pro is equipped with a desktop-level Apple M2 chip and R1 chip, equipped with a high-transparency Micro-OLED display, with a screen of 23 million pixels, built-in 1 LiDAR (LiDAR), 2 depth cameras, 2 groups of sensors, which can track the user's eye movements, can take depth photos and 3D videos, 6 microphones, users can use gestures, eyes or voice operation control, equipped with visionOS, not only can watch videos, but also surf the Internet, Social networking and even gaming are powerful mobile smart terminals.

The Vision Pro can be said to be a collection of all Apple's strengths in software and hardware. Apple positions the Apple Vision Pro as a "spatial computing device", not just virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), mixed reality (MR). There is no competitor with the same combat power in the market.

Even if it is as strong as Google and Microsoft, it will be difficult to replicate the Vision Pro for a certain period of time, first of all, it lacks a high-performance and low-power chip like Apple's M2, and can only rely on Qualcomm's Snapdragon products. Not to mention the "copycat machine" workshops in Huaqiangbei.

The high-imitation iPhone is equipped with the magic Android system, the mobile phone industry chain is relatively more mature, and there are indeed customers who buy high-imitation iPhones in the market, but this time, the copycat factory has to face the subtle psychology of customers in addition to the towering technical barriers. As the boss of Huaqiangbei's stall said to the media, "You can still wear high-imitation Apple mobile phones and Apple watches to 'show off' and 'install them', and my high-imitation Apple watches only sell for more than 100 yuan, and you can only play on the sofa at home with this headset, and others can't see it, so there are few people who naturally buy it." ”

The market is small, and copycat factories naturally have no motivation to "magic change", after all, it costs money to open a mold, not to mention the lack of a mature software and hardware supply chain.

In fact, the Vision Pro's high cost is even a struggle for Apple. Industry analysts believe that the development and manufacturing cost of Apple's Vision Pro parts is very expensive, and despite the high price of the product, there is no room for profit, and there is a high probability that it will still lose money and make money. Some investment institutions directly said in the research report that the boosting effect of Vision Pro on Apple's stock price is "insignificant". Ming-Chi Kuo also believes that the Vision series cannot be the subject of a deal at this time.

To some extent, the Vision Pro is more of a future-oriented experiment at the moment, and it is not enough to become a mass-market consumer electronic product now, and it is more like Apple is exploring and adjusting its long-term plans.

Apple has long been regarded as the company with the strongest ability to integrate software and hardware, with a total of nearly 37 million registered developers worldwide. The Vision Pro is Apple's first new product category since the release of the Apple Watch in 2015, and the first new computing platform developed by Apple during Cook's tenure.

Traditional XR application development is difficult to be compatible with 2D and 3D content, which greatly increases the cost and difficulty of development, and Apple has opened up the development interface between Vision Pro and iOS, so that 2D and 3D can be compatible with each other, and has also designed a set of standard UI frameworks and interactive methods that are more in line with Apple users' operating intuition.

Vision Pro is aimed at veteran tech enthusiasts, most of whom are app developers and business users. Rockwell, Apple's vice president in charge of the project, listed healthcare, training and education as key areas for the Apple Vision Pro.

To some extent, developers have since had an iOS-designated XR development device, which will help drive the number of XR applications and contribute to the formation of an XR developer ecosystem. From this point of view, it is understandable that the device is named Pro.

What Apple wants to show the market is its own control over long-term development, and it wants to make headsets jump out of the scope of home entertainment and expand to a wider range of application scenarios, radiating to various fields. As long as Vision Pro can become a basic tool for universal use on the production side, Apple's current purpose has been achieved.

Cook is a very cautious person who cares about seizing the right moment, and capturing the consumer side is the next stage for Apple to consider.

02

Apple VS Microsoft

Although the market size was not large at first, Apple still needed the Vision Pro.

No matter how confident Cook is, there is a real need for some good news to boost confidence in Apple.

At the beginning of the new year, with its strong performance in cloud and generative AI business, Microsoft surpassed Apple twice on January 12 and January 20 with a market value of 2.89 trillion and 2.963 trillion US dollars, becoming the world's most valuable company.

Since the iPhone disrupted the consumer electronics market in 2011, Apple has long been the world's largest company in terms of market capitalization, and only Microsoft has barely been able to attack it. Every time Apple is overtaken by Microsoft, it will cause the market to worry about its development.

"Microsoft is in a much better position. Apple is still trying to find the next breaking point. ”

In 2023, Microsoft's stock price has risen by nearly 60%. As the major shareholder of OpenAI, Microsoft has fully introduced artificial intelligence into its business territory, and the accurate layout in the field of AI has boosted the optimistic expectations of the capital market for future development. It can be said that Microsoft is the most limelight company in 2023.

In comparison, Apple has been unremarkable in the past year, just on track to implement the planned tasks. In terms of the main product, the iPhone15 series continues to "squeeze toothpaste" to improve performance, and consumers' willingness to replace the phone is not strong, so that Apple has to "go against the ancestral teachings" to significantly reduce the price of promotion. In the new product, the Apple car that the outside world has been waiting for for many years has been missing.

In November 2023, Cook said at the earnings briefing that Apple is investing heavily in generative AI. According to statistics, Apple has acquired more than 20 AI technology companies and has been expanding its AI talent recruitment efforts. Objectively speaking, Apple's iOS, Siri, real-time voicemail and other functions are the concrete embodiment of AI application in the consumer side, but new products have not been seen for a long time, and "old wine in old bottles" is far from meeting the market's expectations for the world's first.

Judging from the financial report, the iPhone is still the absolute pillar of Apple. Third-party data shows that in 2023, Apple's market share in high-end smartphones (over $600) will drop from 75% to 71%, Samsung's market share will rise from 16% to 17%, and Huawei will rebound to 5%.

Especially in the Chinese market, Huawei's preemptively released Mate 60 directly made the market performance of the iPhone 15 unsatisfactory. Since the launch of the iPhone15, there has never been a rush to buy, but it has frequently appeared in the media because of the "price dive".

It can be said that the headset is the only product that Apple has surprised the industry in 2023. Even with professionals as the main audience, its performance on the consumer side cannot be too far and continue to undermine the confidence of the outside world in Apple.

Some American media believe that Vision Pro is Apple's most serious marketing challenge in recent years.

According to reports, Apple has prepared the most complex presentation process in history for the Vision Pro that lasted 25 minutes. The store staff will need to scan the customer's face to select the most suitable accessory size, and then have the customer calibrate the device before the official presentation can begin.

As you can imagine, in addition to consumers who are very interested in themselves, ordinary passers-by have plenty of time to experience the headset. This means that Apple store staff have to find target users to achieve precision marketing, and they can't watch users try out prototypes on their own in a store with bright windows as usual.

According to the actual experience of retail store employees, the headset feels tired after half an hour of wearing, and even if you choose to wear it with dual headbands, it is still not enough to alleviate the discomfort of wearing it for a long time.

A number of companies are already developing accessories that improve the wearing comfort of the Vision Pro, and Apple itself is stepping up the development of complementary products. To establish a new signboard, we must stabilize the reputation of the first users. For developers who sit in the office for long periods of time, looking at the computer screen every day has made the cervical spine miserable. If the headset increases the burden, it not only objectively limits the user's use time, but may even trigger a wave of returns.

All of the above made the front-line clerks in Apple stores feel the marketing pressure rising sharply when they look at Vision Pro.

These concerns are reflected in the stock price, which has risen after the Vision Pro launch, but not by a large margin. The market may be waiting for end-user reviews of the Vision Pro.

Microsoft's HoloLens glasses have won orders from the U.S. military, with a total contract size of up to $21.88 billion, and will produce 120,000 sets of HoloLens for the U.S. Army in 10 years. But last year, Congress reduced the Army's request for the first $400 million in procurement funding to just $40 million to improve the system, and the Army provided an additional $125 million for continued development.

Microsoft has stumbled on the HoloLens glasses project, and it's hard to say that the more technologically complex Vision Pro will be smooth sailing.

In addition to HoloLens, Microsoft also has the card of Open AI, while Apple does not have many cards on AI.

03

Is the war on smart headsets started?

In fact, not only does Apple need new computing products to prove that it still has the ability to innovate, but the market is also looking forward to new smart terminals to boost sales.

With the decline in the frequency of smartphone replacement year by year, the decline of global consumer electronics may continue for a long time.

Previously, due to Meta's dominance in the AR/VR industry, the concept of headsets and the metaverse was deeply bound. However, after the explosion of generative AI, the metaverse with narrow application scenarios has become a thing of the past.

At present, the outside world's expectation for Apple is to get MR/VR/AR devices out of the shackles of immersive gaming experience and virtual space socialization, turn the headset into an AI application landing carrier, and generalize the use scenarios to office, life and other fields, Apple has put this expectation in the hands of iOS developers.

At present, Apple's expected annual sales are less than 1 million units, which means that the number of users of the device is likely to stay at the million level.

Industry insiders said that every adjustment and upgrade of MR equipment means that it is updated in multiple dimensions such as computing power, field of view, resolution, refresh rate, control mode, input and output mode, which means that the difficulty of developing and updating related software has also increased exponentially. Developers have invested a lot of costs, and it is difficult to get returns that meet expectations from users, so we can only count on Apple to come up with more direct incentives, otherwise the speed of the MR ecosystem is really doubtful.

From the perspective of consumption habits, the mobile Internet has shaped consumers into accustomed to receiving information in fragments, quickly updating existing information, and becoming less and less suitable for fully immersion to focus on one thing.

When it comes to using a mobile phone, users can juggle a lot of things. The MR headset, on the other hand, focuses on an immersive experience, where the user can hardly take care of other actions, must give a lot of continuous time and high attention, and must have a physical space that will not be disturbed casually.

This means that users have to change the habits of using electronic products cultivated by smartphones, and the intangible cost of using MR equipment is much higher than that of smartphones.

To some extent, it seems that everyone involved in the MR field has not yet found the most suitable idea for combining virtual reality.

However, the idea determines the way out, and the consumer-level smart terminal market is sluggish, and all manufacturers can only hope that the head manufacturers will go out of a new market and drum up new surprises. After the failure of the Google Project Glass project, Microsoft's HoloLens was once the hope of wearables, and now the "hope of the whole village" is the Vision Pro.

Even if the Vision Pro is expensive, even if the first users are enthusiasts, and even if the initial use is more likely to be a commercial scenario, if there are more and more developers, the technology is more and more mature, and the cost is getting lower and lower, what if one day there is a "killer" app, and the consumer market suddenly opens up?

Maybe at that time, it will be the time for Huaqiangbei and even domestic manufacturers to follow up.

The closest product to Vision Pro on the market now is the new generation of VR product Quest 3 released by Meta at the end of September 2023, which uses the new Snapdragon XR2 Gen2 processor, equipped with binocular 4K+ ultra-clear image quality, equipped with 4 tracking cameras and 1 depth sensor, which enables it to scan the surrounding environment, and the virtual world composed of 3DCG is integrated with the real world, similar to Vision Pro, improving the video pass-through effect.

At the time, Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg declared at the press conference that it was "the world's first mainstream mixed reality headset".

Now that the Vision Pro is here, Meta's Quest 3 has a direct competitor. In fact, not only Meta and Apple, but also the smart glasses market, which has been dormant for a long time after the failure of Google Project Glass, seems to have rekindled the war this year.

At this year's CES2024 exhibition, the mainland manufacturer Skyworth Digital launched the Pancake2 MR terminal equipment, which uses a monocular 4K resolution Mrico-OLED display, two 16 million RGB cameras in front, which is consistent with the VST technology route adopted by Apple's Vision Pro, and the main processing chip is Snapdragon XR2 Gen2.

Samsung is also planning to launch a "Galaxy Glass" mixed reality headset this year, which will be powered by a Qualcomm processor and the operating system will be created in collaboration with Google.

The Skyworth Pancake2 and Quest 3 are both equipped with Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2 Gen2 chips, and the collaboration between Samsung, Qualcomm and Google has sparked speculation that the Galaxy Glass may be Android's response to the Vision Pro.

In the mobile phone market, it is now Apple's A series chip + iOS system VS Qualcomm Snapdragon chip + Google Android system to compete with each other, and the launch of Vision Pro, regardless of temporary sales, will stimulate Qualcomm and Google to follow up.

These underlying technology manufacturers have increased investment to make breakthroughs, so that smart glasses can truly enter the consumer market, so that Xiaomi, vivo, OPPO, Skyworth and other downstream manufacturers have the opportunity to improve and launch similar products, and Huaqiangbei's copycat manufacturers can also benefit from it and launch "low-replacement" products.

The Vision Pro is like a bait that Apple has cast on the vast sea of the consumer market, causing ripples to attract more competitors to join in, jointly promote technological breakthroughs, and expand the market.

This time, I am afraid that domestic manufacturers will also observe first, and then invest in follow-up strategies after seeing that it is feasible. After all, technology requires continuous and firm investment, not opportunism, which is missing from weak domestic manufacturers.