Analysis: Vision Pro headset is Apple's next Mac and TV combined

HTC

03/02/2024 15:11

(Adds Netflix comment in paragraph 3, adds details on YouTube
and Spotify in paragraph 4)
    By Stephen Nellis and Dawn Chmielewski
       Feb 3 (Reuters) - Apple's Vision Pro could upend how
people watch television at home and how they use computers at
work, potentially positioning the headset to be a successor to
both traditional television and the Mac.
    The $3,500 headset, which blends three-dimensional digital
content with a view of the outside world, landed in the
company’s physical U.S. stores on Friday. It enters a market
crowded with lower-cost rivals from Meta Platforms  META.O , HTC
 2498.TW  and others that have mostly been confined to the video
game market and failed to find a mass audience.
    Apple has had mixed results courting developers. Netflix,
one of the most popular consumer video apps, said late Friday it
is not making a new app for the Vision Pro, though consumers can
watch movies and series on the device's web browser.
        YouTube, which could not immediately be reached for
comment, said in a Bloomberg report that it is not planning to
launch a new app for the device but consumers can instead use
the Safari web browser. The music streaming service, Spotify,
also has not developed an app for the product's launch,
according to a person familiar with the matter.
  
    The pricey device comes with custom computing chips and
difficult-to-manufacture displays that rivals lack. Analysts who
have tried the headset say these features could make the device
a threat to almost every large two-dimensional screen at home or
work.
    Walt Disney  DIS.N  has quietly worked with Apple for years
on an app for the Vision Pro's launch, the latest in a history
of collaboration between the two companies.
    “When we saw this, it became evident it was a new canvas for
how we can tell stories in a way that hasn't been done before,”
said Aaron LaBerge, chief technology officer of Disney
Entertainment. “And so it became pretty obvious that we wanted
to do something here just as a way to stretch ourselves.”    
    The Disney+ app envelops movie viewers in one of four
environments, so they can watch “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,”
from the seat of a fictional X-34 landspeeder craft on the
planet of Tatooine, like a futuristic drive-in movie theater, or
catch “Avengers: Endgame” from inside Avengers Tower in midtown
Manhattan. Viewers can also watch 42 Disney films in 3D,
including box office hits “Avatar: The Way of Water,” “Black
Panther” and “Inside Out.”
    Jamie Voris, chief technology officer at Walt Disney
Studios, said filmmakers such as “The Lion King” director Jon
Favreau and James Cameron of "Avatar" are interested in telling
stories in new ways. Disney will soon introduce an experience it
teased in a clip screened at Apple’s Worldwide Developer
Conference last June, in which consumers interact with its
Marvel Studios animated anthology series, “What If?” 
    The device also opens new ways to experience live sporting
events or theme park rides, LaBerge said. 
    “It speaks really well to what we do best, which is bring
our characters and stories into the real world and bring you
closer to the people that you care about,” said Voris.
    It’s not clear that a mixed-reality device was what late
Apple co-founder Steve Jobs had in mind when he confided to
biographer Walter Isaacson that, in developing a next-generation
television, “I finally cracked it.” But to analysts like Ben
Bajarin of Creative Strategies, the Vision Pro seemed like it
fulfilled that long-ago promise.
    "I don't know if this is what Jobs meant when he said 'I
cracked TV,'" said Bajarin. "But the platform element is what
makes it more interesting than if they launched a TV. It can be
productivity. It can be social. ... It could become a much
bigger deal and a much bigger opportunity than if it were just a
TV."
    To be sure, the pricey Vision Pro will not be a quick
best-seller. In a note to investors, Bernstein analyst Toni
Sacconaghi said Apple has told its supply chain to expect to
build only 1 million units - and even that might be Apple
preparing excess capacity ahead of consumer demand. 
    Apple’s approach “suggests a lack of confidence that
consumers will feel compelled to buy immediately without needing
to be convinced by in-store demos,” Sacconaghi wrote.
    But the high price presents less of a barrier to business
purchasers. 
    Jay Wright, chief executive of Campfire, a startup that
makes software for using headsets to collaborate remotely on
three-dimensional files such as engine designs, noted that the
original Mac computer in 1984 cost the equivalent of nearly
$7,500 today. But small businesses flocked to the Mac for its
ability to create and print documents and brochures.
    “It's important to recognize this is not a consumer
accessory device, like Apple Watch. This is a whole new
computing platform,” Wright said. “I'm of the opinion that this
is more like what comes after the Mac than what comes after the
iPhone.”

 (Reporting by Stephen Nellis in San Francisco and Dawn
Chmielewski in Los Angeles; Editing by Peter Henderson, Lisa
Shumaker and Diane Craft)
 ((mailto:Stephen.Nellis@thomsonreuters.com;))