Apple has finally introduced the long-awaited augmented reality headset. What does this launch mean for the tech world? Will this virtual reality industry, finally breathe a sigh of relief or will there be a fiasco? Judging by the price, the second option seems a little closer. $3500 USD. in early 2024, the headset will first go on sale only in the United States. But this price is astonishing. And that's why they added “Pro” to the end of its name. this is a product for professionals. A cheaper version may come out in the future, but they preferred to start with Pro first. Even Meta Quest Pro, which is the strongest competitor to it, has subsequently reduced the price from $ 1500, to $ 1000. There are also non-Pro models available for $300-400. Of course, there are technological differences, but there are also similarities. And the most important and first obstacle for the masses, would be the price, it seems. After all, this is a new product category for Apple, and in new product categories, naturally the "early adopters", enthusiasts, and most importantly, developers the professionals and companies that will develop and sell applications over these platforms will get it. Immediately after them, those who see it as a status symbol, those who want to make a difference and show off to their friends, will try to acquire it, as much as they can afford it in installments or in return for their kidneys. Even before Apple announced its price tag, it felt the need to make it more rational by advertising it as “at the price of the most advanced computer and television you can get right now”. Now, let's leave the price aside and start the technical analysis of the business if you want. I don't know if you noticed, but they tried to carefully separate the game world from this product. They didn't mention any such flagship VR game in their promotion. Whereas, game enthusiasts are normally the most easily persuaded group and they are willing to spend the most money on such headsets. Instead, they positioned it as a productivity tool that could be an alternative to the personal computers. Just like Meta has positioned its own Pro model. In addition, they showed life-style examples within life. Or, they mentioned that it can be used for entertainment purposes, to watch TV series and movies, to look at panoramic photos or family videos that you have taken. And they even took, Disney+, which has positioned itself as the world's best storyteller, with them for this purpose. All these, hints that, the target audience may no longer be a narrow-niche community like gamers, but a much broader audience. They didn't say this directly, but it's not hard to guess that they really want to make these headsets the new iPhone. So, can such headsets replace the cell phones? Maybe, if they ever get as small and light as these glasses, but it would be naive to expect them to become so widespread until then, especially at these prices. No matter how technologically advanced something is, the price is the most important barrier in front of being widespread. Currently, the best-selling headset in the world are Meta's Quest headset, which are cheap, at a price of $ 400, and they were able to sell 20 million units in total. Microsoft's HoloLens, which was released for $3500 at the same price as Apple's headset, was able to sell a total of 300,000 unit. And that is, in 7 years from 2016 to today.. By the way, let me also mention that Amazon is the only one left out of the 5 big technology companies called Big Tech that has not released headsets. Apple has some differences of course. We know that they are successful in innovating existing markets by taking things that others have invented and optimizing, in a sense, reinventing the wheel. When I say this, I immediately think of the 2007 iPhone launch. I was using HTC at the time and it functionally fared much more than the first iPhone did. But the overall user experience was not well optimized. At the first iPhone launch, they immediately released a phone that was well prepared in this aspect, at a very affordable and accessible price of $599. Now, we watched a rushed launch. Despite the objections of some engineers working on the product within the company that it is not ready for the market yet and that it is too early for this launch, Tim Cook chose to quickly announce this product, which may be his most important legacy. There is another situation with such devices that is different from mobile phones. You cannot use it all the time. Take Meta Quest, for example. According to the Wall Street Journal report, less than half of what is sold remains in use after 6 months. In other words, nearly 10 million devices are immediately bought with enthusiasm, and then they are shelved. Is it because the product is bad, no. Those who try will probably agree, it actually offers quite fun experiences. But there are also some very important problems that need to be overcome.