The announcement of the Apple Vision pro at its most recent news event, apart from surprising with glasses that combine augmented reality and virtual reality, the wrongly named "mixed reality"It made it clear that the sector is interesting enough for Apple to want to enter it and set trends. And one thing that is often said about Apple is that it knows when to enter certain technological sectors. That would mean that with the Vision Pro, Apple hopes that by then Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality will have developed sufficiently, but in view of its launch it has been forced to drastically reduce production forecasts.
It would be due to the complexity of the design of the headphones, in addition to the difficulties of production. It has been reported that they have had to reduce production targets, while plans for a more affordable version of the device have had to be postponed.
The Apple Vision Pro do not start off on the right foot and that they are still in their first production
Apple has already indicated that the $3.500 Vision Pro will not go on sale until "early next year«. Analysts have interpreted that the difference between that vague date and the one announced on June 5th is due more to problems in the supply chain than to giving developers time to create applications for the Vision Pro. It would not be difficult to rethink games like Beat Saber for the Vision Pro compared to the Meta quest.
Two people close to Apple and Luxshare, the Chinese contract manufacturer that will initially assemble the Vision Pro, said they it was preparing to manufacture less than 400.000 units in 2024. Other sources said that Luxshare was currently Apple's only assembler of the device. Two exclusive China-based suppliers of certain components for the Vision Pro said Apple I only asked them for enough for 130.000 to 150.000 units in the first year.
Both projections would imply a significant production cut from a previous domestic sales target of one million units in the first 12 months. The low volume forecasts would certainly reflect Apple's lack of confidence to expand production, after years of missing the device's launch deadlines.
One of the main obstacles is the manufacture of the device screens. They are two microOLED screens and an outward-facing curved lenticular lens. Apple would have been unhappy with the productivity of the vendors, especially with the performance of micro-OLEDs that are free of defects, and that would be the most expensive component.
Source: ArsTechnica
