Uploaded January 2024 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Three THOUSAND, Five Hundred Dollar. Plus, of course sales tax. And if you don’t have perfect eyes (like me, these are only for the ladies), another $150 for the Zeiss lenses to bring you up to the baseline for non-faulty humans. And while Meta, the new, more stupid name for Facebook is topping out thier face covers at about 500 bucks, I’m here to tell you why Apple’s REVOLUTIONARY Vision Pro is an amazing deal, and not some crazy stupid amount of money. And I brought recipts.
Back at WWDC 2023, Apple raced through what would normally take 2 hours, introducing the 15” MacBook Air, Mac Studio, M2 Ultra and Mac Pro all introduced within the first 15 mins, and it was 3 mins before Tim even appeared to say “Good Morning”. Then Apple hurried through iOS, iPadOS, MacOS, Audio & Home the grand finalie, watchOS leaving the last third for “One More Thing” - Vision Pro.
And while the Apple headset had been rumoured before the event to have a high price point of 2-3000 dollars, the reveal of the ACTUAL price of “starting at $3499” drew gasps from the WWDC crowd.
But in context, is it that expensive? Bear in mind what you’re getting hardware wise, and then we’ll talk about the utility and what you could save.
Vision Pro has three displays. The two for you, the wearer’s eyes are a pair of micro OLED displays, each with more pixels than a 4k tv in a unit about the size of a postage stamp. And they’re bright enough that to fry your retinas if Apple decided to. Then there’s another display on the outside specifically to terrify anyone who comes near you while you use it, showing your eyes on the outside.
Those demon eyes are driven by just a few of the 12 cameras on Vision Pro which along with 5 sensors, 6 microphones and accelerometers that feed positional and situational awareness to the M2 and mysterious realtime R1 processors that make it all work.
So that’s the hardware, all for $3499. Well, starting at that price, with 256gb of storage. I’m assuming you’ll be able to double that storage for $200 just like on a Mac, but who knows how much you’ll need. But what is $3499 in the context of Apple’s current lineup?
Right now, the cheapest 16” M3 Max MacBook Pro would cost you $3299. That is a pretty big, powerful and portable Laptop. Certainly more productive than Vision Pro, do if you’re looking for just productivity, it’s probably not for you. However, Vision Pro may just be a bargain monitor for your Mac.
Apple’s own 6k Pro Display XDR is $5000, and a measely 32”. A 100” TV worth having is well over $3000, and Vision Pro can go to an effective 100 feet. Remember how I said Vision Pro could cook your eyes? The displays on the headset top out at an incredible 5000 nits, vs the Pro Display XDR’s mere 1600. Apple Vision Pro also has a higher refresh rate too, one of the most important things to me.
But if you are one of those people for whom massive amounts of displays is what makes a setup better, with Vision Pro you can place them anywhere in your space, even above you with those automagically angling themselves towards you.
A MacBook can’t make your unreasonably large bedroom into an office filled with uncanny valley facetime avatars either. It can’t send dinosaurs to attack your face. But it also can’t play back spacial videos of your family, which thankfully you can now record on, admittedly only the latest Pro iPhones. But honestly, if you don’t own the latest and highest end iPhone, you’ve almost certainly not set your alarm for Friday to get your hands on one of the 60-80,000 Vision Pros that Apple has ready to go for America anyway.
So for now, Vision Pro may be a niche toy for many, (I mean not that many obviously, they’ve not made many), it certainly has it’s utility, it seems like it would be genuinely incredible for those travelling for work, often alone. Turn your hotel room into a pretty incredible workspace. Entertain yourself on the plane with immersive visuals and noise-cancelling AirPods. Freak out the Air Hostess with your glowing eyes in the dark. Can you really put a price on that?
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Three THOUSAND, Five Hundred Dollar. Plus, of course sales tax. And if you don’t have perfect eyes (like me, these are only for the ladies), another $150 for the Zeiss lenses to bring you up to the baseline for non-faulty humans. And while Meta, the new, more stupid name for Facebook is topping out thier face covers at about 500 bucks, I’m here to tell you why Apple’s REVOLUTIONARY Vision Pro is an amazing deal, and not some crazy stupid amount of money. And I brought recipts.
Back at WWDC 2023, Apple raced through what would normally take 2 hours, introducing the 15” MacBook Air, Mac Studio, M2 Ultra and Mac Pro all introduced within the first 15 mins, and it was 3 mins before Tim even appeared to say “Good Morning”. Then Apple hurried through iOS, iPadOS, MacOS, Audio & Home the grand finalie, watchOS leaving the last third for “One More Thing” - Vision Pro.
And while the Apple headset had been rumoured before the event to have a high price point of 2-3000 dollars, the reveal of the ACTUAL price of “starting at $3499” drew gasps from the WWDC crowd.
But in context, is it that expensive? Bear in mind what you’re getting hardware wise, and then we’ll talk about the utility and what you could save.
Vision Pro has three displays. The two for you, the wearer’s eyes are a pair of micro OLED displays, each with more pixels than a 4k tv in a unit about the size of a postage stamp. And they’re bright enough that to fry your retinas if Apple decided to. Then there’s another display on the outside specifically to terrify anyone who comes near you while you use it, showing your eyes on the outside.
Those demon eyes are driven by just a few of the 12 cameras on Vision Pro which along with 5 sensors, 6 microphones and accelerometers that feed positional and situational awareness to the M2 and mysterious realtime R1 processors that make it all work.
So that’s the hardware, all for $3499. Well, starting at that price, with 256gb of storage. I’m assuming you’ll be able to double that storage for $200 just like on a Mac, but who knows how much you’ll need. But what is $3499 in the context of Apple’s current lineup?
Right now, the cheapest 16” M3 Max MacBook Pro would cost you $3299. That is a pretty big, powerful and portable Laptop. Certainly more productive than Vision Pro, do if you’re looking for just productivity, it’s probably not for you. However, Vision Pro may just be a bargain monitor for your Mac.
Apple’s own 6k Pro Display XDR is $5000, and a measely 32”. A 100” TV worth having is well over $3000, and Vision Pro can go to an effective 100 feet. Remember how I said Vision Pro could cook your eyes? The displays on the headset top out at an incredible 5000 nits, vs the Pro Display XDR’s mere 1600. Apple Vision Pro also has a higher refresh rate too, one of the most important things to me.
But if you are one of those people for whom massive amounts of displays is what makes a setup better, with Vision Pro you can place them anywhere in your space, even above you with those automagically angling themselves towards you.
A MacBook can’t make your unreasonably large bedroom into an office filled with uncanny valley facetime avatars either. It can’t send dinosaurs to attack your face. But it also can’t play back spacial videos of your family, which thankfully you can now record on, admittedly only the latest Pro iPhones. But honestly, if you don’t own the latest and highest end iPhone, you’ve almost certainly not set your alarm for Friday to get your hands on one of the 60-80,000 Vision Pros that Apple has ready to go for America anyway.
So for now, Vision Pro may be a niche toy for many, (I mean not that many obviously, they’ve not made many), it certainly has it’s utility, it seems like it would be genuinely incredible for those travelling for work, often alone. Turn your hotel room into a pretty incredible workspace. Entertain yourself on the plane with immersive visuals and noise-cancelling AirPods. Freak out the Air Hostess with your glowing eyes in the dark. Can you really put a price on that?
Join the conversation
iCaveDave.com/twitter
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iCaveDave.com/youtube
iCaveDave.com/merch
iCaveDave.com/discord
