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Tim Cook says $3,500 Apple Vision Pro is 'a great value'
- In an interview, Tim Cook said the $3,500 price of the Apple Vision Pro XR headset is “a great value.”
- He also said he doesn’t know if people will be able to afford it.
- Cook insists that the Vision Pro will help you “live in the future, and you’re going to do it today.”
Yesterday, at WWDC 2023, Apple took the wraps off its first new product in almost eight years: the Vision Pro. This XR headset has some very unique features, including a glass front with an OLED display underneath that shows the user’s eyes and facial expressions.
However, the thing people are most focused on right now is the price. The Apple Vision Pro will cost $3,500, making it the most expensive consumer-focused XR headset on the market. It is roughly 7x more expensive than the Meta Quest 3 and 3.5x as expensive as the Meta Quest Pro, which could be argued is its closest rival in the consumer world.
Apple CEO Tim Cook recently spent time with Good Morning America to review the Vision Pro. During the interview, co-anchor Robin Roberts asked Cook about the headset’s price. Specifically, she asked: “Do you think this is something that the average person will be able to afford?” Here is Cook’s response:
I don’t know. I think people will make different choices depending upon their financial situation and so forth. The engineering and depth of engineering in it is mind blowing. You’ve got more than a 4K experience in each eye. Of course, it doesn’t come for free. It costs something to do that, but I think it’s a great value.
There’s a quote from author Peter Ackroyd that applies well here: “The value is always in the eye of the beholder. What is worthless to one person may be very important to someone else.” In that sense, Cook is right: for a certain person, the value offered by the $3,500 Apple Vision Pro is terrific. As Cook puts it, the headset will help you “live in the future, and you’re going to do it today.” For some folks, that’s worth $3,500.
The big question is whether or not there will be enough of those kinds of people to keep the Vision Pro afloat. Apple clearly wants the launch of the Vision Pro to be an iPhone moment — a product that fundamentally changes the way people use technology. But given how many companies have tried to make XR an indispensable part of everyday life — and failed to do so — the road ahead is a tough one for Apple, and we’re not sure a $3,500 headset is going to turn the tides, regardless if it’s “a great value” or not.