Apple’s Augmented Reality Faces Real Questions


在投资者抱有很高期望之际，苹果公司需要最新发布的头戴式设备Vision Pro成为一款新的热门产品。在今年剩下时间里，该公司要设法说服消费者，让他们真的愿意花费近3,500美元购买这款产品。


苹果的Vision Pro将在明年初发售，起售价为3,499美元。

苹果公司(Apple, AAPL)的增强现实(AR)设备终于成为现实。在今年剩下时间里，该公司要设法说服消费者，让他们真的愿意花费近3,500美元购买这款产品。 6park.com
Apple’s augmented-reality device is finally real. The company has the rest of the year to give consumers a real reason to spend nearly $3,500 on it.  6park.com
   
周一，苹果公司利用其年度全球开发者大会(Worldwide Developers Conference)的开幕主题演讲介绍了Vision Pro，这是一款AR头戴式设备，也可用于虚拟现实(VR)。数月来，关于这款设备的传闻已是沸沸扬扬。Vision Pro的设计与之前传闻中泄露的信息基本一致，外观类似于一副高科技滑雪镜，有一根电源线连接一块便携式外置电池。该产品将在明年初某个时候上市销售，起售价为3,499美元。 6park.com
Apple used the opening keynote of its annual Worldwide Developers Conference on Monday to introduce the Vision Pro, an AR headset that also allows for virtual-reality uses. The device has been heavily rumored for months, and the design was mostly in line with previously reported leaks, resembling a pair of high-tech ski goggles tethered with a power cable to a portable battery pack. It will go on sale sometime early next year at a starting price of $3,499.  6park.com
   
这一定价是Facebook母公司Meta Platforms (META)销售的Quest Pro头戴式设备目前售价的三倍多；之前由于销售疲软，Meta在今年早些时候将Quest Pro的售价下调了三分之一。苹果公司在高端产品定价方面向来大胆，而周一推出的Vision Pro在设计上无疑也比此前市面上已有的VR和AR头戴式设备更具有吸引力。 6park.com
That is more than three times the price of the Quest Pro headset sold by Meta Platforms after the Facebook parent slashed that price by a third earlier this year following weak sales. Apple has never been shy about trying to command premium prices, and the Vision Pro introduced Monday certainly offers a more attractive design than previous VR and AR headsets.  6park.com
  
苹果公司还试图改进此类设备用户界面的典型操作方式，Vision Pro使用眼球追踪和手势识别来进行操作，而不是手持控制器。Vision Pro采用苹果公司的M2芯片（即最新款苹果Mac电脑搭载的同一款中央处理器），以及另一款苹果自己研发的全新芯片，处理来自该头戴式设备的几个内置摄像头和传感器的输入信息。 6park.com
It also attempts to raise the game for user interface typical in such devices, as Apple’s headset uses eye-tracking and gesture recognition instead of hand-held controllers. The Vision Pro uses Apple’s M2 chip—the same central processor that powers its latest Mac computers—along with another, new in-house chip processing input from the several cameras and sensors embedded in the headset.   6park.com
   
不过，这仍是一个令人瞠目的价格，特别是考虑到该技术迄今为止只吸引了一个大多为游戏玩家的小众群体使用。这令苹果公司遇到了与Meta、索尼(Sony, 6758.TO)、微软(Microsoft Corp., MSFT)及其他大型科技公司面临的同样的问题，这些公司都曾尝试攻克让AR/VR设备成为主流消费品的难题。虽然有一些很酷的VR游戏，但还不足以让整体游戏市场认可这项技术。即使是Meta这样一家运营全球三分之一以上人口每天都会登录的社交网络的公司，也没能说服普通消费者相信该公司的“元宇宙”梦想。据《华尔街日报》(The Wall Street Journal)报道，截至今年2月，Meta的“Horizon Worlds”VR应用的用户数仅略超20万，之后该公司不顾立法者和儿童健康专家的反对，决定向13岁及以上的青少年开放该应用。 6park.com
Still, it is an eye-popping price tag, especially for a technology that has so far failed to garner more than a niche audience mostly comprised of gamers. That leaves Apple with the same problem faced by Meta, Sony, Microsoft and other major tech players that have tried to crack the code for making AR/VR devices mainstream. Some cool VR games haven’t been enough to get the broader videogaming market to buy into the technology. And even a company running social networks with more than a third of the earth’s population checking in daily hasn’t gotten the masses to buy into its “metaverse” dream. Meta’s “Horizon Worlds” VR app had just over 200,000 users as of February before the company decided to open it up to teenagers as young as 13—over the objections of lawmakers and child-health experts, according to The Wall Street Journal. 



全球市值排名第一的苹果公司市值已接近3万亿美元，该公司承担不起这款新产品沦为一个小众游戏设备的代价。Vision Pro是八年前苹果公司首款Apple Watch上市以来推出的首个新设备平台。苹果公司的大部分业务仍与iPhone、iPad和Mac电脑等硬件产品有关，这些产品所在的市场已经成熟，随着价格的上涨，用户更换这些新设备的频率在降低。FactSet慧甚对分析师进行的调查显示，在截至今年9月份的当前财年中，苹果公司的收入预计将下滑3%，未来两年的增长幅度预计仅在中个位数百分比区间。 6park.com
Apple, the world’s most valuable company with a market capitalization now approaching $3 trillion, can’t afford to just make a niche gaming device. The Vision Pro represents the company’s first new device platform since the first Apple Watch went on sale eight years ago. Most of Apple’s business is still tied to hardware products such as the iPhone, iPad and Mac computers that inhabit mature markets that users are refreshing less frequently as prices rise. Apple’s revenue is expected to slip 3% in the current fiscal year ending in September and to rise only in the mid-single-digit range for the next two years, according to analysts polled by FactSet.  6park.com
   
但投资者抱有很高的期望；自年初至开发者大会召开之前这段时间，苹果股价已累计上涨39%，创2012年以来同期最大涨幅。该公司真的需要一款新的热门产品。 6park.com
Yet investors have high hopes; Apple’s shares had jumped 39% since the start of the year before the developers’ conference—the stock’s biggest run in that period since 2012. The company could really use a new hit. 



苹果将需要一个杀手级应用，才能使Vision Pro有可能成为这样的热门产品。这就是为什么该公司要向其开发者社区大力推广该设备；周一两小时的主旨演讲有三分之一是关于Vision Pro的。这也解释了苹果为什么给了这款设备如此之长的交货期；与之类似，首款Apple Watch从发布到实际上市经过了八个月。 6park.com
Apple will need a killer app to even give the Vision Pro a chance of being that hit. This explains why the company is pushing the device hard to its developer community; one-third of its two-hour keynote on Monday was devoted to the Vision Pro. It also explains the long lead time Apple is giving the device for going on sale, similar to the eight months that elapsed between the announcement of the first Apple Watch and its actual launch. 6park.com
   
Apple Watch最终成为一款成功的产品，根据Visible Alpha的平均估计，该产品去年产生了近180亿美元的收入。但这需要一段时间的积累，它是一款中规中矩的设备，在健康监测和运动跟踪方面有明确卖点。这款与外置电池有线连接的头戴式设备恐怕将是苹果最难卖的产品。 6park.com
The watch eventually became a successful product, generating nearly $18 billion in revenue last year, according to consensus estimates from Visible Alpha. But that took a while to build up, and it is an unobtrusive device with clear selling points in healthcare monitoring and exercise tracking. A face-mounted computer cabled to a fanny pack will be Apple’s toughest sale yet.