The next big thing from Apple is only days away. The Apple Vision Pro, first announced by Apple last year, will be available for pre-order starting at 8am Eastern on Friday, January 19, 2024. Two weeks later, on Friday, February 2, 2024, you will be able to schedule a demo of the Apple Vision Pro in an Apple Store to try out the product and purchase it if you like it. This is all in the United States; we don’t yet have a date for other countries.
Last year, we learned that the starting price would be $3,499. That remains true, and it is for a unit with 256GB of storage. I presume that Apple will also sell versions with more storage for a few hundred dollars more, but those specifics have not yet been announced.
If you have good vision, all you need is the device. If you wear glasses, you will need to purchase optical inserts made by ZEISS. If you just need something similar to reader glasses, that will cost $99. If you want to match a prescription, you will need to have a valid prescription and the lens cost will be $149. Apple has not yet provided details on how the process works for getting the prescription inserts. I believe that an eyeglasses prescription in the United States is valid for one year, so if your prescription is older than that, Apple may require you to get an updated prescription to order the lenses, but that is unclear.
I was a little surprised to see Apple provide all of this information yesterday in a mere press release. I thought that we might see another product video with more details on how it works. Perhaps Apple is saving that for February 2. The rumor is that initial supplies are limited, and those folks who are likely to be early adopters probably don't need to get even more information from Apple to decide that they want to buy one. As you might have guessed, I fall in that category.
As we learn many more details over the coming weeks, it will be exciting to see this news unfold. If the early reports are accurate, this will be a fascinating device to use.
Here is a fun video called Get Ready that Apple released last night to build excitement. It reminds me of the fantastic Hello video that Apple released before the iPhone first went on sale:
