Apple Vision Pro Plan Includes Launching Initially Just at Apple Stores in 2024

Apple is in need of a new growth engine, but its sales strategy for the Vision Pro won’t provide it. Also: An in-depth look at the company’s decadelong health initiative — including what’s planned for the Apple Watch — and the first M3 Macs debut.

Last week in Power On: Apple set to unveil a trio of M3 chips alongside new iMac and MacBook Pro models.

Apple Inc. is in need of something to help restore revenue growth. Heading into its quarterly earnings report this past Thursday, Wall Street believed the company had that: a strong holiday period.

Analysts had predicted that sales would grow a healthy 5% in the December quarter, snapping a yearlong slump. But Apple soon quashed those hopes. On a conference call with analysts, the company said this year’s holiday period would be “similar to last year.” In other words, revenue will be roughly flat or possibly even decline again, marking the fifth sluggish quarter in a row.

Now, Apple blamed some of the weakness on currency fluctuations and a calendar quirk — there’s one fewer week this quarter than in the year-earlier period. But the company also warned that revenue would decline for the iPad and its Wearables, Home and Accessories segment.

It doesn’t help that Apple hasn’t released a new iPad all year, the first time that’s happened since Steve Jobs launched the product in 2010. Though the company introduced new watches and AirPods — two pillars of its Wearables business — they were just minor updates. That makes the current holiday season a tough comparison with last year, when shoppers had more reason to upgrade.

Apple could have tried to rush out more new products, but revamped iPads and AirPods aren’t yet ready. The company plans to update its entire iPad lineup during 2024. New low-end AirPods are coming next year as well, with a refreshed Pro model following in 2025.

One thing Apple can do to boost revenue is raise prices, and it’s beginning to pull that lever. The company just boosted subscription rates for TV+, Arcade and News+. While none of those services is as popular as iCloud storage or Apple Music, the increases should help keep that division growing.

But to truly reinvigorate its business, Apple needs one of its hallmark “next big things.” In that vein, the company is preparing to enter the mixed-reality and electric vehicle markets.

A car is still a ways out: The company doesn’t expect to ship anything until later in the decade. So that brings us to the Vision Pro headset, Apple’s foray into the mixed-reality industry. This is set to arrive “early next year,” but it’s becoming clearer and clearer that the product won’t be a major moneymaker for some time.

During the same conference call with analysts, Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook laid out a go-slow approach to selling the device, which mixes virtual and augmented reality.

“There’s never been a product like the Vision Pro. And so we’re purposely bringing it out in our stores only, so we can really put a great deal of attention on the last mile of it,” Cook said during the call. “We’ll be offering demos in the stores, and it will be a very different process than the normal grab-and-go kind of process.”

While he didn’t elaborate, I reported in July that Apple is planning to require shoppers to make appointments to pick up and try on the Vision Pro. There also will be special Vision Pro areas in its flagship stores for curious customers. And the international rollout will be measured. The Vision Pro will launch in the US only, before heading to the UK and Canada as early as the end of the year.

It’s worth noting that Apple also required appointments in the early days of selling its smartwatch. That product ultimately became a big seller, but only after Apple dropped the approach.

Within weeks of launching the watch, Apple reverted to a traditional “grab-and-go” process. And the company soon began offering the product at resellers like Best Buy and Target — something that won’t be happening with the Vision Pro.

Apple could ultimately change its sales approach for the headset. But it’s a complex product, with different headband sizes and — for people who wear glasses — prescription lens attachments. Customers also may require more coaxing. Wearing a watch isn’t a foreign concept for most consumers, but paying $3,500 for a mixed-reality headset certainly is.

So that’s the conundrum for Apple. The Vision Pro isn’t going to be an easy product to sell. And if Apple wants to turn it into its next growth engine, it will need to sell a lot of them. Based on the company’s own remarks, that’s probably not going to happen anytime soon.

An extensive look at Apple’s health initiative, including what’s coming to its smartwatch in the future. This past week, I published an in-depth look at Apple’s health push, detailing the origin of the effort, a secretive noninvasive blood-sugar sensor development program and concerns within the team about the group’s management. I don’t want to spoil the full article, but the most interesting bits, I think, are about the projects that Apple has abandoned and what is yet to come.

The company worked on, but tabled, a bathroom scale with advanced sensors, a nightstand device that can monitor your sleep, a nutrition tracker within the Health app, and most notably, Apple Watch support on Android. It also explored creating its own health-care clinics, which would have rivaled Crossover Health, One Medical and Forward.

As for what’s coming later, I’m expecting the Apple Watch to gain two new sensors in 2024: one for blood pressure and another for sleep apnea. The company is also developing a paid health coach feature for the iPhone and Apple Watch. And, finally, I would expect the noninvasive blood-sugar sensor later this decade.

Apple unveils M3 chips, refreshed iMac and new MacBook Pros. Here’s what’s next. If you’re an avid Power On reader, Apple’s launch event on the eve of Halloween wasn’t exactly a surprise. I wrote two weeks ago that Apple was planning an event for that time frame — with the M3 Macs as the focus. As we expected, the company ended up introducing three chips: the M3, M3 Pro and M3 Max. And those processors are going into two new Macs: updated iMacs and MacBook Pros.

Let me start with the chips. Apple had no choice but to launch three new components at the same time. The company has always aimed to put the regular M3 chip in the updated 24-inch iMac, and it needed the more powerful M3 Pro and M3 Max processors for the high-end MacBook Pros. So it couldn’t use the more staggered approach of the M2 generation.

Here are my thoughts on each:

The Mac hardware updates themselves are only impressive if you care about the processors. The MacBook Pro gains better brightness on the display — for content that isn’t high-dynamic range — and a new “space black” color, but not much else. That’s not unreasonable when you consider that this is the second MacBook Pro update of the year. With the iMac, last updated more than two years ago, there’s less of an excuse for phoning it in. There are some internal changes, but it’s otherwise the same computer.

As for why Apple started off the M3 switch with the iMac and MacBook Pro: There is only a finite amount of 3-nanometer processors available, with much of the supply going toward the iPhone. So Apple started with two of its lower-volume machines. While the Mac Studio and Mac Pro sell in even fewer quantities, they would require a successor to the M2 Ultra, and that hasn’t yet gone into broad testing.

One other thing to note: Our previous reporting on Apple’s testing of Mac chips gave a very accurate picture of the core counts in this new lineup. Look out for M3 Ultra and M4 chip reporting in the future. As for what’s next, expect new 13-inch and 15-inch MacBook Airs in 2024, plus a Mac mini. A new Mac Studio is also in development.

Q: Will Apple continue to release several new M-series chip variations at the same time?Q: What feature on the Vision Pro are you anticipating that Apple hasn’t discussed?Q: Why hasn’t Apple released USB-C Mac accessories yet?

Email me, ask on the Power On Discord, or you can always send me a tweet or DM @markgurman.

I’m on Signal at 413-340-6295; Wickr and Telegram at GurmanMark; or ProtonMail at [email protected].

Get Tech Daily and more Bloomberg Tech weeklies in your inbox: