Apex Consumers, old school tech adoption and the Vision Pro

When v1 means rent don't buy

I’ve been fascinated by the reviews and discussions about the Apple Vision Pro since it started getting into the hands of early adopters.  I especially enjoyed the users (as in this article on Gizmodo) who book-ended their Vision Pro journey with unboxing videos (always faintly ridiculous) and then a couple of weeks later a why-I’m-returning-my-Vision-Pro video (serious in tone but also faintly ridiculous).

I’ll admit that my first thought was “Jeez, how about a little more commitment to exploring the v1 product – it’s shortcomings and amazing new capabilities?”

I come by the perspective about v1 products from experience. Early in my career, I spent a fair amount of time with v1 products, particularly early portable PCs made by my employers. Features and functionality, switching costs were pieces of the mosaic that became the marketing and communications plans we developed to help buyers justify the cost of these products which could be as much as $10,000. Each. We’d build arguments to help business users make the case that their company should shell out thousands of dollars so employees could send one or two more emails a day or finish a sales proposal over the weekend. Heck, I had to justify why I needed one of these $10,000 devices and I worked for the company that made them. But back then, when you got v1 of product, you stuck with it because what was the alternative? Go back to a typewriter? Or to that HP Vectra desktop I shared with two co-workers?

After cogitating on the Gizmodo article, I realized how wrong I was to question the commitment of these Vision Pro buyers. These people didn’t lack commitment. They are apex consumers.  For some, the experiences were impressive but didn’t quite deliver enough value to permanently part with $3,500. (Two good articles on the Vision Pro: “Why walking around in public with the Vision Pro makes no sense” and Tim Bajarin’s “Apple’s Ultimate Goal with the Vision Pro.” )

Apple’s general policy of allowing product returns within 14 calendar days of purchase enabled these buyers to try before really buying. Wicked smaht. Apple gets some user feedback, checks the box on phase one of seeding the market. Even better? A lot of developers who didn’t get the initial developer allocations will presumably get a shot at those refurb’d products.

I used to think that if you didn’t have shelves full of Handspring Visors, Nokia N95s or Microsoft Zunes, you weren’t doing technology adoption right. Heck, I still have the first gen of the AtHome cable modems that look more like the head of an engine off a late 1980s Scandinavian motocross racer than the gateway to 80 mbps bandwidth. (Or was it 8mbps? Trust me, it was faster than dial-up modems.)

Sigh. I’m still learning.