There was great excitement yesterday ahead of Apple’s most significant product launch since Steve Jobs unveiled the iPad in 2010. The technology company’s share price hit a record high before a demonstration of its Vision Pro headset at the company’s Cupertino headquarters.
Apple’s chief executive Tim Cook made some grand claims for the company’s latest hardware, including that the “mixed reality” headset would be used for “seamlessly blending the real world with the digital world” and that the new product represented “the beginning of a journey” in what Apple calls “spatial computing”.
But the excitement waned after the company revealed the headset’s price of $3,499, more than most analysts had expected and 12 times the price of Meta’s Quest 2 headset, the current market leader.
The launch date of “early next year” was also a disappointment as it ruled out a sales boost for this year. Read more about the launch event here.
In pre-market trading, Apple shares were down 2.7 per cent.
Testing the new technology: The FT’s San Francisco correspondent Patrick McGee was among the first to try out the Vision Pro headset. Read his verdict here.
Comment: The FT’s investment column Lex is unconvinced by Apple’s latest product launch: Are VR headsets a good use of its $166bn cash and marketable securities pile, it asks.
Here’s what else I’m keeping tabs on today:
US presidential election: Chris Christie, the brash former governor of New Jersey, is expected to announce his second run at the White House in New Hampshire.
Results: Food and beverage maker JM Smucker is expected to report that revenue and profit grew in its last quarter as demand for items such as peanut butter and coffee remained strong despite price increases.
Private equity: The annual SuperReturn International annual event, attended by executives at some of the world’s leading buyout groups, begins in Berlin today.
Five more top stories
1. A dam spanning Ukraine’s most significant river has been breached following an explosion. Russia and Ukraine blamed each other for the attack, which threatens “catastrophic consequences” for thousands of residents in nearby settlements and puts one of Europe’s biggest nuclear power plants at risk. Read more on the attack.
2. A severe shortage of cancer therapies is forcing thousands of patients to miss life-saving treatments, several leading healthcare organisations have warned. Experts said an increasing dependency on offshore manufacturing made the US healthcare system vulnerable to shortages.
3. Talks begin this week between Hollywood’s largest actors union and the studios over the use of “digital doubles”. Performers are worried artificial intelligence will reduce work and pay for actors and screenwriters as the threat of a strike looms. Read more on how AI is shaping Hollywood’s latest pay dispute.
4. The US securities market watchdog has sued Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange, accusing it of violations, including mixing billions of dollars of customer cash with a separate trading company owned by its chief executive. The Securities and Exchange Commission filed 13 civil charges in total against Binance and its founder Changpeng Zhao. The FT’s Alphaville has the details.
5. The US is prepared to address China’s “increasing level of aggressiveness” in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, a senior official said yesterday. The warning from John Kirby, National Security Council spokesperson, comes after two “unsafe” intercepts in recent days.
The Big Read
With Labour now consistently more than 15 percentage points ahead in opinion polls, the UK opposition party’s agenda for a future government is coming under scrutiny in the run-up to next year’s expected election. Senior figures led by Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer are piecing together a manifesto that represents a striking shift in the way the economy is run, despite its soothing, pro-business rhetoric.
We’re also reading . . .
A new Washington consensus: Strategic rivalry with China is central to America’s new approach to international economics, writes Gideon Rachman.
Digital nomads: The romantic dream of working wherever one wants has collided with realities such as tax and immigration, writes Sarah O’Connor.
Property: About half of large multinationals are planning to cut office space in the next three years as they adapt to the rise of homeworking since the pandemic, a survey has found.
Chart of the day
Over the weekend, India suffered its worst rail accident in decades. The disaster evoked the darker past of a railway system previously beset by under-investment in infrastructure, maintenance and rolling stock. But government safety data shows India has been reducing the number of train accidents since 1980. Our data visualisation team has been looking at the statistics.
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Take a break from the news
Go on a wild ride to South America’s northern tip with travel writer Ruaridh Nicoll, who documents an extraordinary journey through Colombia’s Guajira peninsula, a smugglers’ desert of snaking paths and ancient laws.
Additional contributions by Tee Zhuo and Benjamin Wilhelm
Source: Economy - ft.com
