Tim Cook calls $3499 Vision Pro a "great value" but isn't sure consumers can afford to buy it

Unless you were asleep all day yesterday, you probably know all about the Apple Vision Pro. It's Apple's spatial computer aka AR/VR headset and as Apple deftly put it at WWDC, it is the first Apple device with a screen you look through rather than look at. It's a rather cool device and while some were not impressed, it still gives us an idea of what Apple's AR spectacles, which truly will be the next big thing from the company, will look like in terms of user experience.

For some, the biggest story yesterday about the Vision Pro is the price tag; the device will cost $3,499 when it goes on sale early next year. Speaking to Good Morning America this morning, Apple CEO Tim Cook might have been trying to justify that price by calling Vision Pro the "most advanced piece of electronics equipment out there." The executive added, "It's tomorrow's engineering, today," Cook told host Robin Roberts. "So you're going to live in the future and you're going to do it today."

Cook also sounded unsure about whether the device could be a hit at $3499. When asked by Roberts whether the average person will be able to afford the Vision Pro, Apple's CEO replied, "I don’t know. I think people will make different choices depending upon their financial situation and so forth. The engineering and depth of engineering in it is mind-blowing. You’ve got more than a 4K experience in each eye. Of course, it doesn’t come for free. It costs something to do that, but I think it’s a great value."

That Cook is a fan of augmented reality isn't a secret. He has called himself "AR fan number one," and said this morning, "We started working on augmented reality quite some time ago because we saw it as a big idea, as a profound technology," Cook said. "This is the next chapter in that, and it's a huge leap." TF International analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, the man who knows what the soup of the day will be in the Apple cafeteria on July 23rd, 2025, says to expect Apple's AR glasses to be released in 2026 and 2027.

So yeah, Apple's AR specs are tomorrow's story and the near future belongs to Vision Pro. Considering the hype that swirled around the introduction of the device, it's no surprise that some of the phrases used in the introduction of the Vision Pro aped those used by the late Steve Jobs when he unveiled the iPhone in 2007. Several times Apple said that Vision Pro worked like magic, something that Jobs said about the iPhone when it was first introduced.

As for Cook, Apple's current chief executive gushed about the things that Vision Pro could do, "You can immerse yourself in movies, TV shows, sports, and feel like you're right there. You can take photos and videos and then enjoy those and bring back memories as if you were there and repeating that experience. "It's not about one thing, it's -- it is a platform," the CEO stated.

During the interview, Cook also weighed in on the current controversy over the use of conversational chatbots like Open AI's ChatGPT and Google's Bard. Besides concerns about AI chatbots replacing humans in certain jobs, AI can deliver false answers which are known as "hallucinations."

Apple's CEO mentioned this during his interview this morning when he said, "I do think that it's so important to be very deliberate and very thoughtful in the development and the deployment of these. They can be so powerful that you worry about things like bias, things like misinformation -- maybe worse in some cases."

Cook aligned himself with other tech leaders who believe that AI needs regulation. "Regulation is something that's needed in this space," Cook said. "Regulation will have a difficult time staying even with the progress on this because it's moving so quickly, and so I think it's incumbent on companies as well to regulate themselves."

The executive also said that AI is something that Apple is looking at. When it comes to conversational AI chatbots, Cook says the technology holds "great promise," and says that it is "something that we're looking at closely."