ByteDance’s main hardware focus now is the development of a high-end Apple Vision Pro competitor incorporating “cutting-edge technologies”, a project which Osawa reports is codenamed Swan. This Swan project is “still largely experimental and conceptual” though, Osawa writes, and there’s no clear timeline for it to become an actual product.
I might be wrong, but I don’t feel like chasing after the Vision Pro will lead to huge success. The VP will have a huge library of iOS/iPadOS Apps as well as a developer community and ecosystem integrations. That and what sounds like impressive tech that may not be easy to reproduce. I don’t see it working out for them.
They probably looked at Apple’s margins and thought this was the easier approach. But I actually think Apple never had lower margins than with the Vision Pro. And it’s still too expensive for a big market.
Maybe the Pico 4 isn’t selling well. I don’t know.
For sure their current products aren’t working as well as they were hoping, otherwise they wouldn’t change course.