Another Enterprising Vision Pro Use Case
Juli Clover
As the Vision Pro continues to search for early product/market fit:
Some of Lowe's retail locations are now offering an in-store Apple Vision Pro experience that is designed to allow customers to personalize and visualize their dream kitchen with the help of a Lowe's associate.
Available in select stores in North Carolina, California, and New Jersey to begin with, the experience provides customers with an Apple Vision Pro to use the Lowe's Style Studio app that launched alongside the Vision Pro in February. Lowe's Style Studio offers a 3D kitchen environment that can be customized with hundreds of real-world materials, fixtures, and appliances.
On one hand, this is clearly just marketing for Lowe's Vision Pro app (which sounds nice and useful). On the other hand, it's also another enterprise-y set up for Apple. Apple isn't actually selling the Vision Pro through Lowe's – so this is not at all like the Walmart/MacBook Air deal, despite my subtitle quip – just providing some units to these various stores for demo purposes.1 Given Tim Cook and Apple's other recent touting of enterprise use-cases, we might see more of this, I imagine.
What's weird is that these demos are sort of on "tour" it seems:
From June 8 to June 12, the Vision Pro demo is available at the Central Charlotte, NC Lowe's, and from June 22 through June 25, it will be available at Lowe's stores in North Bergen, New Jersey and Sunnyvale, California. Customers in these areas will be able to book a session online, with Lowe's also able to accommodate some walk-ins.
I'm guessing Apple has enough units to give to each of these stores without the need to stage different demos on different days in different stores, but maybe it's to convey a sense of event/exclusivity?2
Also interesting: no quotes from Apple in Lowe's press release on the matter.
1 One thing not clear in this deal: is Apple giving the Vision Pros to Lowe's to use or is Lowe's paying for them to use? Almost certainly Apple isn't paying Lowe's to use them, so I'd guess Apple is lending them out for the demo, perhaps that's why they're on "tour".
2 Or maybe they're trying to conserve units ahead of the international launch in a few weeks?