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The Apple Vision Pro always felt like a half‑baked product. Sure, it had impressive features and, for what it did, it actually performed well. But at that price point, it needed a clear purpose — a real reason for everyday consumers to buy it. And that’s where it fell apart.😕

It is a professional device, not merely a movie screen. My 32:9 aspect ratio (22 foot x 6 foot) portable monitor that I can use anywhere is worth the $3500. It has already paid for itself in productivity improvements. If you aren't a computer professional, then it isn't something that is ready for you. Apple's main AVP faux pas was early marketing that sold the "vision" not the device.
 
I'm really not sure how they ever thought it would be a success, at the price is was it was a rich persons folly at best.. with hardly any software specifically for it and the whole external battery situation is meh..

I think a lot of people are not really sold on AR also... I don't think a glasses AR apporoach will be much of a success either.. Do people really want push notifications and crap all over their vision?
 


Apple has all but given up on the Vision Pro after the M5 model failed to revitalize interest in the device, MacRumors has learned. Apple updated the Vision Pro with a faster M5 chip and a more comfortable band in October 2025, but there were no other hardware changes, and consumers still weren't interested.

M5-Vision-Pro-Thumb-2.jpg

The Vision Pro has been criticized for its high price tag and its uncomfortable weight. The device is over 1.3 pounds, and even with the more comfortable Dual Knit Band that Apple added to redistribute weight, it continues to be hard to wear for long periods of time. The M5 chip added a 120Hz refresh rate, 10 percent more rendered pixels, and around 30 additional minutes of battery life, but the price tag stayed at $3,499, and it ended up not selling well.

The Vision Pro has been unpopular since it first launched, and Apple only sold around 600,000 units in total. Insider sources told MacRumors that Apple has received an unusually high percentage of returns, far exceeding any other modern Apple product.

Apple has apparently stopped work on the Vision Pro and the Vision Pro team has been redistributed to other teams within Apple. Some former Vision Pro team members are working on Siri, which is not a surprise as Vision Pro chief Mike Rockwell has been leading the Siri team since March 2025.

There have been mixed rumors about a new Vision Pro over the last couple of years, with Apple rumored to be working on a lighter-weight Vision Air that's much cheaper, but the project was stopped last year. If Apple finds a way to create a much cheaper, more comfortable VR headset in the future, the Vision Pro line could be revived, but right now, the company has no plans to launch a new model. Apple has not discontinued the Vision Pro and is continuing to sell the M5 model.

Instead of continuing to experiment with virtual reality, Apple is working on smart glasses that will eventually incorporate augmented reality capabilities, but the first version will be similar to the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses with AI and no integrated display.

Apple has not been able to use the technology developed for the Vision Pro in its smart glasses because that tech draws too much power for a smaller, lighter device.

Article Link: Apple Has Given Up on the Vision Pro After M5 Refresh Flop
all they had to do was dump the scree on the front and make it shift construction to a lighter material. However just dumping the front display would sav a to of wieght and cost very easily.
 
“Whole industries will change”

“Entire cities will be re-imagined”

“Will unlock human potential”

“Most engineered product of all time”

The Segway of this generation.
 
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Apple should take to heart how something as technologically advanced as the Vision Pro has received a resounding “meh” from consumers, whereas a device as simple as the MacBook Neo has them clamouring for more. It says a lot about the market we’re in at the moment.
 
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All these devices will be doomed, or rendered niche, until the tech is there to shrink it down to hardware that resemble normal glasses.

I dread that day, people will become even more disconnected, delusional and self obsessed.
 
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Interesting how almost every post here is from people who don’t own it.. and complain mainly about price… haters will hate.. I own AVP and love it and use it every day for actual work and wouldn’t change it for multiple displays at less than what it costs..

People here seem to know more than the actual users or Apple itself in coming up with conclusions about the status of the product..

Recently both Cook AND Ternus both have spoken about how it continues to be integrated and implemented in business environments…

The device is for work.. not to browse the internet or to lay games or the many things iPhone, and iPad is for..NOT an every day consumer device.. hence the price.. and feature set. It’s DEF not meant to be for everyone.. in the same way a maxed out Studio is or maxed out 16 inch MacBook Pro is.. if you buy them is cause you have a use for it or have income that allows you to do so without the need for it.
 
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I bought a Meta Quest VR not too long ago and I use it pretty frequently to play games and watch movies. Apple could easily make an AppleTV app for their 3D movies and an iWork/iCloud app as well. I mean, you already need a subscription for these things anyway, why not cash in on that?
 
It had potential but I feel like with that price it was always going to be dead on arrival. Worth refining the tech out of the public eye. Price was just too much to even get most of us to try it vs all the other far cheaper VR things occupying the very similar market.
 
“Whole industries will change”

“Entire cities will be re-imagined”

“Will unlock human potential”

“Most engineered product of all time”

The Segway of this generation.
"Steve would never have..." - many MacRumors commenters who weren't paying attention when the Segway was first announced.
 
Great piece of technology just way overpriced and declining developer support due to the low user base.
 
Hard to call $2.1 billion a flop, isn't it?
That’s just sales; it doesn’t mean they made money. Supposedly, it costs around $1550 in parts to make one. That leaves it at $1.17 billion in profit hardware-wise. Now factor in the wages of all the factory workers who assembled it, all the engineers who designed it, all the software developers who developed the OS, etc. I’d be surprised if Apple even made a profit on the Vision Pro after all is said and done. Oh, and don’t forget about the high return rate the article mentions.
 
Its a failed device from the get go.

1) I'd wear that to watch a movie….alone. But then its too advanced and too expensive

2) I could never wear that for a whole workday, alone or not. Soo…too expensive for 1hr a day

3) It ads nothing or extremely little in the form of productivity. So..it’s a toy. A dear toy. Very.

4) It’s basically a face-monster…

5) All it is, is a Gold Apple Watch…with Hermes watchface.
 
Even with a perfect size, weight, battery pack or price, I don't think it could ever be anything but a small niche. It's something you strap across your eyes, separating you from the world and separating the world from you. (People can talk to a person with them on, but I expect any conversations will be brief and unsettling.) There are uses for the technology, but the isolation severely limits what people will want to do.
 
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Shocking that no one wanted a peculiar $3500 device that served little purpose. Tim's folly, for sure. Hopefully they can utilize some of the things they've learned in other projects, since the tech itself is too much for the smart glasses.
 
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I hope that later generation will be lighter with battery inside not in our pocket, and for reasonable price,
its great invention but in wrong time - economical situation here is hard, even in whole western world now because of wars and endless inflation
 
Interesting how almost every post here is from people who don’t own it.. and complain mainly about price… haters will hate..
Haters will also not buy. Haters will also return. Reasonable people will also not buy an expensive, uncomfortable device for which they see no practical use. Of course most of the posts here are from people who don't own it. That's kind of the point of the entire article - next to nobody owns it.

I own AVP and love it and use it every day for actual work and wouldn’t change it for multiple displays at less than what it costs..
Glad you found a use-case for it. What actual work do you do with it and in what specific ways does it improve your workflow over "traditional" solutions?

People here seem to know more than the actual users or Apple itself in coming up with conclusions about the status of the product..
Apple has reassigned engineers from the Vision Pro team to other teams and has essentially put the Vision Pro into maintenance mode. Users aren't buying them. Buyers are returning them. I think it's pretty clear what "Apple" and "actual users" think about the status of the product.

Recently both Cook AND Ternus both have spoken about how it continues to be integrated and implemented in business environments…
Yes, there are some reported uses for the VP (I read about a surgeon using one for surgery recently - very interesting and one of the many use-cases for an AR device in general). The entire specialty trades industry would (and in many cases does) benefit from augmented reality in some areas (recording installation and inspections and providing feedback either via AI or remote-worker assistance, for example). The Vision Pro is a terrible solution for most specialty trades, though, because it is both too bulky and too fragile. The AR glasses that are mentioned in this article that Apple are working on instead would be closer to a useful solution, provided that Apple builds them into safety glasses rather than Ray Bans or some other beachwear (spoiler alert: they won't).

A few anecdotal edge-cases does not an industry make, unless that industry is for bespoke tools with a very clear and useful purpose and includes customers willing to spend tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars per user for those tools. As long as Cook and Ternus are talking vaguely about the Vision Pro as being "integrated and implemented in business environments" instead of talking about how "<abc> industry benefits specificially from the <xyz> feature of the Vision Pro", it is clear that Apple did not, in fact, target the VP as a niche bespoke tool.

The device is for work.. not to browse the internet or to lay games or the many things iPhone, and iPad is for..NOT an every day consumer device.. hence the price.. and feature set. It’s DEF not meant to be for everyone.. in the same way a maxed out Studio is or maxed out 16 inch MacBook Pro is.. if you buy them is cause you have a use for it or have income that allows you to do so without the need for it.
It's pretty easy to see how a maxed-out Studio or MBP would improve the workflow of a vast array of people who need power and/or mobility provided by those general purpose computing products. It has never been clear how a Vision Pro would improve the workflow of most business users to a point that would justify the high price and compromised comfort. Perhaps you could provide some actual specific benefits of the VP that you have realized and in what concrete ways your workflow has improved by using it.
 
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