Apple Has Given Up on the Vision Pro After M5 Refresh Flop

[ChasSC-Mac-Guy]

Honestly, I’d love to have one, but they just cost too damn much! You want these to sell, Apple, then drop the price in half!

 

[crsh1976]

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.

Apple mispositioned the AVP as a lifestyle device, with folks in expansive living rooms sitting around and using the AVP to look at family pictures and what not. The practical/pro use cases were left aside, hinted at but never really, convincingly put up front in real-life usage - they do exist, but were never the priority apparently.

It's another missed or misjudged or misaligned opportunity, it comes down to an erroneous business case and everything that dripped from that.

 

[turbineseaplane]

This product wasn't a waste of Apple time and money. Apple learned a lot with this project. Many ideas and tech used on this product will for sure creep in other products. Sometimes really making a difference, sometimes not in the best way.

Yet was is for sure a waste of some peoples money.

PS: For people with money to waste, nothing is a waste of money. So these, don't really have a say on the matter. I am glad I resisted pulling the trigger every time I tried to rationalize it ... as many many other people surely did.

Totally agree.

The "waste" was bringing AVP out to the market though.
That ratchets up the expenditure by orders of magnitude.

All of it should have just stayed in the lab and been further worked on.

 

[EatinPonies]

I didn't even know that the Vision Pro received a refresh, mainly because I tuned out as soon as the first one was released at $3500. Not a chance at that price.

 

[AppleMega]

Runs to see Vision disappeared from the Apple site...

Apple Vision Pro

Featuring the new powerful M5 chip and comfortable Dual Knit Band, Apple Vision Pro seamlessly blends digital content with your physical space.

www.apple.com

Nope. Still there.

 

[maxoakland]

Really curious to see how the VisionOS development evolves over the next years if Vision Pro is kept in a sort of stasis… will they introduce new features or will it be kept with minor updates like they did with OS X during a few years?

There’s no team to work on it. Sounds like it’s discontinued but they won’t announce that because they still want to sell remaining stock at full price

Which is sleazy

 

[turbineseaplane]

Runs to see Vision disappeared from the Apple site...

Apple Vision Pro

Featuring the new powerful M5 chip and comfortable Dual Knit Band, Apple Vision Pro seamlessly blends digital content with your physical space.

www.apple.com

Nope. Still there.

You do realize how long the MacPro has hung around being sold (a couple times actually) while being effectively shelved?

Apple has no qualms about parting folks from their money, no matter what the development status of a product actually is.

 

[tivoboy]

Stop that slander. Segways sell quite well outside their imagined purpose, mostly in tourism for short rentals.

I think you needed to conjugate a verb.. they might have SOLD well, for a year or two but with ~ 140K sold worldwide in the past ~ 25 years, it was a flop.

 

[ty_ave]

Unfortunately this proves as a tech industry journalist you don’t use the product or live in the community of Vision Pro users to understand what level of investment and roadmap Apple has for Vision Pro.

This product is not dependent on sales right now, it’s dependent on maturity and media growth. Devs are making amazing things for AVP. Apple has invested millions, if not more on both the technology and the immersive media prospects. Partnering with Black Magic Design is a massive play that’s long term, the recent NAB show previewed a new immersive camera from BMD that will offer high transfer live streaming for Apple immersive video, which is another massive investment into Vision Pro.

Do more living with the product longer than a month, understand the users and you will find your answers to why it’s not anywhere near dead or failed as a product, then a post like this wouldn’t make the tech media look lazy and uneducated.

The Vision line will add the rumoured AI/Smart glasses soon and we will undoubtedly under John Ternus see a more mature, refined, lighter, cheaper series of Vision headsets in 27/28.

 

[WinstonSmyth]

Alls those EMF's strapped to your head can't be too good for you.

 

[iStorm]

I wonder if the macrumours crowd will still go on about how this is a wonderful product and it didn’t flop at all 😁

What is there to wonder at this point? You didn't read the 21 pages before your post?

 

[pixlnet]

This is a balony report. Apple willingly moved forward with Vision Pro when the Sony lense defect rate was near 70%. They launched anyways. Why? They are *building the category*. Tim Cook said many time, the Vision Pro is for people that want tomorrow's technology today. The category is in it's infancy. Which is why Apple is building a content business, an app store, and investing in the platform. M2 to M5 was a marginal bump, and the refresh aimed at solving fiting issues and ergonomics. Think of it as an "S" release cadence they previously did with iPhone.

I'm aware it's a controversial device, but I highly doubt Apple is going to abandon the platform while building a whole content business (ex: streaming sports, movies) around it. Remember when Apple saying they figured out television? It wasn't the Apple TV. It was the Vision Pro and feeling like you're there in the screen. Jobs alluded to that on multiple occasions.

 

[david.olstein]

I own a first generation model and still consider it the best way to watch 3D content. I hope rumors of its death are greatly exagerrated. But it if is discontinued, I may be tempted to a grab an M5 version if they discount it to clear their inventory. For me, the weight was never a source of discomfort. But I did find that my eyes got dried out.

People around here like to whine about the price. But this isn't a cheap product to build. And if viewed as a high end personal home theater - an iPod for video -- I think the price can be justified. The whole spatial computing thing never worked for me. I tried using the AVP as a virtual monitor, but using it with a real keyboard felt awkward, and the virtual keyboard was a joke. So in the end, the only real use case I found for my AVP was watching videos, viewing photos and basking in the ultra-realistic immersive environments. There's probably a use case for VR gaming, but I'm just not into that. Listing to Apple Music spatial audio was quite good too. Everything else - browsing the internet, reading email, creating and editing documents - I could do better with a different device. But again, what the AVP does well, it does extremely well.

 

[turbineseaplane]

I'm aware it's a controversial device, but I highly doubt Apple is going to abandon the platform while building a whole content business (ex: streaming sports, movies) around it.

And yet they got F1 this year and did absolutely not a thing with it for the Vision Pro.

 

[MacCheetah3]

Inability to use with contact lenses makes this an automatic no for me. Can't wear glasses, won't be taking my contacts out every time I want to use the device. So no Vision Pro for me. Might have considered it even with the high price if not for this issue.

I’m a little dubious on the “can’t wear glasses” claim. Nevertheless, you can still use the AVP.

Use a pointer to navigate your Apple Vision Pro

You can use your eyes, head, wrist, or finger as a pointer with Apple Vision Pro.

support.apple.com

How to use other input methods to control Apple Vision Pro — keyboards, trackpads, pointers, and more

Eyes and hands are far from the only options.

www.imore.com

My nystagmus prevents using the eye tracking input/navigation method, disappointingly. As such, after trials, I’ve landed on utilizing wrist tracking to control the pointer. It’s awkward at first and probably not as efficient as eye tracking, certainly not as nifty. However, I do fine with it now.

 

[Onelifenofear]

The irony is 600,000 units sold. Some companies DREAM of those figures. Meta Quest in all its version has sold 20 million which is great but it's nowhere near as good as a M5 vision.

I see is as a pro tool, like the Mac Pro's - I have made a lot of money with it mostly in the last year and sell bespoke solutions for high end car companies and I know someone has Made a huge amount for archvis build solutions.

It's not a consumer product at that price. If they got these into a much lighter form factor for $999. they would sell millions.

And of course the whole point of this device is to prepare users and developers for Full AI glasses - that is the end game.

Things they need to fix:
Weight and comfort.
Battery need to be hot swappable - 5 mins onboard battery to give you time to swap battery keeping it awake?
Front screen is pointless
Implement actual 3d UI - not a 2D floating screen UI. Think Different apple!

The keyboard for example? it's stupid and small - why should you have to swap to @"£ etc they could all be in display at all times. You are not constrained by real world design.

 

[Alameda]

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.

$2.1 billion. And Apple has pretty high margins.

It was not a success by their usual measure but I doubt they lost money in the process of bringing in $2.1 billion in revenue. I’ve run plenty of smaller programs, with lower profit margin, which were plenty successful.

The Apple Car is another story…

 

[Onelifenofear]

I wonder if the macrumours crowd will still go on about how this is a wonderful product and it didn’t flop at all 😁

Well it's by far the best VR headset out there.

Oculus Go - 2,000,000
HTC Vive original - 500,000
Oculus Rift / Rift S- 700,000
Meta Quest all versions 20,000,000
PS VR 1 - 5,000,000
PS VR2 - 2,000,000
Valve index - 1,000,000
Meta Quest Pro - 200,000
Apple Vision Pro - 600,000

Other than the Meta Go/Quest Devices that are famously sold at almost cost price none of these are insane figures.

The problem is we are used to MILLIONS of apple devices been sold and it's not that sort of device... yet.

 

[Onelifenofear]

I was wrong then. I will readily admit to it.

Anyone know what tastes good with crow?

Why are you wrong? Rumours and "reports" on here are about 30% accurate.

 

[Alameda]

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

Kinda like the Apple Newton. Too early.

 

[Onelifenofear]

It’s a flop. I knew it the moment I tried it on during a demo. What an uncomfortable headset. That lame battery pack. Desperately trying to find a proper ‘why’ to use it.

So just because YOU don't see a use case for it... it's a flop? Disagree on being uncomfortable, but it is a little heavy. The new strap helps a lot and a there are custom straps available.

As for why... these are some area I have been involved with or have tested.

Automotive - Visulisation, Production engineering = Customer visualisation.

ArchVIs - CAD, Design, Visualisation

3d Production - Animation, sculpting.

engineering - Prototyping and simulation.

Data Visualisation ( I have built and sold a number of these to clients )

Avation - production and simulations for build and flight training - I know one system in use with 200 of these and make the developer $40 million

Healthcare and surgery ( https://www.macrumors.com/2026/04/28/apple-vision-pro-cataract-surgery/ )

I have used it as a huge virtual monitor multi monitor setup for animation work and editing video in a hotel.
Blackmagic has been proper Apple Vision Pro support into Resolve.

 

[Steve Adams]

As I always said. Why pay 4g cdn for the same you can get for 599 with the meta quest 3.

 

[venom600]

What killed it for a lot of people is that you were limited by the options for prescription lenses they offered. My prescription wasn't available so I couldn't get it even if I wanted to, and I am not about to get contacts just to use it. The Apple Store demo person said it happens a lot when I tried it out.

 

[Onelifenofear]

Kinda like the Apple Newton. Too early.

Well no... the newton was shocking... the Apple Vision is the best headset out there and the M5 is insane... BUT it's way too expensive for mortals... it's an Enterprise tool and that's where is bone used a lot - see my previous post above.

They should never have pitched it the way they did as a consumer device... yet... all the family stuff. That said it's an incredible way to watch a 3d movie. Nothing else compares - even a cinema.

 

[acslater017]

I really hope this reporting is inaccurate. Yes it needs to get cheaper and smaller. They need to get more optimized apps and sign more deals for immersive content. But it's an amazing device that allows so many new experiences.

I'm a day 1 AVP user and I absolutely love the spatial photos and videos, Immersive Videos, watching movies and TV in the natural Environments and Cinema, Mac Virtual Display, viewing 3D assets, Personas and collaboration. I honestly don't think it's any more incomplete of a product than the 1st gen iPhone, 1st gen iPad, or 1st gen Apple Watch.

That's a different conversation than "will it sell tens of millions?" No, I don't think it will. But I do think it has a place at the high end of Apple's offerings alongside high-end Macs, future iPhone/MacBook Ultra, XDR Display, etc. It has plenty of useful applications in certain professional settings (design, research, medicine, training/simulation, film) as well as being a top-tier content consumption device.