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Apple Reportedly Lays Off 60 Vision Products Group Employees

The device that nobody asked for at a price that makes your eyes bleed. An experience that no developer wasted their time creating apps for.

It'll be interesting to see what John does with the current version. Keep it around? Or kill it off. Seems like a poor use of memory chips during this current climate.
 
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I don’t understand why Apple would terminate these people. They should have been moved to other projects. These people did the job that executives who wanted the Vision asked them to do. The Vision was bad because of executive decisions, executive strategy, executive approvals, executive refusal to heed market data…. So fire the executives responsible for the Vision. I recall several years ago that it was Tim Cook pushing to get Vision out before it was ready.
 
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Churchman said:
I don’t understand why Apple would terminate these people. They should have been moved to other projects. These people did the job that executives who wanted the Vision asked them to do. The Vision was bad because of executive decisions, executive strategy, executive approvals, executive refusal to heed market data…. So fire the executives responsible for the Vision. I recall several years ago that it was Tim Cook pushing to get Vision out before it was ready.
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They mightn't have terminated these people's jobs. This is very much "I heard it from a mate down the pub".

This is the type of story that should be held back from being released until there's been at least some credible confirmation.
 
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DBZmusicboy01 said:
PRICE is the reason for its downfall.
Had Vision Pro started at $999
It would have been extremely successful.
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I don't know if $999 would've been realistic but I am surprised Apple didn't lower the price. In fact, they actually just raised Vision Pro prices a couple of months ago.

The original iPhone price was reduced less than three months after launch and the next generation (3G) price was even lower. I think they should've done something similar with the VP.
 
I wonder if Tim Cook is still using his Vision Pro every day.

www.macrumors.com

Apple CEO Tim Cook Uses Vision Pro Every Day

Apple CEO Tim Cook uses the Apple Vision Pro every day, according to an interview he did with The Sun to highlight the headset's launch in the UK. Cook said that he uses the Vision Pro "in all aspects of [his] daily life". For specifics, Cook said he used the headset to watch Ted Lasso season...
www.macrumors.com www.macrumors.com
 
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But they weren't doing VR development. They were doing AR. Apple made this very clear at launch, this wasn't a VR headset, why did they have a VR department?
 
Churchman said:
I don’t understand why Apple would terminate these people. They should have been moved to other projects. These people did the job that executives who wanted the Vision asked them to do. The Vision was bad because of executive decisions, executive strategy, executive approvals, executive refusal to heed market data…. So fire the executives responsible for the Vision. I recall several years ago that it was Tim Cook pushing to get Vision out before it was ready.
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They usually aren't exactly 'terminated' in a large company like Apple.

They are given like 6 month severance packages where they're still technically paid Apple employees (with health care, etc) for the next 6 months. They can see all the available jobs internally at Apple before anyone else - and can apply for those new positions - with very light interviewing.

Companies have found out that it's not advantageous to just move employees to other projects. Many employees might be burned out or glad to leave to join another company or to take a personal sabbatical. Let them go. The ones who are truly motivated and love the company will re-apply.
 
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Churchman said:
I don’t understand why Apple would terminate these people. They should have been moved to other projects. These people did the job that executives who wanted the Vision asked them to do. The Vision was bad because of executive decisions, executive strategy, executive approvals, executive refusal to heed market data…. So fire the executives responsible for the Vision. I recall several years ago that it was Tim Cook pushing to get Vision out before it was ready.
Click to expand...

A company does not keep employees it does not need, especially if their skill set cannot be transferred to another function in the company.

But... we really don't know whether they were fired. The article, to me, was a bit uncertain about this aspect.
 
Strange to lay off top architects and engineers. The product didnt well in the marketplace but it's a technological marvel. I wouldn't believe the media reports. Maybe Apple said they are moving the folks to other areas of the company and the media reports extrapolated that to laying off.
 
A lot of the doom-and-gloom discussion around Vision Pro seems to assume that Apple has already failed, but I think that view ignores how Apple typically builds new platforms.

Recent interviews with Vision Pro engineers show that Apple sees this as a long-term project. It is still early days, and creating a successful spatial computing platform is not something that happens overnight. Apple has historically taken the long game when entering new categories, and they have the resources to do that.

Are they moving as fast as some people expected? Maybe not. But the latest visionOS updates show that Apple is still actively developing the platform and investing in its future. They do not need to rush just to match short-term expectations.

The real question is not where Vision Pro is today, but where it will be in a few years. And when it comes to long-term platform development, Apple has proven many times that patience can be a strength.
 
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triumvirate said:
Perhaps. Personally I would not have paid $25 for one. I hate the whole setup all over my face and body.
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I would have definitely paid $25 for one to play around with it for a few days.

But I would not pay anything above $299 for something like this. All VR devices are just toys until they find the 'killer app' for them. It might be something like the Star Trek Tardis, where you can act like you're on the moon or in New York City, and can walk around. Yes, I've seen attempts at these apps, but they're not ready for the mainstream yet.
 
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DBZmusicboy01 said:
But Smart Glasses will be way worse due to the whole ease of recording people in secret and posting it on social media is a major problem.
I think people should be allowed to record others in Public but not share anything on social media because people could defame others and or embarrass.
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Couldn't agree more
 
Apple should've priced it half the price, and made almost no money on it, so stupid to not read the room like other entertainment hardware companies like Sony. Make almost no money on the hardware and make the money in the content.
 
reden said:
Apple should've priced it half the price, and made almost no money on it, so stupid to not read the room like other entertainment hardware companies like Sony. Make almost no money on the hardware and make the money in the content.
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The problem with this is that there is almost no mainstream content for the Vision Pro (bar demos). Definitely not enough to subsidise the hardware cost.

I think it was this - lack of compelling content, apps and use-cases, that is the real stumbling block, not necessarily the price.

People would and do spend $3,500 and more on a Mac Studio or MacBook Pro, but their use-cases (real or aspirational) can justify the price.

It's a vicious circle - without compelling content and use-cases, there won't be a large-user base. Without a large user-base, there are no incentives for developers to develop content and apps. Without content or apps bought in significant qualities, Apple can't subsidise the hardware cost with profits from the content.

Without content and use-cases, it still wouldn't sell in significantly higher numbers, even if the sticker price was halved.
 
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DBZmusicboy01 said:
PRICE is the reason for its downfall.
Had Vision Pro started at $999
It would have been extremely successful.
Click to expand...
I honestly don't think it's the price alone.

I can afford a Vision Pro. I can still get one for a very good price on the used market. And I love Apple gear. So why haven't I bought one? Because whilst I get the purpose of it, I don't want to strap something to my face, regardless of what it can do. I actually like a sense of separation between myself and the machines I'm using.
 
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PixelPanics said:
Honestly even $1499 would've sold so much
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Yeah Apple should have taken it as a loss leader. Apple’s only hope in that case would have been that sufficient adoption drove the developer community to start actually building out the apps infrastructure for it, and thus pave the way for a successful consumer glasses launch. Apple basically cost themselves a couple years of early growth with their pricing move. They can still pull off the consumer VR sector but it’s going to take at least a few years longer than it would have if they had actually used the AVP’s launch momentum correctly instead of relegating it mostly to the bin.
 
All Taken said:
Here’s the thing Macrumors…

You talk about massive product leaks in iOS 27 beta, one of those is apparently the Vision successor. Your own words, not mine.

Both things can be true, but what I don’t like is you fail to mention that in this report at all - lazy journalism.
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Completely agree. The quality of journalism here has really slipped into lazy clickbait, bordering on AI-generated filler. MacRumors seems determined to push negative Apple Vision Pro stories for rage-clicks, even when the piece directly contradicts what they published eariler in their iOS 27 story.

We are assuming that macrumors actually has a real person write these....
 
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