Apple to Upgrade Vision Pro in Two Ways Later This Year

[bilbo--baggins]

Reduced head pain or neck pain? I’m not spending that much on a product that causes any pain.

 

[MrWayne]

Does that mean AVP has yearly upgrade cycle?

 

[Camerondonal]

No Vision Air till 2027?? It seems quite odd to me that a lighter, (marginally) more affordable Vision isn't a higher priority for Apple

 

[Rayansb]

You can't have made it all the way here and not have been aware that an update is imminent. I decided this Summer to jump back in with VisionOS 26 and have been holding off for exactly that reason.

For anyone who's surprised that the original Vision Pro had an M2, it was heavily delayed on launch and that explains the chipset in that device.

The delay may have somewhat carried over to the second version and that's why we're only seeing it with an M4, which would be sad but logical.

There's no tactical consideration done here by Apple. They have to tape these out before production and they're not able to sync up the cycles with this brand new product line yet.

I bought it impulsively during my trip to Canada since the AVP is not sold in my home country. I don't regret getting it. Remarkable device.

 

[Happy_John]

Does that mean AVP has yearly upgrade cycle?

Nah, it just means Apple has shut / is in the process of shutting down M2 hip production. The same reason why the iPad went to M3 ( it didn’t really need to in terms of performance ).

 

[MockT]

I bought it impulsively during my trip to Canada since the AVP is not sold in my home country. I don't regret getting it. Remarkable device.

Bold move in any case to forgo support. Of course it’s a great device. However, ignoring obvious drop shipping solutions meant you got it at the end of its product cycle.
Impulse buy of that size though … I suspect you’ll be fine.

 

[sfkeepay]

The new strap rumor has my attention.

I bought an AVP on release day, but returned it after two weeks. For the most part, I quite liked it and wanted to keep it, but given the weight and the existing strap options, wearing it gave me terrible headaches and I just couldn’t justify having that much money invested in something I couldn’t wear without pain.

The number one thing AVP needs is an over the forehead strap option. I’ve tried many VR headsets going all the way back to VPL Research around 1990. All of them had some sort of over the forehead support and none of them had the headache inducing problem for me as the AVP.
Sorry to those hoping for gen 1 compatibility with a new strap design, but I very much hope not - the physical design for strap attachment on the current AVP is just fundamentally broken.

Using the M2 was also puzzling for such a high end, flagship graphics intensive device given that it came out around the same time as Apple integrated hardware accelerated race tracing in the post M2 chips. Fixing that would be a very good step, though given the expected release date cost, M5 would be much better than M4.

Good fixes to both those problems would definitely get me to look at it again.

But other things need fixing too:
-Get rid of EyeSight. It’s gimmicky and useless and not worth the weight and cost.
-Give the OS true multiuser capability. The guest mode is cumbersome and not possible to justify for multi user customers.
-Expand the display field of view. The resolution, color, and latency are amazing, but the lack of peripheral vision is very distracting. However, this is still a common problem with all VR headsets and AVP is far better than all the rest I’ve seen in this regard.
-Make it lighter. Getting rid of EyeSight is the easy first order choice.
-The camera based hand tracking works very well and much better than requiring hand controllers. Would be nice if it could be expanded to whole body tracking though.
-Does need an ability to work with external controllers. Might not actually need active controllers if the camera tracking could be made to track objects in the user’s hands, such a pen or brush.
-Needs better implementation of 3D objects in the OS. The animated Siri ball is a good example. It’s just eye candy, but a great example of how to take advantage of VR in the user interface. Think skeuomorphic. Surprising that AVP doesn’t dmore of this.
-Dynamically focusing lenses instead of customized inserts would be great, especially for multi user, but that tech might still be down the road a ways yet.

Several great suggestions, although I worry that Eyesight will have a “touchbar curse” where they’re just too invested to let it go.

I do want, though, to second and enthusiastically underscore multiuser capability. The excruciating process necessary to pass it off to my mother-in-law every time she wants to see a vacation video must end. In a similar vein, it really could use a means to share certain experiences, like watching films. There ought to be an OS-based option for this.

 

[IgottaTouchoftheTism]

I bet you are so happy that you are gonna have an option to upgrade. I’m sure that is a huge blessing for the company as it has a lot of potential for growth but it would be a big boost for the future