Report Reveals Apple's Secretive Vision Products Roadmap

[turbineseaplane]

What would the m5 one do that the m2 can’t exactly

Probably lower costs for Apple overall with streamlining OPs

Apple need to lower the price in the near term, even if that means taking a loss on it themselves.

I'd enjoy a product like this in my life, but not at anything more than about $1300

 

[lilkwarrior]

No Vision Air till 2027?? That seems bizarre and I am highly doubtful. Why would Apple not focus on and prioritise a more affordable, bigger selling, more wearable version, with the desirable side-effect of increased developer interest? Delaying the latter for two whole years makes little sense unless Apple engineers have run into some very significant technical hurdles - it's also in contradiction to several earlier reports suggesting the Air was Apple's current priority visionOS product

The headset market necessitates higher prices than any product category before is a poor fit to the diminished buying power the average person has today right now.

What is the need to hurry exactly? The supply chain is still expensive and conservative as well…

Even Samsung is reported limited their modest good quality headset to 100,000 accordingly.

Many flagship XR devices are already being pushed back to 2026.

 

[Ctrlos]

Are they going to change the marketing message along with it? Apple's advertising of late has been all over the place anyway but perhaps the biggest mis-step was marketing a Mac Pro-priced piece of hardware at the audience that buys $300 iPads. Vision Pro should have been out of the gate aimed squarely at industry, medicine and education. They still would have had an army of YouTubers still buying it regardless.

 

[Thanatoast]

I'm trying to figure out what these will do for me. I know what they'll do for Apple, but I'm struggling to see what problem they're solving or advantage they'll create. One thing I can foresee though is angry randos snatching them off peoples' faces because they don't want to be recorded.

 

[iPay]

Wondering what's going on with Apple, they seem to be losing it lately: Apple Car, Vision Pro, AI, (foldable?)...
Tim Cook famously said his important things in management were: strategy, execution and people. As for strategy, their revenue structure must be quite different than expected 3 years ago.

 

[lilkwarrior]

Apple has all this money yet seems to struggle more than any other company at actually advancing any products

They literally met their goal of being years ahead with their prosumer Vision Pro.

That’s not applicable with this device category considering it’s anticipated there won’t be a high end competitor similar to how the Pro Display XDR still has had several years of being ahead of the competition at its price

 

[lilkwarrior]

I feel that ‘old’ Apple would have put the R&D into all these products and just released one highly curated version that works the best.

Now it seems they’re just going to throw stuff at the wall and see what sticks.

That’s not even true six years ago. Apple has made prosumer specific SKUs with no mainstream option for many years now:

Monitors, desktop towers, etc

 

[lilkwarrior]

What would the m5 one do that the m2 can’t exactly

Ray-tracing and significantly better media codecs, AI acceleration, and compression/upscaling applicable to what the devices does with far more efficiency.

M5 is much faster for the already expensive computations you have to do for an XR app vs a regular app.

Much more parity with iPad Pro and Macbooks as well for productivity flows.

Pretty straightforward for the audience the Vision Pro is primarily for.

 

[klasma]

I’m well aware how Kuo operates, but I guess I’m mostly disagreeing with the framing of the Article, which makes it sound like Kuo got leaked something from Apple.

Yeah, I mean MacRumors often writes “Apple is working on <new hardware thing>”, where it’d be more accurate to say that suppliers work on it in cooperation with Apple. So where Apple ends and suppliers begin is sort-of a gray area.

 

[mazz0]

2027

• Apple Smart Glasses ... It will feature voice control and gesture recognition, but there will be no display ...

You expect me to wear something on my eyes that doesn't even present visual information? I think not.

 

[Baslea]

The AVP (as well as other VR Glasses as Meta Quest) flopped as hell. In fact, they only sell through Price. Meta f.e. loses almost 400-500$ every Quest 3 unit sold. A thing, greedy Tim would never do. So why do they keep beating this dead horse? They should rather focus on AR Glasses. They'll end up correcting the sale units down by 50-100k again, as they did with the 1. Gen.

 

[Markgnyc2]

I have the Ray Ban Meta glasses and they are surprisingly useful. If you think of them as glasses first and smartglasses second, it will make more sense. They only cost a bit more than a normal pair of Ray Ban's and they include a camera, Meta AI, speakers, etc. When Apple releases their version, it will integrate better into the Apple Ecosystem, and if priced correctly and similar to Meta glasses, they will sell millions of them.

 

[needsomecoffee]

There seems to be quite a few who think Liquid Glass in OS26 is being done to support Apple's AR glasses. Makes sense imho. E.g.:

From Skeuomorphic to Liquid Glass: Apple's Strategic Bet on the Post-Touch Future

Why Apple Just Killed the iPhone Interface (And What Comes Next)

omc345.substack.com

 

[dwsolberg]

I doubt that eye-covering VR will ever be something that normal people use for any length of time, but AR glasses have some potential.

 

[groove-agent]

I think Apple believes vision OS is the future of displays. It's hard to imagine, but if you see people using virtual displays in AR you can see how advantageous it is. I think this is the reason why we see a convergence of vision OS elements across all platforms.

 

[groove-agent]

I'm trying to figure out what these will do for me. I know what they'll do for Apple, but I'm struggling to see what problem they're solving or advantage they'll create.

It's kind of obvious isn't it? Lower cost will attract people on more limited budgets which means higher market saturation.

 

[twocents]

I guess we will find out later this year.

But my guess is, it gives developers better hardware to work with and allows them to create better software for the future. Plus the M5 will likely have better battery life so that is appreciated but for us OG AVP users, this update isn't for us.

Ray tracing was also added with the M3, so that would do much for a more immersive experience

 

[HaHaRich!]

Moving Vision to an M5 sounds good on paper; lower die costs on a 3nm printed chip vs the M2’s 5nm, with the associated power and performance boosts. Might even justify a cost cut to under $3k since you are using 40% less silicon to make the chip (and some development and marketing costs are already associated with the gen 1). TBH, I was always surprised AVP shipped with the M2 when the M3 shipped prior to the Pro’s release. My big question is will there be any improvement to the R1 coprocessor chip 🤔 moving that to 3nm as well would again get a performance and battery life boost.

 

[svish]

Very interesting. Waiting for the smart glasses and especially the XR glasses from Apple. Wonder how Apple will price the Vision Air. Meanwhile would like to see the availability of Vision Pro to expand. Maybe it will be available in more countries when it ships with an M5 chip.

 

[MTD's Mac]

The headset market necessitates higher prices than any product category before is a poor fit to the diminished buying power the average person has today right now.

What is the need to hurry exactly? The supply chain is still expensive and conservative as well…

Even Samsung is reported limited their modest good quality headset to 100,000 accordingly.

Many flagship XR devices are already being pushed back to 2026.

Yes, the Air is the one they NEED to get right, in terms of features, comfort, and pricing.

We can look past low adoption of the Pro since it's a niche product, priced high, "tomorrow's technology today." Whenever the Air comes out, it will probably establish a price that will be consistent for years to come, or even need to come down further, but also needs to sell well to prove there's interest in a product in this category. Whether that's 2026, 2027, 2028, the timing is less important than getting it right and gauging the market accurately.

 

[Nicky G]

"Apple Vision Air: Featuring all-new design that is "substantially lighter," with over 40% weight reduction compared to the Vision Pro."

As long as it includes a corresponding 40% price reduction, it should sell.

Seems like a fair metric.

I’ve thought: When the Vision Pro is half the weight, half the bulk, and half the price, and the capabilities are twice as good (resolution of screens, resolution of passthrough video, latency, frame rate, compute, etc.) this is a market that could be interesting.

All of this is achievable, in time.

 

[CrysisDeu]

Well, the AR/VR market isn't selling too well so at this point, they may as well throw everything against the wall to see what sticks. Give people options since this market isn't huge yet.

There won’t be an iPhone moment if they did this 17 years ago

 

[Marx55]

Apple should make a Vision Pro not requiring prescription glasses. Not for useless spatial computing. Just to watch 3D movies.

 

[Cameront9]

All I want is reliable closed-captioning glasses. It's been my dream since I was a child. I am aware there are a few solutions out there, but I want to see Apple's take on it. And I need all day battery life.

 

[TechRunner]

Seems like a fair metric.

I’ve thought: When the Vision Pro is half the weight, half the bulk, and half the price, and the capabilities are twice as good (resolution of screens, resolution of passthrough video, latency, frame rate, compute, etc.) this is a market that could be interesting.

All of this is achievable, in time.

I saw the OG Vision Pro as kind of a halo/experimental product, but like you, I see potential for it to go more mainstream assuming they eventually get to the places you've stated.