Vision Pro Future Uncertain as All Headset Development Is Seemingly Paused

[Fishrrman]

I never figured out this VisionPro gadget.

It looked like some ritzy toy from a science fiction movie.
Fun at first, but you'd tire of it (and having it "on you") quickly.

Expensive and exclusive only guarantees that something will remain...
... expensive and exclusive.

You just knew when it was first introduced that after all the "ooohing and ahhhing", not many folks would actually BUY one.

Nifty concept.
No market.

 

[Pbwallstreet]

I said prior to the reveal of the AVP and when it launched that it would fail. It’s a fundamentally flawed product category: nobody wants to wear ski goggles for a cheap imitation of reality.

 

[turbineseaplane]

Fresh PowerOn article about the pivot away from Vision Air to glasses

https://archive.is/GS7cJ

Despite its immense wealth, Apple is disciplined and selective — even frugal. It doesn’t invest heavily in products that lack the potential to become mainstream hits.



The door remains open for AVP fans!

That doesn’t mean the Vision Pro is finished. Apple is refreshing the headset with a faster chip and will likely deliver a full redesign at the $3,000-plus price level eventually. At some point, the Vision Pro could sit atop a full lineup of “Vision” wearable gear. Smart glasses without a display would be at the low end, followed by display-equipped versions, true augmented reality spectacles and the high-end headset.


The smart glasses are also likely to run the Vision Pro’s operating system, visionOS, so all the work on that software isn’t going to waste. A future device could operate the full version of the OS when it’s paired with a Mac, and then switch to a lighter, more mobile-friendly interface when it’s linked to an iPhone, I’m told.

 

[JOLoughlin]

I love the Apple Vision Pro and visionOS. Use it pretty much daily.

I guess I have to say that because people say they don’t hear anyone talk about it.

 

[JOLoughlin]

Yeah they terminated ALL production. Sony has stopped making the dsplays

Sony still makes newer gen microOLEDs. In fact microOLED design and production has increased with BOE and Samsung stepping up in general.

 

[Mr_Ed]

The physical car isn’t an OS. The long lasting investment is in the platform. They have continued with CarPlay. The just don’t want to make the hardware.

They will make another Vision Pro. A lighter and cheaper one. It’s a product that deserves to exist. To regret its existence is odd and weird. I don’t get why people are so hurt by it? Apple has tons of money for this exact reason. So they can do things like this.

The post I was replying to asserted that Apple would never cancel a product that required expensive development of a new OS (referring to VisionOS) after one iteration. I cited the Apple Car as an example of Apple canceling an expensive effort before a single iteration in the marketplace. Regardless of who makes the automotive hardware, an automotive OS is needed and that type of development is not cheap, especially if you are a new player in the auto industry. CarPlay is not an operating system. Its origins predate Apple’s car development efforts, so if anything, CarPlay development may have inspired Apple to look at making a vehicle.

No product “deserves to exist.” Whether customers buy it is ultimately what counts. Saying that releasing AVP it in its present form was a bad idea, and that the business analysis at the level one expects from a 3+$billion corporation should have pointed that out in advance is perfectly reasonable from a shareholder perspective.

 

[tennisproha]

It won't garner a bigger ecosystem at $3,500 USD per device, doesn't matter how cool the tech or hardware becomes. Only way it does that is become both better AND cheaper just like how the MBA became over time.

Mac’s were expensive and had a healthy ecosystem long before they introduced the cheaper models

 

[turbineseaplane]

Mac’s were expensive and had a healthy ecosystem long before they introduced the cheaper models

Macs were and are way more useful to people than a VR headset.

Is this stuff not obvious?

You can give away VR gear and some large faction of people won't use it.

It's nothing like computers or smartphones.

 

[tennisproha]

Except in this case the Vision Pro / Air is the iPad and the AR glasses are the iPhone

That doesn’t matter

 

[ZiBart]

I really am of the opinion, that this was the endgame all along if true. The AVP was rumored to be in development for a decade before release. And even patents as far back as 2007. They kept dumping money into development with no release in sight. Execs grew frustrated and put pressure on the dev team to release as is knowing that the product was too expensive, and too large but gave it a chance in public to see if it catches and recoup some money, but knowing the chances were slim. Now that the market voted with their wallets, it's an easier decision to pull the plug vs pulling the plug before release like other major projects (Apple Car etc..). I believe this was the proper way to deal with this situation. Pivoting to smart glasses is a better move as you can still take some of the OS/Hardware from AVP. I'd even go for a smaller, lighter and cheaper headset that was just an external monitor for an Apple device. A wearable Studio Display, where the iPhone,ipad,macbook,mac both charged and did all the computing.

 

[turbineseaplane]

I'd even go for a smaller, lighter and cheaper headset that was just an external monitor for an Apple device. A wearable Studio Display, where the iPhone,ipad,macbook,mac both charged and did all the computing.

This is an accessory I'd be interested in.

 

[lapstags]

Apple should have taken gaming seriously and released this thing with more gaming to compete with the meta quest at the very least. The advent of the base m4 was the first chip that really was gaming capable but they should have put a m3 max in this thing given the price.

 

[smulji]

Mac’s were expensive and had a healthy ecosystem long before they introduced the cheaper models

No, they didn't. The Mac didn't start becoming relevant until Steve Jobs came back and introduced the first Mac aimed at the home market - the iMac. Before then, Apple was months away from bankruptcy and hardly anyone outside of hobbyists cared about the Mac. Without the MBA getting better and cheaper, the Mac ecosystem and lineup would be in limbo. Apple's strength of its ecosystem today is predominantly due to its success in the consumer / home market, not the pro market. At $3,500US, the VP will never develop a healthy ecosystem. There's little to no incentive for most developers to support a device that has hardly sold in meaningful numbers.

 

[smulji]

I'd even go for a smaller, lighter and cheaper headset that was just an external monitor for an Apple device. A wearable Studio Display, where the iPhone,ipad,macbook,mac both charged and did all the computing.

According to the backstory, had Tim Cook sided with Mike Rockwell, and not Jony Ive, that was the initial plan. But Jony Ive wanted a stand-alone device and that's who Tim Cook went with.

 

[lapstags]

Apple does not do gaming. Period. And Apple never changes direction, ever. Until they fail spectacularly at something (hello butterfly shitboard)

I think they are changing course. Metal 4 now has modern DLSS like features and the A19pro has "neural accelerator" cores on the GPU. And Remedy the producers of the game "Control" recently announced that they are brining that game to iPhone and iPad. It's obvious that Apple has realized that it needs to compete in gaming in order to keep their "services" revenue strong.

 

[turbineseaplane]

I think they are changing course. Metal 4 now has modern DLSS like features and the A19pro has "neural accelerator" cores on the GPU. And Remedy the producers of the game "Control" recently announced that they are brining that game to iPhone and iPad. It's obvious that Apple has released that it needs to compete in gaming in order to keep their "services" revenue strong.

Gaming is not really about hardware anymore.
It's all about software and developer relations, support, commitment and partnerships... things Apple fails at spectacularly.

 

[lapstags]

Gaming is not really about hardware anymore.
It's all about software and developer relations, support, commitment and partnerships... things Apple fails at spectacularly.

True, but it's about hardware and software as well and Apple is finally catching up in that aspect. I think Apple is paying companies such as the the people behind Cyberpunk and Control to bring gaming to its platform. We will likely see more announcements soon in that aspect.

 

[smulji]

A19pro has "neural accelerator" cores

Isn't that aimed more at improving on-device AI performance?

 

[lapstags]

Isn't that aimed more at improving on-device AI performance?

It will help with graphics rendering as well using machine learning algorithms.

 

[threesixty360]

There's been enough evidence that they had a team of automotive engineers working for years on this. Look up project Titan, they had about 1,000 employees on this at one point. You don't need 1,000 employees to produce a piece of software.


When you have a flop, the best thing to do is to cancel the thing and Apple completely misread the room with the AVP, high priced, doesn't do anything special, no "killer apps" that would generate interest. The biggest thing people say to justify the 3,500 head wear is watching movies is incredibly immersive. Great if you alone in a room, not really great if you want to watch a movie with your date.

As for hardware being killed off - well there's the Newton and Pippin. They also killed off software initiatives, like OpenDoc, and Quickdraw, Open Transport to name a few.

The post I was replying to asserted that Apple would never cancel a product that required expensive development of a new OS (referring to VisionOS) after one iteration. I cited the Apple Car as an example of Apple canceling an expensive effort before a single iteration in the marketplace. Regardless of who makes the automotive hardware, an automotive OS is needed and that type of development is not cheap, especially if you are a new player in the auto industry. CarPlay is not an operating system. Its origins predate Apple’s car development efforts, so if anything, CarPlay development may have inspired Apple to look at making a vehicle.

No product “deserves to exist.” Whether customers buy it is ultimately what counts. Saying that releasing AVP it in its present form was a bad idea, and that the business analysis at the level one expects from a 3+$billion corporation should have pointed that out in advance is perfectly reasonable from a shareholder perspective.

you hav

There's been enough evidence that they had a team of automotive engineers working for years on this. Look up project Titan, they had about 1,000 employees on this at one point. You don't need 1,000 employees to produce a piece of software.


When you have a flop, the best thing to do is to cancel the thing and Apple completely misread the room with the AVP, high priced, doesn't do anything special, no "killer apps" that would generate interest. The biggest thing people say to justify the 3,500 head wear is watching movies is incredibly immersive. Great if you alone in a room, not really great if you want to watch a movie with your date.

As for hardware being killed off - well there's the Newton and Pippin. They also killed off software initiatives, like OpenDoc, and Quickdraw, Open Transport to name a few.

The post I was replying to asserted that Apple would never cancel a product that required expensive development of a new OS (referring to VisionOS) after one iteration. I cited the Apple Car as an example of Apple canceling an expensive effort before a single iteration in the marketplace. Regardless of who makes the automotive hardware, an automotive OS is needed and that type of development is not cheap, especially if you are a new player in the auto industry. CarPlay is not an operating system. Its origins predate Apple’s car development efforts, so if anything, CarPlay development may have inspired Apple to look at making a vehicle.

No product “deserves to exist.” Whether customers buy it is ultimately what counts. Saying that releasing AVP it in its present form was a bad idea, and that the business analysis at the level one expects from a 3+$billion corporation should have pointed that out in advance is perfectly reasonable from a shareholder perspective.

they didn’t release the whole car OS, they released Vision Pro. You only about the car project because of rumors. The company never officially produced anything. How many r+d projects have been canned by consumer electronics companies? Tons!

Ultimately I’m not aware of a project of vision OS’s scale, especially with an OS that can run on multiple hardware that Apple abandoned after 2 yrs. i repeat, it’s unheard from them. Especially not in the Jobs + era. Lots of products deserve to exist. If people use it and like it, it deserves to exist. It’s just silly and elitist. We are literally doing this whole tech thing because for decades companies have been iterating, making things, some that worked instantly and some that took time. That IS THE tech game. Like it or not. Apple’s hit ratio is an absolute anomaly in the normal tech world. This is how the normal tech world works.

I bet Apple don’t even sell half a million MacBooks at £3500 let alone Vision Pros. They must know they were not going to sell millions of units. They’re not stupid. I’ve heard so much of this talk before. Even with the 1st iPhone that didn’t sell massively out the gate either. Heard it with the iPad. I don’t know why people get so upset about products that they don’t want to buy?

 

[threesixty360]

There's been enough evidence that they had a team of automotive engineers working for years on this. Look up project Titan, they had about 1,000 employees on this at one point. You don't need 1,000 employees to produce a piece of software.


When you have a flop, the best thing to do is to cancel the thing and Apple completely misread the room with the AVP, high priced, doesn't do anything special, no "killer apps" that would generate interest. The biggest thing people say to justify the 3,500 head wear is watching movies is incredibly immersive. Great if you alone in a room, not really great if you want to watch a movie with your date.

As for hardware being killed off - well there's the Newton and Pippin. They also killed off software initiatives, like OpenDoc, and Quickdraw, Open Transport to name a few.

Why is it a flop? How much did they expect it to sell? Do you know what they are trying to achieve?
I feel like the product has lots of merits but needs revision not abandonment! Lots of people like it. It has several problems but it does things that no product on earth does quite as well. Everyone is light years away from having the same AR experience that Vision Pro has in a meta glasses format. Meta glasses are just very simple basic notification tools that can take photos, like wow.. how innovative! Google glass was doing that ages ago.
Yes meta glasses are useful but visionOS is a whole different party.

In business if you make a product and can solve the issues customers tell u about why wouldn’t you just make the next product and see how it goes? It’s the most basic business procedure in the world. A lighter, cheaper product solves lots of problems here. Why abandon it for a camera on specs that tells you your WhatsApp messages? Like that’s such an ordeal to look at your phone or watch to see?

I think the world’s going a bit mad…

I’m sure Apple will make some meta type glasses, it’s an easy win. But it’s not ground breaking is it?

 

[ZiBart]

Why is it a flop? How much did they expect it to sell? Do you know what they are trying to achieve?
I feel like the product has lots of merits but needs revision not abandonment! Lots of people like it. It has several problems but it does things that no product on earth does quite as well. Everyone is light years away from having the same AR experience that Vision Pro has in a meta glasses format. Meta glasses are just very simple basic notification tools that can take photos, like wow.. how innovative! Google glass was doing that ages ago.
Yes meta glasses are useful but visionOS is a whole different party.

In business if you make a product and can solve the issues customers tell u about why wouldn’t you just make the next product and see how it goes? It’s the most basic business procedure in the world. A lighter, cheaper product solves lots of problems here. Why abandon it for a camera on specs that tells you your WhatsApp messages? Like that’s such an ordeal to look at your phone or watch to see?

I think the world’s going a bit mad…

I’m sure Apple will make some meta type glasses, it’s an easy win. But it’s not ground breaking is it?

Agreed. This wrong turn should still end up a success on the path to a different wearable. The AVP has hardware that can still be utilized or at least a version of, patents can still be used and the OS is more than halfway done for a potential AR smart glass device. AVP dev probably did all the heavy lifting already. Who knows, Apple could already have a product almost ready to go as they were probably working on both in conjunction (and Tim has been wearing them for that past couple years and we didn't know it ). And with their successful miniaturization of internals in the iPhone Air, who knows if there were some engineering breakthroughs on this team that the iPhone team utilized.

 

[tennisproha]

No, they didn't. The Mac didn't start becoming relevant until Steve Jobs came back and introduced the first Mac aimed at the home market - the iMac. Before then, Apple was months away from bankruptcy and hardly anyone outside of hobbyists cared about the Mac. Without the MBA getting better and cheaper, the Mac ecosystem and lineup would be in limbo. Apple's strength of its ecosystem today is predominantly due to its success in the consumer / home market, not the pro market. At $3,500US, the VP will never develop a healthy ecosystem. There's little to no incentive for most developers to support a device that has hardly sold in meaningful numbers.

Disagree. The MBP and iMac have been the workhorse of the Mac lineup and neither were cheap until Apple Silicone came around.

 

[orcadiver]

Recent reports suggest that there are now no redesigned Apple Vision headsets in active development, with the company's focus pivoting decisively to smart glasses.

When Apple announced the Vision Pro in mid-2023, it described the device as the dawn of "spatial computing," a new paradigm that would eventually rival the iPhone in importance. With a $3,499 starting price, intricate design and brand new operating system, and a clear focus on premium early adopters, the headset was never expected to be mass-market from day one. Yet even by Apple's standards, enthusiasm cooled far faster than anticipated, and the company's once-ambitious multi-year roadmap has now all but collapsed, according to rumors.

Apple's Original Plan

Soon after the launch of the Vision Pro, Apple is believed to have shifted focus to the "Vision Air," designed to bring spatial computing to a wider audience thanks to a lighter, thinner, and dramatically cheaper headset.

The target was to cut both weight by over 40% and price by around 50%, finally making mixed-reality viable for mainstream buyers. The Vision Air would use lower-cost display panels and simplified optics, while dropping some non-essential aspects and improving ergonomics.

At the high end, Apple reportedly envisioned a redesigned Vision Pro 2 to be launched sometime after the Vision Air's debut, and that timeframe eventually slipped to 2028. This second-generation flagship would have featured a lighter, more comfortable design, more advanced displays, longer battery life, and a lower price point. The Air and Pro models together would establish a two-tier product structure, mirroring the iPhone, iPad, MacBook, and AirPods product lines.

The Roadmap Changes

By mid-2024, momentum around the Vision Pro seemed to be shifting, with plans for future products being reorganized.

An essential report from The Information claimed that Apple had suspended development of the Vision Pro 2, redirecting its engineering resources to the cheaper Vision Air in hopes of accelerating its release. The company ostensibly recognized that the Pro's combination of high cost, bulk, discomfort, and limited use cases had narrowed its appeal even among early adopters.

At the time Apple began work on the device, it sought to release it at the end of 2024, but it still did not have a firm prototype by the middle of the year. The company was said to have struggled to find ways to reduce the model's costs without sacrificing too many features, with the target release date slipping to the end of 2025.

Meanwhile, by October, supply-chain leaks suggested Apple was winding down production of the original Vision Pro, citing weak demand and excess component stockpiles. The first-generation Vision Pro is believed to have ceased production at the end of the year.

Pausing Headset Development Entirely

This month, a bombshell report from Bloomberg said that Apple has also paused work on the lower-cost headset, the "Vision Air." Apple apparently wants to speed up development on a glasses product to better compete with Meta.

If reports from Bloomberg and The Information are true, development of both the Vision Air and the redesigned Vision Pro are paused, with no headset-class hardware in active development. While the company is unlikely to abandon spatial computing altogether, its next steps will almost certainly look very different from the headset it launched in 2024.

The M5 Vision Pro

Apple is about to debut its M5 family of chips, but today's Vision Pro still uses an M2 chip from 2022.

Apple is believed to have taken the decision to simply refresh the existing hardware with the M5 chip, potentially a second-generation coprocessor "R2" chip, and a new "Dual Knit" headband. This would enable it to keep the existing device up to date for a few more years, while making use of the stockpile of components left over from the first-generation model. This device is expected to launch in the next few weeks, even being leaked by FCC filings.

What Next?

The M5 Vision Pro should offer a reasonable update for users who like the device or potential customers who haven't yet tried it, but it is still unlikely to enjoy mass appeal or a radically different experience. The device is likely to support the headset product line for a period of time, but it will eventually become an outdated model if Apple offers no successors.

Apple is expected to launch its first smart glasses product as soon as next year, and it is possible that the company could resume work on the Vision Air and Vision Pro 2 once the glasses initiative is established. Nevertheless, Apple's headset is likely to enter a peculiar place around 2027 to 2028, with old hardware on sale and no sign of a refresh or replacement model.

For now, visionOS 26 and the upcoming M5 refresh show that Apple is still committed to mixed reality headsets, but where the product line goes further in the future amid a sudden pivot to smart glasses and artificial intelligence is anyone's guess.

Article Link: Vision Pro Future Uncertain as All Headset Development Is Seemingly Paused

This is important pivot if both the devices dont need progress. More than VisionPro, Smart glasses was what they should have had come up with in the first place.
This is because, this slowly pulls users and shows its importance of going really handsfree with interface that people can use. Following just another VR headset makes Apple to implement all this extra things which are redundant in other platforms. Where Meta won was having whatsapp and Instagram under their blanket. With just that, their Meta Ray Bans have capabilities to live stream on Instagram and Video call on Whatsapp. If Apple have instead come up with Smart Glasses, they could have been able to provide developers API for what Meta Ray Bans are doing but even at wider levels.. You can actually see reminders projected instead of Meta AI reminders which are not that great!

Now that half the world are getting ramped for getting Ray Ban, its really going to be smart of Apple if they can really come up with Glasses really soon.

- From someone, who has done research topics on Augmented Reality

 

[jole]

Apologies if I wasn't clear, to crystallize it:

If Apple releases an update to Vision Pro I expect this implies they will continue work on VR in a reasonably-funded capacity with the intent to deliver a future product in some form. Whether that's AR glasses with occlusion, or a Vision Pro 2, I don't know.

If Apple does not release an update I agree with the synopsis that this product category may be abandoned entirely.

If you go back and read my initial thoughts the weeks preceding Vision Pro I was one of the only people then saying that it was the worst product release in 20 years from Apple, and I still believe that – despite it being cool. Not because the technology is bad, but because the version that launched should have been a dev kit, not a consumer product.

I expected people to have their headsets sit on shelves within weeks and I was absolutely right about that, and so, so many people yelled at me about how short-sighter or thick-headed I was being. But I used VR before, extensively. I knew what was coming.

Apple needed to seed a full developer ecosystem as well as a consumer content one and they did not do that. A dev kit with funding for developers directly to make the economics of software creation make sense was necessary to get this off the ground as a consumer product, and there was a failure of Vision (pun intended) and leadership there.

Typing this with my AVP on (using since the release day) — generalizations suggesting that all AVPs are dusting on shelves are not accurate. Whether people like it or not, AVP is not "dead" or "abandoned" — those just make a compelling narrative (for a tech giant failing).

You're right that the release was premature:

• This has been useful as dev kit and a tech demo
• Tech is super impressive (no-one else having a true competitor on the market yet... Maybe later this month with project Moohan)
• Price blocks wide spread use with the most compelling use-cases: external monitor for a Mac and home theater

Looks like AVP "1.1" with M5 will be out shortly. I expect it to change little for the use-cases: the real problems are Apple's insisting on truly bad "iPadOS on your face" visionOS strategy and too high price. That it will do is to help dodging Moohan from taking the crown as the best headset next week.