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Vision Pro Future Uncertain as All Headset Development Is Seemingly Paused

To be honest, the only time I would wears something like that usually for gaming like my Oculus CV1 and Quest 2. But the price is out of reach for a lot of consumers for gaming purposes if it is powerful enough to game on.

Meta Quest 3 series dominated the market with good prices.
 
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Lloigorr said:
we all agree that its biggest problem is the price, right?
If it wasn’t a fortune, it could have sold in huge numbers.

And apple could afford to bring its price down for a couple of years, just to give AVP momentum…

Just imagine, this device for <1000$
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The price and the damn weight! Just change the materials and make it more comfortable, get rid of the front display.. and make it cheaper. If that doesn’t work as a standalone device just at least I’m praying that we’ll eventually see the vision air as a content consumption device and 2nd screen.
I definitely want glasses from apple down the line- but it seems odd after everything that they poured into the whole spatial ecosystem, including the blackmagic camera and all the content they’re producing.. it would be an EXTREME shame if they abandoned ship now. How are they even gonna make glasses work with their crappy Ai? And what about Steve Jobs‘ analogy about being where the puck will be and not playing catch up all the time? I don’t get what’s happening at apple but just hope that things will get better once ternus eventually takes over.
 
chfilm said:
And what about Steve Jobs‘ analogy about being where the puck will be and not playing catch up all the time? I don’t get what’s happening at apple but just hope that things will get better once ternus eventually takes over.
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New leadership is the only hope.
We've seen the full Tim Cook playbook and all the ways he operates and this is it.

It's time for change.
 
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While I think the Vision Pro is a completely misguided product thus far, this article is ridiculous because Apple would not be both abandoning a category entirely while developing and preparing to release an updated version.

Please use some common sense “journalists”, and especially those who just parrot what other journalists say as rebloggers without any additional insight at all.
 
novagamer said:
While I think the Vision Pro is a completely misguided product thus far, this article is ridiculous because Apple would not be both abandoning a category entirely while developing and preparing to release an updated version.

Please use some common sense “journalists”, and especially those who just parrot what other journalists say as rebloggers without any additional insight at all.
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The M5 version is nothing more than a chip bump and a better strap.
The strap, apparently, was already a thing they had that media testers used when AVP was first trialed.

The are indeed abandoning this category and pivoting any work in this space to an AR glasses concept.

The "journalists" are doing just fine here.
 
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turbineseaplane said:
The M5 version is nothing more than a chip bump and a better strap.
The strap, apparently, was already a thing they had that media testers used when AVP was first trialed.

The are indeed abandoning this category and pivoting any work in this space to an AR glasses concept.

The "journalists" are doing just fine here.
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We'll see. I disagree, if that product releases.

They don't have supply built up as we know they discontinued production. The amount of software engineering talent required to sustain that product is very, very expensive. If they are exiting the space those engineers should be redirected, and in fact I'd expect news about that before any news about hardware future to be accurate.

If it doesn't release, absolutely for sure it was a failed, misguided experiment. Having a strap design done does not necessitate a $4,000 consumer product that will have minimal to no new features or long-term support, considering Apple is the only one who can reliably create content for it.

Tim Cook values customer satisfaction and they'd be willfully releasing a product that will not offer it, if the rumors about the hardware are true with minimal future support. For the initial version that risk was necessary (if stupid, it should have been a dev kit), but as second one – no excuse.

We've had like 50 stories about this interim version over the last 18 months and a big part of that I strongly feel is just to keep the news cycle 'interesting' and to spawn debates for engagement.
 
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novagamer said:
We'll see. I disagree, if that product releases.

They don't have supply built up as we know they discontinued production. The amount of software engineering talent required to sustain that product is very, very expensive. If they are exiting the space those engineers should be redirected, and in fact I'd expect news about that before any news about hardware future to be accurate.

If it doesn't release, absolutely for sure it was a failed, misguided experiment. Having a strap design done does not necessitate a $4,000 consumer product that will have minimal to no new features or long-term support, considering Apple is the only one who can reliably create content for it.

Tim Cook values customer satisfaction and they'd be willfully releasing a product that will not offer it, if the rumors about the hardware are true with minimal future support. For the initial version that risk was necessary (if stupid, it should have been a dev kit), but as second one – no excuse.

We've had like 50 stories about this interim version over the last 18 months and a big part of that I strongly feel is just to keep the news cycle 'interesting' and to spawn debates for engagement.
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I'm confused, what are you disagreeing with?

The reporting that they've stopped work on a new AVP next gen as well as an AVP air?
 
Was always DOA. Obviously so. Very strongly said this before it even launched. WAs always amazing they decided to release a VR headset after 10 years of VR hype that went nowhere. The reality is people just don't want a box on their face.

Apple needs a 'no' person in the company. But no one is perfect is either. They can afford to bomb once in awhile.

The situation would be different if it was a high end monitor for Mac first and foremost. Then it wouldn't need an install base. It could sell in low numbers like the Apple Pro 32" display.

Not that it isn't that too. But all the other stuff ...never was going to take off. And never was going to receive enough support. And even the Mac monitor aspect is sort of an after thought.


Last ...I bet Apple could build goggles that let you elegantly seamlessly place the iPhone in front of your face for closer to 1/10th the price. And get 90% of the AVP experience out of it.
 
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mozumder said:
Hard to believe Apple would develop such a high profile product and drop it completely due to slight competitive pressure. Glasses are immensely useful, in particular, for people that want to record video of their personal action, like kitchen workers or other workers, but it seems Vision Pro would be more useful to more people as a media consumption device.
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Agree. It would be tragic if it happened because there are so many possibilities for this technology. I just spent the last 6 months collaborating with GPT 5, Gemini and Claude writing a 1000 page tome on how to utilize and unlock spatial computing’s fullest potential. Apple, please don’t cave in to market pressure. You’ve got billions in cash reserves. Hire back some of the workers you lost to other tech companies - yes, head hunt them and offer them attractive deals. The world needs AVP.

EDIT: Some of you may laugh now. But you have no idea what’s coming.
 
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It's a shame because the Vision Pro could be so great if Apple supported it better. I tried it out when it was first released and realized it was the best VR headset on the market by far--but no real games or other software that makes it compelling. I'm starting to feel like there is some department at Apple that has way too much power and is killing support for everything except Apple's core offerings. Now it just seems Apple responds to competition like Meta. If Apple abandons the Vision Pro it will erode trust in future offerings. Who wants to spend a boatload of money on something that will be completely obsolete and unsupported in a few years? Nevertheless, I hope to be impressed by the next version of the Vision Pro but not holding my breath either.
 
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turbineseaplane said:
I'm confused, what are you disagreeing with?

The reporting that they've stopped work on a new AVP next gen as well as an AVP air?
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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.
 
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diamornte said:
Agree. It would be tragic if it happened because there are so many possibilities for this technology. I just spent the last 6 months collaborating with GPT 5, Gemini and Claude writing a 1000 page tome on how to utilize and unlock spatial computing’s fullest potential. Apple, please don’t cave in to market pressure. You’ve got billions in cash reserves. Hire back some of the workers you lost to other tech companies - yes, head hunt them and offer them attractive deals. The world needs AVP.

EDIT: Some of you may laugh now. But you have no idea what’s coming.
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It's a for-profit company..their only job is sell to the market, and if the market isn't interested, what is the point?
 
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Rogifan said:
There were rumor articles suggesting this is where Apple’s design team thought the company should go but they were outvoted because the tech wasn’t ready
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I personally think it was released for Tim Cook to appease shareholders because there was pressure on Apple (at the time) for them prove what else they have up their sleeve. Not saying it was right or wrong, just my hunch.
 
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Rogifan said:
Before the Apple Watch came out Tim Cook said nobody wants to wear glasses unless they have to. Then he went on to say the wrist is “interesting”. If Apple had glasses ready to go at the time Cook would have said nobody wants to wear a watch unless they have to.
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I think it's fair to say a lot more people enjoy wearing watches vs wearing glasses
 
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klasma said:
The FCC one isn’t the planned second-generation version, it’s just a chip bump and maybe a new frame color and strap.
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That literally sounds like every second generation Apple product to me, so yes it is.
Chip bump, more comfortable strap, likely other small tweaks here and there.
 
Mr_Ed said:
Holy crap. Sad to say this describes my Mac journey over the last 14 years perfectly. I previously championed and talked up the hell out of Macs since 1993, even convincing employers to get me Macs for work. But in the end, when there is nothing I need to do that I can’t do on a PC (for $less) while the Mac is limiting in some areas, the answer becomes pretty clear.
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That's true as long as you don't mind using Windows instead of macOS.
 
tennisproha said:
it needs to be made better and garner a bigger ecosystem
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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.
 
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smulji said:
That's true as long as you don't mind using Windows instead of macOS.
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Sure, as long as the OS does everything you want to do with it. I mind not being able to do everything I want to do with a computer a hell of a lot more than I mind any differences between Windows and MacOS. And while “back in the day” (1990s-2000s) I felt MacOS was more reliable and less intrusive when I was trying to get work done, now I find for tasks that can be done on both, Windows and MacOS are a lot more alike than they are different when I get down to the essence of the task at hand. That doesn’t mean someone can’t simply like one better than the other even if they are functionally equivalent, though.
 
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