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 The device is likely to support the headset product line for a period of time, but it will eventually become an outdated model if Apple offers no successors.
The 'doom and gloom' thread headline is way overblown.
why would Apple be intensely limited on successors if they have already done a M5/R2 update? In 2/3 years they could just about as easily do a. M7/R3 ( or M7/R2 ) update. Apple has not primarily sold this as a "gaming" device. They have gone out of their way to day it isn't a generic gaming focused "VR" device.
Pretty good chance that the M5 and R2 could be run at very similar performance as the M2/R1 but with substantively lower power consumption. Not eyepopping , radically lower, but lower enough to substantially improve the battery time.
Second, thing Apple can do is promote the dual band headband as being the default. There is dramatically better weight balance if don't use a single band. However, the initial rollout primarily promoted that appoach. Change it to something better and the results follow.
Third, while the VP can use a gesture based interface, every radically major improvements that the glasses (with no display) require could improve the VP experience also. That isn't a huge hardware or superficial change, that is a very substantive software change ( which probably would run even better on M5 or a future M7,8,9 also ).
If Apple's initial foray into glasses is without a display, then it is almost certain there will be dramatic moaning and groaning about not having a 'monocular' display model to compete with Meta RB Display. In trun, Get that out the door ( honestly that is likely not going to b e priced anywhere near the Meta offering either ). and it would be time for the limited design resources to loop back to Vision Pro.
Finally if Apple has a better handle about what the demand is going to be for Vision Pro , then it is going to be far more easier not end up with execess inventory lying around for long periods of time. The rumored estimates of 'million (or more)' were always fantasy. Maybe someone was smoking that much drugs prior to the launch , but the price tag and estimates never really matched one another at all.
The $6K Mac Pro doenn't rack up millions of units sales per year, but that isn't a inventory problem because the unit volume expectations are grounded in reality of the long time after 2019 at those price levels ( and unit sales of 2013 and previous models in the > $6K range ).
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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.
Apple Intelligence still aren't working extremely well in a year the glasses will likely slide more. ( similar to how Vision Pro kept sliding in the rumors. )
[. A. mini or 'micro'. R2 could help the glasses pre-process the imagery coming out of the 1 or 2 cameras on the glasses. (the number of cameras being fed into the 'R' chip would be substantively smaller , so probably can make the package much smaller for the classes. Would also lower power and costs, but would be doing some R&D cost sharing across a higher volume product line up). There may be some chip subsystem coupling here with moving the VP onto R2 iteration. I would be surprised if the glasses and VP are 100% decoupled hardware wise. ( some compute will be funneled back to the phone, but suspect Apple will put some twist on device work done that enables some better fast, efficient interface interaction on the device itself. ]
