I assume Gurman has excellent sources inside Apple as usual, two quotes from the article:
This cheaper device, codenamed N107, is now the focus of Apple’s Vision Products Group. The company hopes to bring that product to market as early as the end of 2025 — a plan that’s been in place since before the Vision Pro was first unveiled last year.
The company has no plans to abandon the high end of the headset market, but this second-generation Vision Pro will take longer to arrive. Months ago, the company shifted a planned 2025 release to the end of 2026 at the earliest
If this is really the plans for the Vision Pro, I’m sad to say the product won’t survive such a long delay. Every device Apple has released from the iPod, iPhone, iPad and Watch has had a yearly or in some cases 18 month between new hardware. If what Gurman says is true, there won’t be any new Vision product until the end of 2025, which is almost 2 years after the Vision Pro shipped and no new Pro headset until the end of 2026, 3 years after the first Pro! That’s more like a HomePod cadence than a brand new platform Apple is trying to launch.
As Gurman says:
The big question is whether Apple is willing to invest hundreds of millions of dollars annually developing new technologies for future headsets and glasses — with little prospect for a near-term payoff. After all, Apple abandoned plans earlier this year to make a car after losing roughly $10 billion over a decade.
I think that a lower priced device which more people can afford along with some significant amount of actual content which shines on the device would make far more of an impact for Apple than new Vision Pro hardware.
It’s unclear to me what segment Apple has aimed the Vision Pro at:
Pro’s who could use it remotely as a Mac Monitor? not for $3.5k.
Office workers for video calls? Companies are not going to pay that price.
For People to watch films? Too Expensive.
Interactive content? 1) nowhere near enough content and 2) far too expensive.
When Apple released the Watch, they threw 3 or 4 things out as use cases, 9 years later
It’s for Fitness and Health tracking and notifications (yes people use it for other things, but those two are the ones Apple focuses on)
It’s still very early days, but the Vision Pro doesn’t have a profitable addressable market, is expensive to produce, expensive to buy and reviews by those who have them are not glowing. Whether they think it’s a great device or not, the thing they always come back to is the price.
Lack of a New version of Vision Pro for 30 months does not make it dead in the water. Lack of a more affordable alternative, and lack of content, will.
ATP talked about how the Live Talk Show in the Vision Pro was compelling and this was also the last time I’ve used my Vision Pro. They also talked about Apple producing more live content. If John Gruber and a small app developer can produce a live show, certainly Apple could start having their MLS or Friday Night baseball games live in 3D. Why hasn’t that happened? I actually subscribed to Apple TV+ at the start of the baseball season expecting Apple to do something special for their MLB games, but they did nothing.
This is what bothers me the most, they seem to have no strategy for developing new content for the device. Apple has an entire content department for Apple TV and Apple Music, why aren’t they leveraging that expertise to make new content? It’s really baffling to me.
The Vision Pro may have been the victim of bad timing. It’s clear now that Apple was surprised by ChatCPT and they had to abandon at least one project (the car) and back burner others (AVP?) in order to get some kind of AI to show off this year. But the AVP doesn’ t appear to be dead.
They’re quoting the same Gurman report. My question is more about can the sales of the current AVP really be sustained for 2 years without any new hardware upgrades? That doesn’t seem likely and if the sales fall off a cliff at the start of 2025, will they really follow through on these other plans or decide that this whole product category was just a mistake?
With a price of $3500+ the Vision Pro version 1 was never meant to be a consumer product, but there are commercial applications like Nvidia’s Omniverse that may keep the platform going. IMO we will just have to wait and see how developers and content creators support the product.
Maybe not hardware upgrades, but there are plenty of new features they can deliver via visionOS software updates and new immersive contents. I just installed the visionOS 2 beta and am very happy with the new features.
Report: Cheaper ‘Apple Vision’ headset could require a tethered iPhone or Mac…
I don’t think that would be bad at all. Right now the AVP requires carrying a tethered battery brick that’s separate from the already heavy headset. If using the processing power of a device you already paid for could reduce the cost and weight, I’m all for it. Tethering it to an iPhone (especially if it’s wirelessly tethered) would be no burden at all, since you’d be carrying it anyway. And tethering it to a Mac would open up all sorts of possibilities.
I have glowing reviews for the VisionPro. Absolutely love this device. Use it for personal activities, work, etc. And yes, around people. Like pagers, cell phones, etc - it provides me a freedom not experienced before. And - privacy when I need it most (sensitive work stuff, gift buying, etc). People buy privacy screen add one for laptops. Certainly don’t need that for the VP!
At 3500+ what are the MacBook Pros in that range for? And you’re limited in screen size. Want bigger, have to get an external monitor - good, no great one at that. OR how about the iPad Pros? You can easily spend a couple thousand plus on a tablet with keyboard, pencil, etc. A similar speck’s Pro with 13” at 512 Gb, wi-fi only, pencil, Magic Keyboard, monthly AppleCare is $1,977. If you want the nano-textured screen, you have to go 1 Tb which brings the price up to $2,477. Granted, I did buy a Logitech wireless keyboard (that I also use with my work laptop and MacBook Pro) for $129, but it’s ergonomic and I use it for other devices).
SO putting things in to perspective, if you can realize the value of the VP, what you can actually do with it (a LOT more than just videos), it’s rather impressive. Not a day goes by I’m not using it.