Most reviewers agree that Apple’s Vision Pro headset is an impressive piece of kit, but it has a number of weaknesses at present, foremost among them its weight and price. Which means there’s a great deal of interest in the lighter and cheaper version of the device which Apple is believed to be working on.
If you’re among those eagerly awaiting that product, we have bad news: it appears to have been shelved. Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman, usually a reliable analyst, claims that Apple last week announced internally that it’s moving employees off the Vision Pro redesign to prioritize its smart glasses project. Gurman cites “people with knowledge of the matter” as the source of the report.
That project encompasses not one but two sets of smart glasses. The first, which Gurman says is codenamed N50, won’t have its own display. It’ll pair with an iPhone and could be announced as soon as next year. The second will have a display but isn’t currently slated to arrive until 2028–although this latest move could bring that launch closer.
Apple takes the virtual, augmented, and mixed reality markets seriously, believing they could be key to the future of consumer tech. (Many years ago Tim Cook said augmented reality would “change the way we use technology forever.”) But whether because of technical limitations or customer apathy, the company has struggled to find a killer product in this area with anything like the mainstream appeal of an iPod or an iPhone.
Smart glasses, with their low weight and comparatively unobtrusive profile, seem like a better bet than full headsets, but Apple glasses have been expected for a long time and are yet to become to a reality. This latest report suggests the company recognises that it needs to deliver.
It may also hint at trouble in the Vision Pro redesign. In theory a cheaper and lighter version of Vision Pro sounds perfect, but until it’s announced, released, and tested, we won’t know what compromises have to be made in order to achieve those two key improvements. In a report last year Gurman described the “difficult trade-offs” which Apple was running into; each of the available options, such as removing the EyeSight exterior display or lowering the quality of passthrough visuals, would impact the customer experience.
Both projects have seemingly taken higher priority due to Meta’s success with its Ray-Ban glasses. The Facebook parent company launched two models this year, a screenless Ray-Ban Meta (Gen 2) smartglasses with longer battery life and improved cameras for $299, and the next-gen Meta Ray-Ban Display with a 600×600-pixel screen to show messages, video calls, and captions.
Delays are generally a sign of problems. The cheaper Vision Pro, variously referred to as N100 or N107, was already expected to be pushed back to 2027. Now it’s tempting to wonder if it’ll ever arrive at all, leaving us to settle for the imminent and far more cautious update hinted at by regulatory leaks this week.
Author: David Price, Editor, Macworld
David has been writing about technology for well over two decades, and got on board the Apple hype train when covering the original iPhone launch in 2007. He is an enthusiastic Apple Watch evangelist and feels that the HomePod is misunderstood.