Apple is reportedly prepping two new Vision Pro headsets. The unit’s first device, a $3,500 headset, has been commercially unsuccessful. The plan is to release a “Vision Pro 2” model that makes the headset both lighter and cheaper. The other is a Vision Pro that plugs into a Mac for streaming a user’s Mac display or for connecting to high-end enterprise applications.
Mark Gurman for Bloomberg News:
The $3,500 price of the current version is extraordinarily steep, putting it in the same territory as Apple’s most expensive laptops. It also makes the Vision Pro more than seven times the price of Meta’s Quest headset.
The other headset in development could be even more intriguing. In January, I reported that Apple had scrapped work on augmented reality glasses that would tether to a Mac. Instead, it’s now working on a Vision Pro that plugs into a Mac. The difference between the two ideas is the level of immersion. The canceled device had transparent lenses; the product still in the works will use the same approach as the Vision Pro.
The idea is to create an ultra-low-latency system for streaming a user’s Mac display or for connecting to high-end enterprise applications. Some customers have been using the Vision Pro for things like viewing imaging during surgery or for flight simulators. Those are two areas where a user would want the least amount of lag possible — something that can’t be guaranteed by a fully wireless system.
MacDailyNews Take: The next steps on a long road.
It’ll be quite a few years from now, but once Apple’s AR smart glasses are released, people are going to want to wear them during every waking hour and they’ll eventually largely replace iPhones, iPads, and MacBooks.
What supplants it will quite likely be something less obtrusive or, in the case of eyewear + personal assistant (AI glasses), something regarded as less obtrusive (easier and quicker to use regardless of the drawbacks of wearing glasses).
Removing obstacles between the human brain and the Internet is the goal. – MacDailyNews, January 14, 2017
Someday, hopefully sooner than later, we’ll look back at holding up slabs of metal and glass to access AR as unbelievably quaint. — MacDailyNews, July 28, 2017
The impact of augmented reality cannot be overstated. It will be a paradigm shift larger than the iPhone and the half-assed clones it begat. — MacDailyNews, August 4, 2017
Augmented Reality is going to change everything. — MacDailyNews, July 21, 2017
Imagine what could be done with AirPods coupled with a pair of Apple Specs. The sky’s the limit! — MacDailyNews, November 17, 2016
The Apple Glasses will be the key as holding up slabs of glass as “windows” is suboptimal. When we’re running in a race, for example, we don’t want to have to hold an iPhone or even glance at an Apple Watch, but with a pair of Apple Glasses constantly overlaying time, pace, splits, etc. it’ll be ideal! — MacDailyNews, September 6, 2019
Information instantly accessible right in front of your eyes will enhance virtually (pun intended) everything. The next step after that, of course, will be chips implanted into our brains, as humans become cyborgs. It’s inevitable. – MacDailyNews, November 30, 2021
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It was TD hnology in search of a problem and market – which is a completely flawed design premise and shows a total lack of “vision” from Tim Cook.
It was over-built but even as-is, if Apple had courted some CAD SW companies, some medial SW companies for surgeries, it would have been – at least – a market targeted success.
It could have been been viewed as a professional engineering product not meant for the consumer masses, but with potential for consumer versions.
Apple then could have released a $1999 version, and brought with an EA sports and some battlefront Star Wars games or obviously what we are all painting for the AR version of gaming… Apple chipsets are fundamental design of Vision Pro is totally powerful enough to take your reality and augmented with a star destroyer flying overhead your home or storm troopers coming out of the forest or or or…
Even on Shark Tank, a guy had basically taken an oculus and tried to sell it as an amusement park type of situation which oculus is way under powered for and it’s pretty lame….
Apple should have worked or should be working with Disney and their theme parks or universal and their theme parks to open up some very amazing rides.
Nope. Again, no vision from the leader. It’s time Tim goes away…..
I disagree with every one of your points.
apple doesn’t make whole product categories for niche markets.
the Vision Pro is a crazy overbuilt tech demo. a kind of shipping, polished, prototype.
it doesn’t matter what people think of it.
It’s step 1 in what will be a series of products that won’t achieve critical mass until down the road.
Its one job is to get the ball rolling, which it did.
(the bigger picture is much bigger than a Shark Tanky Disney ride, those will come…)
Vision Pro is far more than a tech demo, it’s a finished product albeit with terrible marketing . The “killer app” is the Mac Virtual Display which Apple failed to release at launch and has STILL not been promoted like it should be. Improved ergonomics will be welcome but Vision Pro is already awesome, I’m still mesmerized every time I put it on, like I’m dreaming that this even possible.
Of course price and million influencers, haters, wannabe critics and other loudmouths who either never tried it or only demoed it poisoned the well over the past year. While expensive it’s also arguably the most advanced tech product ever released to the general public, at least in our lifetimes. Gen 1 had to be released so that by Gen 2,3,4 everyone will be raving about it as if they knew all along it would be the future.
actually, Apple did release the Mac Virtual Display on launch. (it’s since improved)
it’s a great feature, but not the “killer app” that’s going to drive masses to adapt it.
Obviously if there’s a tethered version, that would specifically address that.
but it’s not a “finished product with terrible marketing.”
apple knows how to market their products.
they’re purposely holding back on marketing because they’re not interested in convincing people to buy something that isn’t ready for them (it’s too heavy, too uncomfortable, and too expensive to appeal to the mass market).
I think it’s great with a lot of promise, an impressive “version 1” device, but a “version 1” device nonetheless.
this version gets the ball rolling.
There’s a reason Apple has rarely been the 1st to the market w/ a product. It’s served them amazingly well. Lacking products superseded by multiples–a marketing “coup”–almost every time.
Though there are a few like products, none have gripped the market…so AAPL is breaking it’s typical MO. Mis-step, or worthy risk? Perhaps Cook looking to leave some sort of legacy besides financializing AAPL with the “help” of the Red Chinese?