It’s been just over one year since Apple released the Vision Pro, the device that allowed users to experience the expensive thrill of wearing a Mac on their face.
Its first year was a mixed bag: Apple sold an estimated ~500k units in 2024, which certainly isn’t nothing, but the vibes were still off. It may be too early to call Vision Pro a flop, but its mixed reviews, price complaints, plentiful returns, and narrow adoption are all early hallmarks of a dud.
So, how can Vision Pro shake off its uneven freshman year and avoid a deeper sophomore slump?
More Vision, less pro
Ask MacRumors or Apple Scoop, and they’ll suggest Apple is developing an “incremental update” to the Vision Pro.
- Rather than a full revision, this could be a cheaper, less advanced model.
- Think Vision as opposed to Vision Pro, like the distinction between regular iPhones and fancy iPhones.
Consumers have been slow to adopt the Vision Pro, since it’s arguably a weirder way to do the stuff a computer can do, but that doesn’t mean there’s no market.
- The Vision Pro is useful in operating rooms, per Popular Science.
- It can replace physical monitors, freeing up space and reducing the need for surgeons to turn their heads.
- Surgeons can also use the AR tech to practice on digital bodies.
What about glasses?
There is an obvious solution to the price and bulk of the Vision Pro: cheaper, sleeker AR smart glasses.
- Meta’s Ray-Ban collab is still going strong, despite their potential for creepiness.
- Meta reportedly has plans for a new version with a tiny screen in the lens.
But Apple has reportedly canceled plans for a competing product, as it apparently couldn’t deliver the right processing power and battery life at the right price point.
- The glasses join the Apple Car and custom Apple Watch displays on the company’s list of recent cancellations.
- Apple has shown no desire to kill the Vision Pro — Tim Cook hailed it in an earnings call just last week — though Bloomberg reports that morale is iffy in its headset technology division.
- (BTW, the same report says Apple is working on “AirPods with cameras,” whatever that means.)
It appears Vision Pro will hang around, perhaps waiting until its tech becomes more affordable and gives it a chance to really take off. Hopefully that’s also long enough for Apple to convince everyone it’s actually cool.
