According to the latest edition of Mark Gurman’s Power On newsletter, Apple’s Vision group is continuing to experiment with a couple different products to follow up the launch of Apple Vision Pro from earlier this year. These new products include a cheaper Apple Vision headset, a second generation of Apple Vision Pro, as well as a version of Smart Glasses.
Cheaper Apple Vision
Apple Vision Pro was unveiled at last year’s WWDC keynote, and the headset begun shipping to consumers in February 2024. Although the launch was highly anticipated, hype did die down pretty quickly because ultimately, not a ton of people want to pay $3499 for a mixed reality headset, even if it’s quite technically impressive.
However, Apple isn’t letting the slowing sales demotivate them – and according to Gurman, the company still remains on track to ship a cheaper Apple Vision headset “probably coming as early as next year”. He also reiterates that Apple is continuing to work on a second generation of Apple Vision Pro, although the release timeframe is unclear.
It isn’t quite clear what Apple will do to cut costs on this cheaper model, but Gurman remains skeptical about whether or not this product will ultimately make Apple Vision headsets more popular.
What’s the point? This category of devices has yet to capture the imagination of consumers, and it’s hard to say when that will happen. If the cheaper model isn’t less than $1,500, the Vision devices will probably remain niche products.
Apple Smart Glasses
In addition to two new Apple Vision headsets, Gurman adds that the Vision group is still experimenting with Smart Glasses without displays, similar to Meta’s Ray Ban glasses.
Gurman initially reported on this idea back in February, and it seems the company is still committed to the product. He also adds that the “idea of making true augmented reality glasses has been tabled due to technical challenges”, so it’ll likely be a while before we see a true “Apple Glass” product that many of us have envisioned for years.
Regardless, Meta Ray Bans are still quite a cool product. They allow you to easily take photos and videos on the go, and you can also talk to it as a voice assistant. On top of that, you can take advantage of Meta AI to answer questions about things around you, since it has access to that camera feed. They’re also lightweight, and start around $329. I think it’d be pretty interesting to see Apple ship a product like that.
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