Apple Changes Course on Vision Pro

There’s good news and bad news when it comes to Apple’s Vision Pro. The bad news: Apple is apparently reallocating its resources to a different device. The good news? It’s unlikely you were using a Vision Pro in the first place, so you’re probably not impacted.

Apple released its VR headset to great fanfare in 2024, but it saw few overall sales. For many market watchers, this didn’t come as a surprise; the $3500 price tag and limited support meant it was more likely to become a historical footnote along the lines of Nintendo’s Virtual Boy (a 90s-era clunky VR headset) or the Newton (Apple’s 90s-era clunky PDA) rather than a visionary leap like the iPod, iPhone, or the more recent Apple Silicon move.

Making matters worse was the release of Meta and Ray-Ban’s smart glasses collaboration, Display. Priced at a fraction of the price of the Vision Pro ($800), lighter, and actually usable in public, the product has carved out a niche in the still-small market for facial hardware. 

Apple reportedly intends to follow Meta’s lead and release its own smart glasses by 2027. Whether the company will be able to regain lost ground or if both Display and Apple’s competing product will follow the path of Google Glass is anyone’s guess. Still, the entire ordeal has been a recent, rare failure for the historically innovative company.

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