Vision Pro Is Alive!!! (Barely…)

Ever happy to admit when I might have beeen wrong, it seems my Vision Pro, Meet Touch Bar Field Note may have written off the Vision Pro a touch prematurely.

According to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman ^[1], Apple is working on a “completely revamped” Vision Pro headset. Hurrah! Though he says it won’t arrive before late 2028 or early 2029, if it ships at all.

Just like Meta's recently announced VR headset which offloads the internal components onto a external computing module housing the battery and main processor (which can be clipped to a user's waist if you want to look like one of those people), one of the options Apple is apparently considering would use the same sort of idea, presumably to make the headset lighter and more comfortable to wear.

However, Gurman reports that whilst Apple's engineers are testing this Meta-style approach, Apple's own leadership doesn't want it. Senior leaders within Apple are said to consider having such an external module a “poor user experience” and so want the company to stick with something closer to an all-in-one design. Apparently Apple is trying to find ways of just making their original concept cheaper and lighter, and is looking at plastic, titanium, or other materials (cardboard perhaps?)

Maybe my Vision Pro, Meet Touch Bar Field Note wasn't entirely misplaced, as Gurman says he's been told the work is on “life support” while the company focuses on smart glasses. And he says there's no guarantee the new headsets will ever launch.

So I'm going to stick with my original verdict: the Vision Pro is an (almost) dead duck.