Apple is famous for churning out life-changing iPhones – but the tech giant seems to fall flat when it comes to other products.
The California-based company has reportedly canceled work on its next-generation Vision Pro due to critics slamming the current model.
Vision Pro 2 was poised to be a higher-end headset, but is now on the back burner while Apple works on a cheaper Vision Pro.
The original $3,500 headset received ample criticism earlier this year as unhappy customers rushed to return the Vision Pro complaining that the small display hurt their eyes, it was uncomfortable and the features weren’t worth the hefty price tag.
Apple initially had a sales target of three million Vision Pro headsets sold in its first year, but dropped that down to 900,000.
That is compared to the more than 200 million iPhones sold each year.
Apple is striving to create a more affordable headset for both the consumer and for production efforts, while also keeping the same high-end components from the Vision Pro, according to The Information.
Codenamed N109, the cheaper headset will be ‘at least one-third lighter’ and remove some features while keeping the high-resolution display.
Apple had intended to launch both the Vision Pro 2 and N109, but ran into financial troubles – and is now said to be ditching the pricier model.
Apple said last year that it aimed to align the N109’s price with a high-end iPhone, charging consumers between $1,500 and $2,500.
It will potentially be released in 2025 without several features, but Apple has not yet confirmed which ones will be missing from the new VR device.
The company is reportedly working with Seeya Technology, a Chinese-based company, to develop cheaper high-resolution displays.
But a person involved in its manufacturing told The Information that ‘Seeya has so far struggled to meet Apple’s standards and the effort might fail.’
The initial excitement surrounding the Vision Pro’s launch in February saw pre-orders sell out within 18 minutes and more than 200,000 devices were sold in just 10 days, but within a few weeks, Apple saw average and above-average return rates.
Many of the early reviews of the Vision Pro concluded that it was ambitious, but served little purpose.
One critic described it as ‘a high-tech solution in search of a problem.’
Another user posted on X: ‘Apple Vision Pro is great for some things, but there is not a single day that has gone by that I used it that it did not cause me eye strain and a headache.’
Apple has yet to put out an app that makes full use of the Vision Pro’s capabilities, instead focusing on how it can insert more screens and displays into your environment.
‘You kind of find yourself in this virtual environment and you’re asking yourself what you’re doing here,’ Randy Chia, a product manager for a Los Angeles investment firm told Bloomberg.
He said the Vision Pro’s software had the most bugs of any first-generation product he’d used, adding that the ‘wow factor’ didn’t overcome the fact that ‘I’m wearing this big thing on my head.’
Yet another person compared Meta’s lighter Quest headset to the Vision Pro, saying the latter option was the worse alternative.
‘The thing is too [darn] heavy and everyone knows it, and I am used to wearing these things,’ the user told the outlet.
Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said the company reduced its shipments by about half, decreasing from 700 to 800 units to just 400 to 450 units as its Vision Pro dropped in popularity.
‘The challenge for Vision Pro is to address the lack of key applications, price, and headset comfort without sacrificing the see-through user experience,’ Kuo wrote in an April report.
‘Apple is reviewing and adjusting its head-mounted display product roadmap, so there may be no new Vision Pro model in 2025,’ he continued.
‘Apple now expects Vision Pro shipments to decline [year-over-year] in 2025.’
DailyMail.com has reached out to Apple for comment.
