- Apple has reportedly pushed back development of its next-gen Apple Vision Pro citing expensive price tag and reduced sales figures.
- The affordable Apple Vision headset would fetch a price tag $1,500 or half of what the original Vision Pro is pegged at.
- It is slated to arrive sometime by the end of 2025 or 2026.
Looks like the next-gen Apple Vision Pro 2 has been reportedly pushed to a back burner and instead, the Cupertino-based giant is working on an affordable version of Apple Vision Pro.
Apple Vision Pro 2 is delayed, once again
According to an exclusive report by The Information, Apple has reportedly pushed the launch of its next-gen super-expensive Apple Vision Pro 2 sometime later as there are no dates available. Instead, it will be working on an affordable version of the AR/VR headset targeting more customers since the pricing was a critical point where the sales of the original Vision Pro quite declined.
Recently, we learned that the original Apple Vision Pro will debut in more countries including Japan, the UK, China, and Canada. Even though it is considered one of the most sophisticated AR/VR headsets or what Apple likes to call its ‘Spatial Computing’ headset, its price tag has been a concern. This along with reports addressing the difficulty in navigating using an eye-controlled interface among others have potentially added to the decision that Apple could potentially delay the launch of the next-gen headset.
A parts’ supplier was cited suggesting an estimated 460,000 units were manufactured in April and that around 100,000 units were in the pipeline through August. This hints at declined sales figures even with the headset going global as we speak.
Affordable Apple Vision headset would fetch $1,500 price tag
Pricing has to be a major concern since the original Vision Pro headset is tagged at $3,500. For instance, the affordable Quest 3 headset from Meta is at $500 while a more expensive and powerful Quest Pro fetches a price tag of $1,500. Keeping this in mind, the purported affordable version of Apple Vision Pro headsets might be priced around $1,500 to target a wider range of regular and Pro audiences. This goes in line with what Apple has been practicing for years including iPhone 15 vs 15 Pro, MacBook Air vs MacBook Pro, and so on.
The affordable Apple Vision Pro is expected to arrive sometime in 2026 after it was reportedly delayed from launching later this year. The Cupertino giant is working with parts and component suppliers to bring down the prices such as with the cameras in use as well as headband manufacturing and smaller speakers.
It is touted that an affordable Vision headset reportedly entered development in 2022 with the original plan set to debut it in 2024. However, there are a lot of moving parts including a balance between cost-cutting and addressing user experience calling for frequent delays in the project. For now, we have multiple timelines for its arrival which includes either in 2025 or 2026 but that remains to be seen.
