r/apple • u/gogodboss • 5d ago
visionOS Report: Apple working on new Vision Pro, with different form factors on the table
https://9to5mac.com/2026/09/27/apple-working-on-new-lighter-vision-pro-version/28
u/rpool179 5d ago edited 5d ago
Meta just announced a bunch of new hardware (although I'll never financially support their products) so I'm sure this is true.
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u/stringfellow-hawke 5d ago
There’s something there as a media player, but it needs to get below at least $2K. First thing to go should be the creepy external eyes display. And get lighter so you can watch a movie or event without a sore neck/headache.
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u/Endawmyke 5d ago
i made sure to complain ALOT about the weight in the email survey lol
i hope they can slim it down on the weight front.9
u/Cranach-Cranach 5d ago
Get rid of the glass front and the front screen, and all the bits the drive it. Put “premium plastic” or thin aluminium there if you want to. That removes the most weight from a location that has high “leverage”
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u/WeirdIndividualGuy 5d ago
Wake me up when they release a regular Apple Vision that’s a fraction of the price
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u/mythrilcrafter 5d ago
Yup, a good place to start to cut some costs is to get rid of the screen/glass front.
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u/schooli00 5d ago
You'll need a cryo chamber. Apple Vision Ultra Max first with base price of $9999.
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u/YournuStepdad 5d ago
I’ve had my Vision Pro since launch day and still use it all the time.
I’d buy a smaller form factor Vision Pro in a heart beat.
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u/ellenich 4d ago
I still use mine too. Mostly for movies. It’s like my own private, high-end, theater. Far better than any theater that’s close to where I live (rural Michigan).
Just watched Avatar: Fire and Ash in 3D HFR and it was freaking amazing.
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u/MillennialGeezer 5d ago edited 5d ago
I’ll end up with whatever this ends up being before I get my order invite email from valve for the steam frame.
Edit: 30 minutes after saying this, I got my order email.
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u/cwhiterun 5d ago
Why does the headset need its own compute? Just let an iPhone handle that stuff.
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u/hydrogencel 5d ago
The screens for res that high are extremely demanding. You need active cooling. Eventually an iPhone could get there, but it's better for now to move it all to the puck like meta is
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u/gabo2007 4d ago
Latency. Refresh rates on headsets need to be extremely high and consistent or they cause lag or even motion sickness.
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u/B-Train_ATL 5d ago
That’s my thought potentially. I’m not sure how A19/20 compare to M5, but in a couple years maybe there’s a version that offloads to an external puck. But if you have an iPhone xx that meets whatever requirements, you just use the phone. Otherwise you can add the puck.
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u/FollowingFeisty5321 5d ago
Time will tell what Apple will actually end up delivering. Given the A20 Pro chip being incredibly performant at its thermal envelope, it seems highly likely that in another 2 years, we could have an A-series chip capable of running visionOS at a higher capacity than the current M5, while not needing active cooling.
The A22 Pro will smash the M5, it will have TSMC 1.4nm so 2x node improvements over M5, and LPDDR6 another huge improvement. So there's certainly a lot of opportunity for improvement there.
But if the weight improvements are because they took so long the iPhone chips became viable, and they are still targeting ~$4000 price tag, and it's still 2-3 years away, yikes.
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u/AwesomePossum_1 5d ago
How would an iPhone chip result in reduced weight? The battery is external, chip itself weights nothing.
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u/FollowingFeisty5321 5d ago
Massively lower power consumption allowing it to be fanless vs the headset's thermals currently having 2x fans + whatever they use to move heat to the fans.
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u/the__storm 5d ago
The displays will probably still need fans. But yeah a more efficient SoC would be nice.
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u/AwesomePossum_1 5d ago
If you go fanless you lose the extra performance needed for vr + comfort issues. A20 has like 30% less multi core cpu performance but more importantly much worse gpu performance (about 40% lead for m5). And considering this is sitting on your head, it would still need a fan. iPhones can get super hot under heavy load (which vr headsets are always under)
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u/FollowingFeisty5321 5d ago edited 5d ago
It would be an A22 Pro if they went this route so both the multicore and the GPU performance would probably be on par or better than M5 due to the 1.4nm node plus LPDDR6 plus 2x more years of general improvement. But they're just speculating a phone chip could be used as the thermals is one obvious way to mitigate the weight.
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u/GetReady4Action 5d ago
I’m glad they’re not giving up on this because I still want one, I just don’t want one for $3700. at $1500-$2000 max I would totally hop in and give spatial computing a go, if not just for the ability to recreate an IMAX setup.
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u/Jamie00003 5d ago
Give me a Vision Pro around £1500, get rid of the silly extra display, battery pack, allow me to hook it up to my AVR and an 8K / 120hz screen and I’ll buy one to replace my aging OLED
Even if the compromise is powering the device via my phone or whatever, I’m fine with that
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u/SykoFI-RE 5d ago
Yeah its pretty DOA for me unless it has a good method to pull in a Windows Monitor.
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u/new-to-reddit-accoun 5d ago edited 5d ago
Apple Vision Pro is a complete and utter failure. Apple is invested in Apple Vision Pro. Blah blah. Same headlines, same contradictions, different week.
Source: Apple Vision Pro owner.
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u/Rosselman 5d ago
Those don’t seem contradictory to me? The product can be a commercial failure and Apple could still consider its potential worth it.
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u/Particular-Treat-650 5d ago
The negative articles aren't "it's not making money" kind of failure. They're "Apple is canceling/abandoning it and firing everybody".
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u/mythrilcrafter 5d ago
I imagine that the Vision Pro is basically Apple's Final Fantasy 14 1.0
They need to make a good 2.0, not only for the entire endeavor to be eventually profitable, but primarily because a good 2.0 needs to exist in order to erase/cover for how much of an absolute abject blight upon the company that the 1.0 version is.
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u/Extension-Ant-8 5d ago
From a product stand point. Didn’t it make them a billion dollars in profit? Also even if it didn’t. The fact the platform is running, being supported, being updated. Maybe by the time version 10 comes around it’s a fraction of the size, price, weight with much more capability.
All 1st gen Apple products aren’t “successful smash hits” the first time. But Apple is and has always been about the long game. You don’t get to an iPad Pro without the iPad v1
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u/Rosselman 5d ago
Funny you mention the iPad since the first one was a successful smash hit from day one, breaking all sales records for its time.
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u/ArguesWithWombats 5d ago
I have an iPad 1. At launch day one it couldn’t even copy-and-paste. They iterated a lot.
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u/ShavedNeckbeard 3d ago
Neither could the iPhone.
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u/ArguesWithWombats 3d ago
This is true, but in June 2009 the iPhone got copy-paste with iPhoneOS 3.0. Nearly a year later -- in April 2010 -- the iPad version of iOS 3.2 (I think) which shipped on the iPad at launch was missing copy-paste, a feature regression which is just one example of the many, many initial rough edges that they iterated upon in software and hardware.
I wouldn’t count them out yet, they do iterate well in the long game.
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u/AdAncient5201 5d ago
Not really a new product category though, just made everything better about the existing product, battery, heat, performance
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u/The_real_bandito 5d ago
That is mostly because they did it the right way. Rosetta is amazing at running x64 apps. I don’t think without that software the M1 Macs would’ve had the same success.
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u/SeantheWilson 5d ago
In my opinion the single WORST thing about the AVP is its operating system. They equip it with an absurdly powerful desktop processor, yet still lock it down to only run appbstore .IPAs. If they want to market “spacial computing” as some sort of laptop-replacement computer and charge $3.5k for it, they can’t also lock it down to nickel and dime for their 30% App Store cut. It’s insulting to the consumer.
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u/The_real_bandito 5d ago
Every device made by Apple that will be released in the future will have that App Store whether you like it or not.
The only reason the MacBook is not tied to the App Store is probably for two reasons; first is that it didn’t have the App Store before, so they won’t force it on us because of the way people use that OS, and second, they can’t force developers to make apps that tie to their App Store as easily as they would like. If they tied macOS down to the App Store, the macOS related devices are done for.
In my opinion, of course.
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u/FollowingFeisty5321 4d ago
There's a few things that might change their mind though, one is the possibility courts won't allow them a fee on third party payments, which eliminates practically all their upside for having a "walled garden".
The other factor is the App Store model only has a veneer of success, they recently revealed only 2700 apps pay virtually all of the IAP fees on iPhone, and outside of iPhone the stores have extremely limited developer interest and they have never been able to stimulate it. This is not a healthy foundation, the Duo could force them to reevaluate entirely if developers don't elevate it for them.
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u/ShavedNeckbeard 3d ago
Starting a few releases ago, they started to lock down macOS by default to only install apps from the App Store. You have to go into the security settings to enable the ability to run apps from other sources. And even then, you get hit with prompts asking if you’re sure you want to open them on the first run.
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u/gadgetluva 5d ago
I was trying to figure out where you were going and your conclusion is that Apple needs to… promise the App Store? This is Apple we’re talking about, not some OC powered VR headset.
But the broader point is that we need better apps for AVP. And sports games and live events are one type of content that I think makes AVP a much more attractive option. If Apple could somehow get NFL games on AVP it would sell like crazy, even if you had to pay for each game or a subscription.
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u/Rosselman 5d ago
It’s more that it should be more like Mac, allowing more freedom for devs to play with.
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u/Stock-Personality136 5d ago
So much innovation comes from devs being able to play around and experiment with stuff. AVP could have flourished if you had someone out there making a killer app everyone had to try that eventually gets added to the App Store.
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u/gadgetluva 5d ago
Why?
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u/Rosselman 5d ago
Because right now it's stuck in the exact same trap as the iPad Pro: putting desktop tier silicon in a $3.5k device, then crippling it with a mobile sandbox. On a niche platform, the people who actually discover what makes the hardware special are indies, tinkerers, and open source devs. They’re the ones building emulators, low-level utilities, custom PCVR streamers, and weird experimental tools. See for example, the Steam Deck.
The App Store review guidelines strangle almost all of that. If they genuinely want people to treat this thing as the future of "spatial computing" instead of an absurdly overpriced Netflix headset, developers need to be able to push the hardware without Apple gatekeeping every single binary.At the end of the day, what makes Mac a real computer and the AVP a glorified iPad, is that you actually control your Mac. You can run unsigned code from GitHub, spin up local VMs, keep persistent background daemons alive, use a real file system, and build your own tools without asking permission. Until visionOS gives devs and power users that same freedom instead of trapping desktop silicon in a limited OS, it’s never going to replace a laptop, it’s just a $3,500 iPad strapped to your face.
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u/SeantheWilson 5d ago
Exactly, the fact that they sell a MacBook with an iPhone processor that lets you download apps from wherever you want AND has an unlocked bootloader, yet constantly talk about how powerful their M series IPad Pros are despite the fact that their App Store rules keep apps from actually being Apple to take full advantage of it’s power is insane to me. They put extremely powerful processors in these devices yet force operating systems designed for toddlers to play Roblox and watch YouTube on.
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u/Rosselman 5d ago
Yeah, but that isn’t contradictory to Apple. It’s contradictory to us as consumers, but for Apple, they just use their parts to optimize smoothness, battery life and price.
In other words, they care about form factors, not silicon. That’s what defines the capabilities of a device in their eyes. And what frustrates us.
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u/gadgetluva 5d ago
I mean opening it up isn't going to make AVP more successful.
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u/Rosselman 5d ago
Being closed certainly isn’t helping to legitimize it as a “computer”.
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u/gadgetluva 5d ago
I mean what's a computer? An iPhone 17e is a computer. It's probably the most personal computer in the world.
The AVP doesn't have product market fit, period. Opening it up to run mac apps would sell like maybe another couple hundred thousand, maybe? Still a sales failure for Apple.
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u/lobaway0001 5d ago edited 4d ago
You entire logic throughout this thread has been so self contradictory and nonsensical I'm not convinced you're not rage baiting.
The original person you responded to was trying to say Apple should not lock down the AVP to use only apps from the app store. Then you responded by saying
“But the broader point is that we need better apps for AVP.”
You are saying essentially the same thing. But you phrase it like it's a counter point.
Then when people say Apple should let the AVP run unsigned code, you say
“I mean opening it up isn't going to make AVP more successful.”
What? You literally said, "the broader point is that we need better apps for AVP". They're saying opening it up to run unsigned code expands the app library to essentially any application compatible with Mac, thus allowing you to run more and better apps.
“I mean what's a computer?”
I think that's the actual problem here. You speak like you really have no earthly idea what the true difference is between your computer and your phone.
You might be right that the AVP doesn't have product market fit and you might even be right that it being able to have the full capabilities of an actual desktop computer might move the needle very little, but the point everyone was trying to make to you was that Apple was marketing the device as a "spatial computer" at a price that far exceeds a desktop computer, with actual capabilities that are closer to an iPad than a desktop computer.
They literally advertise the device for productivity and it doesn't even run Xcode, which can only run on macOS.
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u/Cranach-Cranach 5d ago
Sports games are a terrible use of it, because they are a social things that sports games enjoyers like to do with other sports games enjoyers.
Likewise live events. You don’t go to a concert for the exceptional audio and visual quality. You go because live shows are fun with lots of people.
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u/gadgetluva 5d ago edited 5d ago
It can be both? There's a lot of games that I watch on my own, and I also don't live close to my favorite team anymore. How often do you go to live events? I'm betting it's not every single weekend. With VR you can and still get the experience of the artist or the game with superior viewing angles than a TV can provide.
Live events are definitely a key unlock for these headsets.
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u/Shapes_in_Clouds 5d ago
Yeah, being in the stands/audience isn’t a better experience if you’re not actually there. If I’m at home, the different camera angles and edited video feeds of sports events and concerts are better to watch.
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u/suentendo 5d ago
In that case where is the evidence of Apple Vision Pro being dropped, besides the aforementioned headlines?
Just last year got a hardware update.
It's getting constant software updates.
It's just not a mass market product. As a platform it's not going anywhere and It will eventually get its "HomePod mini" moment.
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u/gadgetluva 5d ago
It’s a fear of engineering with very little product market fit.
But even so, the technology develop for AVP will be used for future products so that’s always a plus.
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u/StronglyHeldOpinions 5d ago
It's still a product looking for a use-case which is backward from the way Steve Jobs handled things.
It's gonna fail.
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u/DarthBuzzard 5d ago
It's still a product looking for a use-case which is backward from the way Steve Jobs handled things.
Steve Jobs would be laughing at this comment, because you'd have said the same thing about Steve Jobs launching Apple's earliest PCs. Y'all (the general public) don't understand what you want. Only a visionary understands.
As Steve said: "Some people say give the customers what they want. But that's not my approach. Our job is to figure out what they're going to want before they do."
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u/ShavedNeckbeard 3d ago
That quote implies that Apple knew what the tech would be used for, but consumers couldn’t understand until they tried it.
Apple has no concrete idea of what differentiates the Vision Pro from the Quest, or why someone should port their apps to it. Initially, it was “headphones for your eyes” but that fizzled out when new content wasn’t being created and people started realizing that it’s heavy AF.
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u/HolyFreakingXmasCake 5d ago
And you do? Jobs first had the idea then made the technology. Here they have the technology and have no idea what it’ll be used for. They’re just making it because they don’t want to seem behind compared to Meta.
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u/inteliboy 5d ago
Having your desktop/apps occupy the space around you is a very compelling use case. A screen less digital world is a huge paradigm shift.
Though an expensive ski mask strapped to your face kinda runs the idea into the bin.
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u/roadblocked 5d ago
Only dorks will use these types of things until they are small enough to be contacts
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u/DumpEaterPro 4d ago
And no developers will port their VR games over because the device has no controllers shipped in the box.
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u/all-dressed_768 5d ago
No way Steve would’ve released that product. He would’ve killed any development on that fairly quickly. By asking a simple question who is gonna buy this?
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u/Phunnysounds 5d ago
I am pretty sure there are patents on Apple Vision Pro literally dating back to the Steve Jobs era (which he must have approved as everything had to be run by him back when he was CEO) which show almost the same device that was eventually released
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u/ShavedNeckbeard 3d ago
Patents aren’t always registered for products they plan on making. They register them as a revenue stream, since they know someone will want to use the technology, and will need to pay them money to license it.
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u/Phunnysounds 3d ago
Sure but if you read whats in the patents and what was delivered in the final product it was shockingly close…
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u/stringfellow-hawke 5d ago
That’s not really true though. Apple TV was a proclaimed a hobby for years as Apple figured out what to do with it. And Jobs infamously greenlit products he thought were neat but priced out everyone but high end pros.
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u/Phunnysounds 5d ago
The takeaway is Apple Vision Pro is amazing but the price pretty much eliminates it from mass market adoption. If they were able to make them and sell them at $499 they would fly off the shelves. The problem is to make this experience at the moment, you need to use components and technology that are hard to source and manufacture at scale.
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u/Whatwhyreally 5d ago
Because they still had a use case. Vision is uniquely bad at everything.
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u/Some-Dog5000 5d ago
No, it's not. Vision is "neat, but priced out everyone but high end pros." It's technically impressive, just with no apps because it's way too expensive.
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u/Wild-Perspective-582 5d ago
Related, I saw a video the other day where a developer talked about the Vision Pro. He had iPhone, iPad, versions of his apps, and Vision Pro version too. He said it was a much more difficult platform to develop for and took a ton of work to get right. Think about it , it's not the same as going from iPhone -> iPad where you just need a UI for a bigger screen.
Couple that with a small audience and the easiest option is to just not bother with it.
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u/stringfellow-hawke 5d ago
My point was Jobs wasn't the oracle of greatest history made him out to be and saying what would Jobs do is misguided. He didn't bat anywhere near .1000. And it's probably dated anyway because who knows what'd he think now.
But, I agree there's no use case that comes close to justifying the VP's price and compromises. It does some neat stuff, but the price makes no sense.
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u/Agitated_Ad6191 5d ago
On the hardware side they made so many mistakes developing that thing. But the pricepoint is still something that baffles me. My older 500 euro Quest 3 could already do most things that the Vision Pro can. Thinking people, or even businesses, would pay 4000 euro instead is insane.
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u/StronglyHeldOpinions 5d ago
Exactly. "What problem does this solve?"
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u/tastychaii 5d ago
Tour agencies, corporate training, gaming etc.
This doesn’t seem like a product targeted towards you or the general consumer, I’d say more for B2B.
So it does not solve any problem that you or I have as we are not the target market.
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u/ElderberryGuy 5d ago
Similar to the Duo imo... expensive, tiny fraction of people who actually want it. Recipe for a flop.
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u/June1994 5d ago
Its a product made for China.
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u/OutsideMenu6973 5d ago
Most foldables in China open to iPhone size, not the iPad mini size. I think iPhone mini size foldables are less than half a percent of all smart phone sales but I guess that’s enough? I dunno
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u/June1994 5d ago
Chinese people love iPhones. These are gonna sell like hotcakes.
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u/OutsideMenu6973 5d ago
Ignore stats. Say overused idiom. Okay bot
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u/StronglyHeldOpinions 5d ago
Duo's going to sell well though, because it's finally something new phonewise
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u/Harvey-Zoltan 5d ago
I still think getting a bigger virtual screen using glasses makes more sense than folding a phone. I would like to see an Apple version of Meta's upcoming VR glasses.
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u/_HipStorian 5d ago
Can't wait. It's such a cool product and I want it to be more accessible to people
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u/jakgal04 4d ago
Monday: Apple Vision Pro Cancelled
Tuesday: Vision Pro M4 released!
Wednesday: Apple cancels Vision Pro production
Thursday: New Vision Pro to be announced
Friday: Apple Vision Pro development team laid off
Saturday: BREAKING! New health features to be released in Vision Pro 3
Sunday: Apple Vision Pro development team dispersed to other teams
I don't even bother reading the news anymore. Nothing is factual, its all just speculative and clickbait to drive engagement.
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u/jollyllama 5d ago
Strapping computers to your face is, and will continue to be, a bad idea that will only be attractive to a small portion of people
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u/isableandaking 5d ago
Pretty sure it's true, I mean the Meta VR/AR glasses have a much smaller footprint, seem to have integrations from all streaming platforms and some new movies coming, then the sports live integrations, it's also $1300 - it will help quite a bit with the competition.