Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman published a large PowerOn newsletter this week, outlining various predictions for what Apple will do in 2025. According to the Apple Whisperer, Apple will have a very successful year. Amid reports of a heavy smart home push and improvements to forgotten Apple devices such as the iPhone SE 4, there was a brief mention of Apple’s AR/VR headset, the Apple Vision Pro.
According to Gurman, we shouldn’t expect a new Vision Pro headset by 2025. However, he predicts that a second-generation model will be released in 2026, using a new M5 chipset.
Previous sources have stated that the M5 chip will appear in an improved iPad Pro this year, but not until the fall. Gurman’s article does not specify if Apple will make any other changes. We agree that Apple can’t simply slap a new chip into the next generation and expect success, especially given the lukewarm reception to the expensive headset.
Before the end of the year last year, CEO Tim Cook admitted that the Vision Pro was not a popular product. Mostly because of the exorbitant cost. “At $3,500, it’s not a mass-market product,” Cook informed me. “Right now, it is an early adopter product. People who desire to have tomorrow’s technologies now are the target audience. Fortunately, there are enough people in that camp that it’s exciting.”
Surprisingly, Gurman reports that Apple is “ramping up development” of a lower-cost Vision Pro. This is consistent with allegations from December that Apple is working on a simpler “Apple Vision” headset that will reportedly cost around $2,000, which may not be enough to compete with the Meta Quest 3s or Samsung’s upcoming headset, which is expected to be released this year.
According to the newsletter, Apple is also developing other products akin to Meta’s Ray-Ban smart glasses, including an AirPods “vision device with cameras.”
Apple may be working on a set of Apple Glasses, but they may not be available until 2026 or 2027.
With Meta smart glasses and the intriguing Xreal One Pro AR becoming more feasible markets, it’s unclear how aggressively Apple is developing its own version.
Apple has shown hesitant to experiment with new form factors in recent years, even with the outrageously pricey Vision Pro. Heck, we’re still waiting for the long-anticipated iPhone Flip, which could arrive in 2026 or later, much later.
Gurman did not provide timelines for any of these rumored devices.
