Apple's Vision Pro headset seems to have taken a back seat lately, but a new report claims that Apple still has a very ambitious roadmap with seven head-mounted products in the pipeline.
This is according to Apple sleuth Ming-Chi Kuo, who detailed the company's plans in a blog post Sunday. Kuo claims that Apple views head-mounted devices as "the next major trend in consumer electronics," and that it's currently working on three Vision series products and four smart glasses variants.
Vision Pro and Vision Air
Starting with the Vision Pro, Apple is reportedly working on an upgraded version of the headset, scheduled to enter mass production in the third quarter of 2025. This is said to be a very simple upgrade, with the main processor upgraded from Apple's M2 to M5, and other specifications remaining the same.
In the third quarter of 2027, Apple plans to launch what Kuo calls "Vision Air," a "substantially lighter" headset that will be powered by the latest flagship iPhone processor. The Vision Air will reportedly have fewer sensors, more plastic and less glass, and magnesium alloy instead of titanium alloy, which should reduce weight more than 40 percent compared to the Vision Pro, and allow Apple to sell it at a "significantly lower price point" than the $3,499 Vision Pro.
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And yes, Apple is still planning to launch an upgraded Vision Pro, with a new design, lighter body, and a lower price point, but that's not coming before the second half of 2028.
Apple Smart Glasses
As for the oft-rumored Apple smart glasses, Kuo says that Apple plans to mass produce a "Ray-Ban-like" product in the second quarter of 2027. These reportedly won't have a display; just like the Ray-Ban Meta glasses, they'll have audio playback, voice control, a camera, and AI environmental sensing. Apple's version will also have a gesture recognition user interface, says Kuo.
Then there are the "XR Glasses," which are reported to have a LCoS (liquid crystal on silicon) display, voice control, and gesture recognition. For these, AI functionality will be "critical to product success," Kuo says. The report also claims that there's an additional variant in development with a later production timeline.
Finally, Kuo says that Apple has halted development of a "display accessory" that would be cable-tethered to the Max, but there's still a chance that it could be restarted.
Slow and steady wins the race?
One immediate takeaway from all this is that Apple reportedly isn't launching any major new products in either of these categories for two more years (the slightly updated Vision Pro barely counts).
The good news is that, if Kuo's sources are accurate, Apple still plans to have a very wide and varied ecosystem of head-mounted devices in a few years' time. Competitors such as Meta, as well as Xiaomi — which just launched its own version of smart glasses — are already a few steps ahead, so Apple's gonna have to up its game.
