Apple M5-powered Vision Pro 2 will be lighter and with longer battery life
Apple is working on a second generation version of its virtual reality headset dubbed the Vision Pro 2, with the key aim to lower the price and introduce artificial intelligence features to spatial computing.
According to reputed Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, the new M5 processor version of Vision Pro 2 will be going into mass production in the second quarter of next year. Besides slight improvements in design and fit, the Vision Pro 2 is expected to sport big changes under the hood.
Not with the displays, as those are already excellent and expensive enough, but rather with the processing power that will need to get a significant boost to run the respective artificial intelligence calculations.
The new M5 processor will be a big upgrade from the current M2 chip with so that it can run whatever Apple Intelligence features can be adapted to the current spatial computing user experience.
"The biggest design problem with Vision Pro/head-mounted devices is that human-computer interaction is still not intuitive and efficient," informs Kuo, and Apple will apparently be trying to tie eye tracking and gesture control with Apple Intelligence to make movements and commands feel flawless and more natural.
Unfortunately, the new 2025 Vision Pro 2 with a powerful M5 processor will still be rather expensive, but if artificial intelligence can help augment the user experience, it could become a more attractive proposition for mainstream users.
The analyst is of the opinion that Apple Intelligence can bring much more value to a spatial computing device like the Vision Pro 2 than on a product like the iPhone, especially if it integrates text-to-video generators like Open AI's Sora as is expected.
The Vision Pro 2 price, however, will stay largely the same as Apple hasn't changed its component suppliers much and the production costs will only go down by a tad, reports Mr. Kuo. The Apple Vision Pro 2 will be lighter and with longer battery life, though, they predict, which will address some of the main complaints about the headgear.
Apple is also working on a cheaper Vision Pro model that is still in the planning stages and will sacrifice things like display resolution in order to lower the price of its AR/VR devices to stay competitive.
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