What corners might Apple cut for the lower-priced Vision headset?
When Apple announced that the Vision Pro headset would carry a price of $3499, there were audible gasps from the WWDC crowd. Some in the streaming audience instinctively grabbed their wallets to protect the credit cards inside. The price exceeded the $3,000 retail price tag that most of us in the media were expecting Apple to announce. The immediate reaction from most is that the Vision Pro was made for developers to help them develop apps for future headsets and for Apple's eventual AR eyeglasses dubbed "Apple Glass."
It is Sunday which means my Gmail inbox contains the latest Power On newsletter written by Bloomberg's Mark Gurman who writes about the cheaper version of Apple's headset which he expects the company to release by the end of 2025. With the Vision Pro name bestowed on the pricey gear, the cheaper version of the device might be known as Apple Vision and, as Gurman suggests, several features could be eliminated from the Vision Pro to reduce the Vision's price tag by hundreds of dollars.
Gurman says that a lower-cost model could get away with reducing the quality of the screens, reducing the number of cameras, and dropping the powerful M2 chip for an A-series iPhone chip. Other possibilities mentioned by Gurman include the use of a less complex headset design, requiring users to don AirPods to experience spatial audio, and removing the 3D cameras.
By making these changes and taking advantage of what will probably be less expensive prices for components and assembly, the Apple Vision could be a much more reasonably priced device. But there are some Vision Pro features that Gurman says are as important to the Apple Vision. These include EyeSight, which will show a Vision Pro user's eyes to anyone close to the headset wearer, and the headset's eye-and-hand-tracking system.
It shouldn't be overlooked, and Gurman didn't, that Apple is already working on a sequel model to the Vision Pro which means that in two years we could see Apple introduce the Vision and the Vision Pro at the same time just as it releases expensive Pro and cheaper non-Pro iPhone models every year. Personally, I still believe that the next big thing to replace the iPhone won't be a cumbersome headset but the aforementioned Apple Glass smart glasses.
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