1 month ago
10
Digital Trends
The Vision Pro made a big splash when it launched earlier this year, but a new report shows just how quickly interest has died down.
It’s only been out for eight months, but The Information is reporting that production is being suspended next month because of “weak demand,” with some suppliers having “already halted manufacturing components since early summer.”
https://t.co/rAAxAGDLEv
Apple could suspend production of the Vision Pro as soon as next month amid weak demand, and some suppliers have already halted manufacturing components since early summer. Check out my latest scoop with @QianerLiu for @theinformation
— Wayne Ma (@waynema) October 23, 2024
The Vision Pro was never meant to be a mainstream product. Very few products that cost $3,499 really can be. Apple hasn’t been afraid of admitting this, but if it’s true that Apple has already put a pause on manufacturing, that spells bad news for the future of this technology.
The report comes just days after CEO Tim Cook gave an interview that acknowledges this fact pretty bluntly.
“At $3,500, it’s not a mass-market product,” Cook says in the interview with The Wall Street Journal. “Right now, it’s an early-adopter product. People who want to have tomorrow’s technology today—that’s who it’s for. Fortunately, there’s enough people who are in that camp that it’s exciting.”
That makes the situation sound a bit more promising than The Information’s sources say, but we do know that Apple has plans to follow up the Vision Pro with future headsets, including both a cheaper entry-level version and true Vision Pro 2. Last we heard, the cheaper Vision was scheduled for 2025, while the Vision Pro 2 would land in 2026.
On the other hand, this summer The Information reported that Apple had already discontinued work on the Vision Pro 2 to favor development of the cheaper model.
Regardless of how you slice it, though, it’s certainly worrying that the Vision Pro doesn’t have enough demand to continue production, especially for a product that won’t get updated every year. Meta has suspended production on the Quest Pro as well, with a possible release date for the Quest Pro 2 being held until 2027.
Luke Larsen is the Senior Editor of Computing, managing all content covering laptops, monitors, PC hardware, Macs, and more.
I’m worried Apple will skip its October event – here’s what that means for the M4 MacBook Pro
For months now, we’ve been hearing that Apple is set to announce a boatload of new products -- including the M4 MacBook Pro range, fresh iPads, and more -- at an event this October. Yet a new report suggests that things might not be quite so simple after all.
In his latest Power On newsletter, Bloomberg journalist Mark Gurman says that Apple is set to reveal these new products “around the end of October,” with the devices going on sale on Friday, November 1. So far, so expected.
Read more
The M4 MacBook Pro is apparently listed for sale on Facebook — but I don’t buy it
According to analysts and industry experts like Mark Gurman and Ming-Chi Kuo, Apple is expected to announce an M4 refresh of the MacBook Pro possibly this month and most likely before the end of the year. No event announcements have come yet, though Apple has historically held an October Mac event. But now, an online leak discovered by Wccftech claims the new model is up for sale on a private Facebook group. The claim is backed up by alleged images of the retail box, but there's plenty to be suspicious about.
While the images were posted by known leaker ShrimpApplePro, the information was sent to them from an unknown source. There are two posts so far, one with an image of the back of the retail box -- with comments from AppleShrimpPro saying to take it with asome skepticism -- and one showing additional images and claiming it's for sale on Facebook.
Read more
Apple finally has a chance to fix the Vision Pro. Here’s what it needs to do
If you’ve been following Apple’s Vision Pro in the year or so since it was launched, you’ll know we’ve seen an almost endless supply of reports claiming that the mixed reality headset is in trouble and selling poorly. If that’s the case, it’s clear that Apple needs to do something about it.
Yet, that might not be so easy. Remember when the Apple Watch first launched to a collective “meh” from the world? Even the original iPhone wasn’t a runaway success. But as Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman puts it in his latest Power On newsletter, these devices had solid foundations that just needed tweaking for them to become the great products they are today. The Vision Pro, he contends, needs a far more drastic overhaul.
Read more
English (US) ·