📱Ifanr (爱范儿)•Freshcollected in 28m
Apple Cuts 60 VR Jobs, Raising Vision Pro 2 Doubts
#wearable-ai#vr-hardware#product-strategyapple-vision-proapplevision-proai-glasses
💡Apple may be pivoting from VR headsets to everyday AI glasses, reshaping the wearable AI market.
⚡ 30-Second TL;DR
What Changed
Apple reportedly eliminated approximately 60 additional VR-related positions.
Why It Matters
A shift from premium VR hardware to wearable AI could change Apple's product strategy and create new opportunities for on-device assistants, perception, and multimodal interfaces. For startups, Apple's direction may signal growing competition in everyday AI wearables.
What To Do Next
Prototype a hands-free multimodal assistant that combines camera input, voice interaction, and on-device inference for future AI glasses use cases.
Who should care:Founders & Product Leaders
Key Points
- •Apple reportedly eliminated approximately 60 additional VR-related positions.
- •The layoffs have intensified uncertainty surrounding the next Vision Pro headset.
- •Apple's next Vision device may be everyday AI glasses rather than another VR headset.
🧠 Deep Insight
Background and context from public sources — not the original article. 23 sources cited.
🔑 Enhanced Key Takeaways
- •The recent layoffs of approximately 60 employees from Apple's VR team, the Apple Vision Group, occurred around August 20, 2026.
- •The Vision Pro received a hardware upgrade with the M5 chip in October 2025, which improved rendered pixels and refresh rates, but its price was subsequently raised to $3,699 in June 2026 due to memory crunch.
- •Sales of the original Vision Pro have been significantly lower than initial projections, with an estimated 390,000 units shipped in its 2024 launch year, but only about 45,000 units in the crucial Q4 2025 holiday quarter.
- •Apple reportedly scaled back its digital advertising spend for the Vision Pro by over 95% in key markets during 2025, indicating a shift in focus away from the headset.
- •Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reported in May 2026 that a successor to the Vision Pro is at least two years away, targeting 2028, and a planned cheaper, lighter Vision Pro (codename N100) was previously deprioritized.
🛠️ Technical Deep Dive
- Chips: Apple Vision Pro is powered by either an Apple M2 or M5 chip, alongside an Apple R1 chip. The M5 chip features a 10-core CPU (with 4 super cores and 6 efficiency cores), a 10-core GPU, Neural Accelerators, hardware-accelerated ray tracing, a 16-core Neural Engine, 153GB/s memory bandwidth, and 16GB of unified memory.
- Display: It utilizes a 3D display system with dual Micro-OLED internal displays, offering 23 million pixels combined, approximately 3660×3200 pixels per eye, and a 7.5-micron pixel pitch. It supports 92% DCI-P3 color gamut and refresh rates up to 100 Hz (M2) or 120 Hz (M5). The field of view is approximately 100° horizontal and 73° vertical. An external "EyeSight" curved lenticular OLED display is also present.
- Memory & Storage: The device comes with 16 GB of unified memory and storage options of 256 GB, 512 GB, or 1 TB.
- Cameras & Sensors: It includes a stereoscopic 3D main camera system (18 mm, ƒ/2.00 aperture, 6.5 stereo megapixels), two high-resolution main cameras, and more than a dozen cameras in total. Optic ID, an iris-based biometric authentication system, is used for security.
- Audio: Features surround sound speakers, 6 beamforming microphones, and Spatial Audio with dynamic head tracking.
- Input: Users interact with the Vision Pro through hand gesture recognition, eye tracking, and voice input. It also supports external keyboards, trackpads, mouse devices, and game controllers.
- Operating System: Runs on visionOS, an extended reality operating system derived primarily from iPadOS. The latest stable version is visionOS 26 (released September 2025), with visionOS 27 announced at WWDC 2026.
- Battery: Powered by an external battery pack, providing up to 2.5 hours of general use.
- Connectivity: Supports Wi‑Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.3.
- Weight: The M2 variant weighs 600–650 g, while the M5 variant weighs 750–800 g, both excluding the 353 g external battery.
🔮 Future ImplicationsAI analysis grounded in cited sources
Apple will prioritize the development and launch of AI-powered smart glasses over a direct Vision Pro 2 successor in the near term.
Recent layoffs in the VR division and reports of shifting resources indicate a strategic pivot towards lighter, everyday AI wearables that integrate with the iPhone ecosystem.
The next iteration of Apple's 'spatial computing' headset, if it is a Vision Pro successor, will not arrive before 2028.
Reports suggest that a true second-generation Vision Pro with a new design and lower price is not in active development for the immediate future, with a timeline pushed to at least 2028.
Apple's initial AI glasses will likely focus on camera, audio, and Siri integration without a built-in display.
Early rumors and reports indicate Apple's first smart glasses will prioritize practical features and an extension of the iPhone experience, avoiding the complexities of full AR displays in the initial model.
⏳ Timeline
1995
Apple releases QuickTime VR, an early virtual reality technology.
2023-06-05
Apple announces the Vision Pro at WWDC23, marketing it as a 'spatial computer'.
2024-02-02
Apple Vision Pro (M2 variant) is released in the United States at a starting price of $3,499.
2025-10-15
Apple refreshes the Vision Pro with an M5 chip, maintaining the initial price.
2026-06-08
Apple announces visionOS 27 at WWDC 2026, bringing Visual Intelligence and camera-aware AI to the platform.
2026-08-20
Apple reportedly lays off at least 60 employees from its VR development team, signaling a shift in priorities.
📎 Sources (23)
Factual claims are grounded in the sources below. Forward-looking analysis is AI-generated interpretation.
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Original source: Ifanr (爱范儿) ↗
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