Meta's VR Glasses are the product Vision Pro should have been; sources say Apple Vision team is working on a revamped headset, but the work is on “life support”
Apple weighs what to do next with its headset. — Meta's new VR Glasses are what Apple should have created for its Vision Pro line.
BloombergMark Gurman
Context & Ripple Effects
Apple had already been trying to make a Vision Pro successor more comfortable in 2023, while Meta's roadmap paired a cheaper Quest with plans for true AR glasses. Apple's subsequent cancellation of Mac-tethered AR glasses narrowed the paths it was publicly reported to be exploring.
The product question also extends beyond hardware: Apple was reported in 2025 to be slowing the release of immersive video made around Vision Pro's debut, as Meta prepared display-equipped smart glasses. The reported uncertainty around a revamped headset therefore bears on both Apple's device roadmap and the content proposition around it.
First-order effects
Apple's Vision team is reported to be working on a revamped headset, but the effort's reported “life support” status makes the Vision Pro roadmap an internal decision point rather than a settled successor plan.
Meta's VR Glasses become the immediate comparison point for Apple, placing comfort and form factor at the center of the competing product narratives.
Second-order effects
Apple's slower immersive-content rollout has less reason to accelerate while its next headset direction is unsettled, leaving developers and media partners with a less defined target platform.
Meta can use a shipping glasses product to press its form-factor advantage while Apple evaluates whether a revised headset merits continued investment.
Third-order effects
If lighter glasses prove more viable than premium headsets, spatial-computing competition will increasingly be decided by wearability and repeat use rather than immersive capability alone.
Apple's reported retreat from a Mac-dependent glasses project and its uncertain headset work point to a broader split between self-contained glasses and headset designs that rely on heavier hardware or companion devices.
The trend: Spatial computing is moving toward wearable glasses as the practical test of whether immersive computing can reach beyond specialist headsets.
The biggest sacrifice for the Meta VR Glasses that most perplexes me is their decision to make it passively cooled (no fan on HMD) It was clearly dictated by their form factor. But I'm skeptical that choice will work out in the long term for every operating environment
Power On: Meta's VR Glasses are what Apple's Vision Pro should've been. A look at the new device and Apple's different attempts over the years at similar headset designs. https://www.bloomberg.com/...
In this video you can clearly see that Meta's current Holograms for VR video calls are not volumetric at all. They are just stereoscopic billboards. Very beautiful billboards, but still billboards. They are not Codec Avatars. Meta plans to implement Codec Avatars in the futur…
It's absolutely ridiculous how someone who claims to be a professional journalist and someone who is reporting about Apple for more than a decade still hasn't understood how Apple functions. They never ever release half baked products. They want quality and they are fine waiting
I'm having a Meta hangover. Realizing that I was wrong to be excited at all about its new “VR Glasses.” I predict another sales disaster is coming...Which leaves a HUGE opening for not just the Chinese (ByteDance and Pico are working on devices that are far more AI-centric and …
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@ASychov He blocked me for saying this, but even though Gurman has great leaks and scoops his analyses are without exception the worst take you'll read.
So I expect at the end of the day Apple will figure out how to put screens on our eyes. And if not? ByteDance has a pair in the labs. TikTok trained AI. Light like the new Meta. Which one do you think will have better content? The new Apple CEO knows spatial computing bette…
Now's a good time to just axe the Vision Pro project. — Let Meta and Snap waste time and resources on these face computers no one wants anyway [embedded post]