What's Going on with Apple Vision Pro?

This is the Apple Vision Pro.

And this is the brand new second

generation

Apple Vision Pro nearly 2 years later.

Yeah.

So, you might have heard that Apple

dropped the latest version of their

silicon, the base M5 chip this past

week, and they chose to put it in three

devices.

the iPad Pro, the 14-inch MacBook Pro,

and the Vision Pro.

Okay, so this is actually a partial

upgrade of Apple Silicon. We just got

a new M5 chip, right? So, anything that

has a base chip, this is the direction

of time and this is a direction of how

powerful the chips are. Anything that

has a base chip is a candidate for

getting the M5 upgrade, which is why we

see this in things like Vision Pro,

which went from M2 to M5. We also see it

in the 14-inch MacBook Pro and the iPad

Pro, which go from M4 and M3 to M5.

Notably, there is no Pro or Max M5, so

things like the 16-inch MacBook Pro,

which uses those chips, doesn't get

upgraded yet. Stays on M4. We'll

probably see that eventually. Kind of

like we'll probably also eventually see

an M4 Ultra, which we don't have yet,

which is why the Mac Pro and Mac Studio

are on M3 Ultra and M2 Ultra. I got

those backwards, so not respectively.

Either way, Mac Mini, iMac, other things

that have the base M chip will probably

all eventually get M5.

And that's about it, I think. Yeah, new

chip.

Okay. Anyway, aside from that new chip,

the new 2025 Vision Pro is more or less

the same as the original from 2 years

ago. Same dimensions, same aluminum

frame and glass on the outside, same

buttons and digital crown, same

speakers, same exact highresolution

micro OLED displays on the inside with

the same field of view, same exact

battery with the same tethered cable

that you put in your pocket while you're

wearing the headset. And it has the

exact same 12 cameras and sensors and

LAR scanner all around the outside and

the same R1 chip inside to combine and

process all the data from all those

sensors. Same thermal system, same fans,

same vents, same outside screen to see

your persona's eyes. So yeah, much of

this is unchanged. Not that you need

change for change's sake, but when the

Vision Pro first came out, there were

immediately tons of complaints about how

heavy it was and how uncomfortable this

thing was to wear for long periods of

time. And so, I would think that maybe

there's some work happening on the

internals, maybe thinning out a bit of

that aluminum frame, just saving a few

millimeters and a few grams here and

there, but no, none of that has made it

to the new one. Matter of fact, the

weight of the new one is listed as

higher than the original because it

comes by default with this new dual knit

band, which is where uh seems like a

100% of their effort went into making

the Vision Pro more comfortable. And so,

to their credit, it is actually a really

nice and cleverly engineered band. So

you you probably remember the first gen

band, this solit band, which was in all

the commercials and looks really pretty,

but the problem is it's pulling up

against the back of your head and it's

trying to hold all the weight from the

Vision Pro and it's not great at it.

Basically, it ends up sagging onto your

nose and really being incredibly painful

to have on your face more than 10

minutes. So, there were a bunch of other

dual strap bands that came out,

including Apple's own, that did a better

job and distributed the weight better,

but they were also pretty ugly. Not that

it mattered to most people, but it

mattered to Apple. So, they spent

presumably the last two years developing

this band, which distributes the weight

much better across the back and top of

your head. And then this dial right

here, you twist to tighten the back and

then pop out and twist to tighten the

top. And it is significantly more

comfortable. The back fabric piece is a

bit smaller than it was in the SoloNit

band because it doesn't have to be as

big, but it also now has tungsten,

literal metal, in the back to help

counterbalance the weight on your face.

And you can feel it like the original

band has all these empty slots. You can

feel the metal filling in the fabric

ones on the new one. And that's the

reason for the higher weight number.

Either way, now it's both much more

comfortable and still good-looking.

And you can also just buy it for the old

Vision Pro for 99 bucks. So, I've been

using this new M5 Vision Pro for the

past couple days to see if I can

actually see and feel the difference

that this new chip makes. Because yes,

every Vision Pro has all the new

software features of Vision OS 26, the

new more realistic personas, the

pinnable widgets, being able to turn

regular photos into spatial scenes, all

this cool stuff. So, the M5 chip brings

a few other incremental improvements

here. Basically, it can load apps

faster. It can render more pixels, and

it's more efficient. So, it has a longer

battery life. Now, the loading apps

faster is nice, you know, especially

since you're stuck in this headset, and

you can't exactly like reach for your

phone or burn time to check

notifications while things are loading.

So, you kind of just have to sit there

and wait for it to load. So, it's

welcome that things are loading faster,

but it's not exactly a gamecher. And

then same with things like creating

spatial scenes out of still photos. If

that's something you do a lot, it's not

instant, but it is much faster on this

new one. The 10% more rendered pixels,

you really aren't going to notice that.

Even if you do backtoback the M2 and M5

versions, like maybe a handful of people

on planet Earth ever will. But yeah,

it's, you know, the past two cameras are

still the same cameras, so it still

looks the same. The displays on the

inside are still the same displays. So,

it still looks the same. The slightly

faster max refresh rate of 120 Hz versus

100, it's appreciated, but again, it's

not major. It's like, these aren't huge

changes. These are just a bunch of

smaller incremental updates that over a

longer time will start to add up on each

other. Same thing with the 20% longer

battery life. So, yeah, a new band and a

spec bump. Otherwise, same form factor,

same materials, same cameras, same

displays, same heavy weight, and same

$3,500

price tag. So, why is this interesting?

You might be asking. I'm glad you asked.

Two reasons. The competition and the

strange lack of competition. See,

Samsung has just come along and finally

years later actually dropped their full

mixed reality headset running Android

XR. You might remember my preview video

of it a couple months ago showing all

this stuff they're promising it can do

with lots of equivalent features to the

Vision Pro. You know, in my video, it's

still a prototype. They're calling it

Project Muhan, but now they're bringing

it out to real people and putting it on

sale alongside the Vision Pro this year.

But outside of that, there is a

noticeable lack of other companies

trying to make their own Vision Pro and

make a super competitive, super highly

priced premium VR XR headset. And I

think that goes alongside all of this

crazy development we've seen in the

smart glasses space. Like just last

month, I dropped my video on these.

These are the Meta Rayban displays. And

they're not the only ones in the space,

but they are one example of how much

dramatically faster the progress has

been on these than the headsets. Like

this makes it look like the Vision Pro

is sitting still. And I think in a lot

of ways, these are much more appealing

to way more people. Vision Pro is of

course a firstg product, which means

that we and Apple didn't really exactly

know how people would use this thing.

And it comes out and a lot of people are

willing to spend the $3,500 on it. But

then 2 years later, it turns out most of

the use of Vision Pro has been watching

movies and gathering dust, which is a

shame because it's capable of so so so

much more. But it turns out people like

the smart glasses, which only do a

subset of what the headsets can do

because they carry a much lesser social

penalty while wearing them in public.

And you know, you still get a

first-person camera, you can listen to

music, you can ask questions, get

directions, etc. And yes, they are still

nerdy, but not as nerdy as this. So to

answer the question in the title, I

think Apple has now, you know, seen all

of this and they've gotten the sales

numbers and the usage stats and all that

and I think they've realized that, you

know, this isn't going to be some

gigantic smash hit and they've kind of

trimmed it back and dedicated a little

bit less to it. Not given up, obviously,

and there's still plenty that Apple's

doing with, you know, Liquid Glass and

the spatial videos and stuff like that,

but I think they know now, okay, this

isn't some huge smash hit. maybe

allocate resources towards some other

stuff. There's even been some other

reporting that they've scrapped plans

for a future lightweight version of the

Vision Pro that was going to come up

after this, like the Vision Pro Air. And

they're shifting those resources to try

to develop smart glasses to jump on that

train. And that's actually perfectly in

line with this video I made in October

2023 trying to figure out how we get to

this mixed reality dream. So, in case

you haven't watched that video, spoiler

or TLDDR, tech companies are are trying

to achieve this awesome face computer

vision of the future for everyday use

from two different directions. By

building these incredible headsets and

then trimming them down, or by building

these smart glasses and building them

up. And it turns out maybe, just maybe,

one of those directions has way more

traction now than the other, at least

for the everyday computer part. Turns

out there's way less people who want to

spend significant time in a face

computer. Even if it's really

impressive, even if those pixels with

the passrough mode represent the world

around you while they're on, there's

just nothing quite like having actual

reality through some glass with some

stuff overlaid on top. But again, only

time will tell. We'll see. Thanks for

watching. Catch you guys in the next

one. Peace.