Apple Vision Pro Upgraded with M5 Chip
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Apple has upgraded the Vision Pro with an M5 chip and Dual Knit Band, but users remain skeptical about its value, price, and Apple's overall strategy for the device.
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Apple would never make such a small deal about upgrading the chip in one of their products unless they thought that product was toast.
I wonder if they're just in full pivot mode to glasses.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-10-01/apple-she...
Eyeglasses with a HUD is the stupidest product category ever invented, and that's why no one wants them, which has been proven again and again in the marketplace.
I do think it makes some sense to attack the problem from both directions, but hopefully they aren't fully ditching the full immersive headset development to do it.
Eyeglasses with HUD is like Apple Watch but on your face, i.e. it's focus is on mobility, not productivity or immersion. You're supposed to wear this device all the time.
Even if we had the technology the run these devices in the same form factor (maybe in 100 years), I bet that most people prefer to keep their face and eyes tech free in mobile or social situations. For the same reasons as why it's polite to put your phone away when interacting with people. Wearing this kind of device means that they're not fully present at any time. It also signals that they're a person who wants notifications constantly blasted on their face - i.e. an idiot.
I don't actually believe that they have ditched the plans for the next version.
https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2025/10/apple-introduces-the-...
https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2025/10/apple-unveils-new-14-...
The real issue is that various rumors point to them cancelling or pushing back the plan for a new version of the headset that is cheaper and lighter in favor of working on the smart glasses.
Without a cheaper, lighter headset I don't think it's going to become a significant product for Apple.
I got an oculus quest 2, was blown away by it for 1-2 hours, but never really picked it up again. The games were fun but very shallow, and never tried any practical uses.
Would love to use VR for working on a plane. Currently use a laptop, but my neck sometimes gets sore from looking down. VR has the potential to 10x the screen real estate and prevent having to look at down at an acute angle.
That said, it's AMAZING as a home theater replacement, other than an issue with internal reflections in the optics. So in dark scenes it gets a bit annoying.
If I lived in an apartment, I would absolutely use it in place of a large TV that eats up a lot of my space. Especially coupled with the airpods MAX and spatial audio. Watching a 4k 3d movie in it is mind-blowing. Most 3d you've ever seen was really 50% of 1080p, so it's a whole new world. Some of the Apple original content is also great. The thing with the submarine is amazing.
Personally I already have a full sized home theater, so I just use that. However, I'm willing to bet that in 5 years when it's time to upgrade the home theater I'll probably just be turning it into a library with some seats I can use a VR headset from. Who knows, maybe it will be a descendant of the AVP.
Does Vision Pro have any apps for a virtual theater where you can watch video online in a VR space with other people? I've used Bigscreen for that once or twice with a Quest, and it struck me as something that would be a cool feature if I knew more people with VR headsets.
I believe you when you say that it could replace the experience for yourself, but, at least for me, hosting with my home theater is the main driver for improving it.
That said, I entertain less than I watch movies alone. It's probably not worth giving up an entire room in my house for the handful of times per year that I actually entertain. My home theater is mostly just about my quest for perfection when enjoying the films that I love. If/when I can get that out of a headset... cool.
Ideally it will have real Dolby Vision/Atmos and all of the other things high end home theater equipment is expected to have, and right now the AVP doesn't. Between the reflection issues, lack of Dolby Vision, etc it's only like 80% of the way there.
This seems to literally be its only killer feature.
I was hoping apple would be able to figure out what nobody else has, an actual useful everyday use for AR. But still we are just given a personal theatre, or proof of concept toy 'experience' apps.
I immediately wonder how much of my carry-on allowance will be taken up by a VR headset. These things are still fairly clunky.
EDIT: I think people are misunderstanding me. I dont mean VR/AR will be dead, I maen that all devices will be normal size glasses and big chunky headsets wont exist any more.
Sadly I think you are vastly overestimating the rate of progress here. Quest 2 came out 5 years ago - in those 5 years we've shrunk headset volume by about half (mostly due to pancake lenses). We'll need to find another fundamental improvement in lens technology to shrink the next 50%
I'd say the biggest unsolved issue is the focus/depth of field issue...how to provide variable per pixel depth so that virtual objects can appear in a scene and be focussed on naturally (apparently called vergence–accommodation conflict) since most if not all displays have a fixed focus distance atm.
You could add more cameras and lidar for depth, yes, but then you'd also need a display for the other eye, and you still wouldn't be able to do immersion because your displays are transparent and have a tiny FOV, and you're also not doing passthrough, so why do you need the cameras again? And so on.
For example, consider field of view, which is a critical measurement of these displays. Typical specs are 120 degrees for headsets, 40 for glasses.
Headsets also perform very high performance rendering compared to glasses. The tiny <1Wh batteries in glasses are insufficient for that amount of work.
Glasses can't be expected to compete with headsets, much less eliminate them from the market entirely within a few years. It makes more sense to think of VR headsets and AR glasses as completely unrelated product categories.
I think you are short sighted (haha!) to think that headsets and glasses are different categories, and that headsets are not just a preliminary research phase to things in the future like smart contact lenses etc.
Contact lenses having the capability of a headset? That's just magical thinking.
100 years ago, the mobile phones in our pockets would have been magical thinking too.
i never got around to trying prescription inserts but i suspect they would be ideal
Meta doesn't try to force it on you the way Apple does, but you really have to or it will always be blurry. The screen has a sort of fixed focal point and if your vision isn't great at that distance EVERYTHING will be blurry instead of just the one range that's normally blurry for you.
You may not even realize you need glasses until you try it and everything is blurry.
Keep in mind, that the Quest 3 has been discontinued in favour of the cheaper and inferior Quest 3S. It still has some good qualities, but the best one is no doubt the Quest 3.
Another thing is that to save on costs, they all ship with a very inadequate headband. For comfort, it is imperative to get another solution, either the (expensive) elite headstrap or a (cheaper) 3rd party one.
I've been considering a pair for myself after hearing good feedback from some friends, and seeing some good reviews online.
The latest versions have head tracking so the virtual screen remains "pinned" in your view.
They're also much smaller and easier to carry compared to a full VR headset, and they can plug into almost any device (laptop, tablet, phone) and just show up as an external monitor.
Don't get me wrong, they work as a monitor in a pinch on a plane when you need privacy it's just not going to ever replace a real monitor for you.
As a user, I actually use it more today than when I first got it, because each visionOS update has really unleveled the capabilities of the device. I like watching movies on the ceiling, the spatial scenes / photos / videos are really fun, and generally viewing your Photos library on Vision Pro is on a different level. Even non-spatial content just takes on a different, more immersive quality.
I have a lot of friends in the developer community, and enjoy playing with their apps. Things like "Cell Walk" where you can explore a 3D volumetric representation of different types of cells.
The Apple Immersive short films they release every so often are phenomenal – really nothing like them in my experience.
It's nice to be able to edit a movie and throw it onto a big screen, or have a gigantic workspace.
1: https://youtu.be/gDrk2HkiDhs?si=KhZsXOahpHPsAQGf https://youtu.be/QcTiDBtCafg?si=mH_MWi8MENjm8veT
I also have a Quest 3 and if I could only own one device, I'd take the Q3 hands-down. The games are fun, they get you up and moving, and although I'm not going to argue that the quality of the screens is the same or anything, it's more than good enough. I'll happily give up the virtual laptop screen in exchange for the library of VR games on the Quest.
I'm not much for consuming media so that aspect is lost on me. Unfortunately, that seems to be the primary use case Apple has focused on, if you can call the anemic dribble of content they've put out focus.
frankly i justified the cost by comparing against a planned home theater. now i RARELY use the avp as a home theater. its an incredible theater, but over time my mentality shifted and i consider the avp a tool instead of entertainment
i got used to the weight after a month. went from topping out on an hour or 2 to using for 4-5 hours no problem. also took around a month to learn the proper calibration for the light screen to "hang" on my face instead of press against it. this was a major breakthrough for comfort and session length
ive had mine since launch month and will add this observation i dont see said often:
i think the avp is meant to be taken off. meaning, i see meta going toward more comfortable ar glasses, but i dont really want to be in ar ALL DAY
its difficult to describe. the longer ive had an avp the more ive found a desire to put it on like a work hardhat, then take it off when i "feel" its time to stop. i really like that its not designed to be worn all day. im probably giving apple too much credit but its something unexpected ive found interesting in my own habitual use
* edit to add another interesting development after about a year of use: i now need to take a magnesium, calcium, and zinc pill or the weaker of my eyes will become tired and develop a spasm after about an hour and a half of sustained use. im vegetarian so that may also be a factor
Apple being stingy with storage (and RAM) isn’t new, but the base $3.5k spec with only 256 GB is extreme.
EDIT: clarity
256GB is $3499; 512GB is $3699; 1TB is $3899. You're paying ~$200 for that storage.
Apple's SSDs are actually priced a bit silly though, but I think that's a different discussion. It was significantly cheaper/GB to upgrade my M4 Mac Mini's internal SSD via 3rd party despite the performance being the same (if not better) than 1st party.
Some further thoughts: two of the use cases AVP was pitched for are content consumption (streaming + offline) and spatial video/photo production. IMO the base storage should reflect that.
Given that AVP sales are struggling, I’m not sure why Apple isn’t trying to throw people a bone and offer a more reasonable amount of storage in the base config.
> but the base $3.5k spec with only 256 GB is extreme.
The plain meaning of this sentence is "I expect more than 256 GB of storage when paying $3.5K for a device". You can argue for or against that if you like (I don't give a shit, because I would not buy it at any price), but not against something they did not say.
I did not, no.
The parent poster's "EDIT: clarity" note should be a clue here.
My conspiracy theory is that they don't want to grab attention and get any more bad rep for this product when they are already half giving up.
Most people put phones in cases which makes heat dissipation much worse.
Nobody is saying you should be able to render some 3d models on an iPhone..
What I see is that non-serious users who only communicate and consume content use phones and tablets. Laptops and desktops are for work, non-trivial content creation, and serious gaming with high memory and GPU requirements. You’re not running “cargo build” or a VM with Docker or Cyberpunk 2077 on a phone.
Higher end phones almost have enough CPU but not enough GPU, RAM, storage, or heat dissipation.
But that's mostly email, SaaS, web meetings, and spreadsheets. Most people have never in their lives run "cargo build" or launched Cyberpunk 2077. The actual market for sustained high local CPU/GPU compute is pretty small compared to the market for minimal load with the occasional small burst, and the latter works pretty well with poor cooling solutions.
Apple is already offering apps that work on all devices on their stores. Look at every single Apple Arcade release as an example. That's their vision; every device has a specific UI, but apps can run on all of them separately.
They likely have enough talented developers to make iOS run Mac apps natively. But I assume they neither want to cannibalize their laptop market nor want to let people circumvent the 30% fee for the iOS App Store, which is not required for Mac software.
I’m struggling to see this amount of work translate into more sales or a better experience for more than a token number of customers.
I’m super doubtful it would be that impactful. Also, switching Mac sales to Vision Pro sales probably works well for Apple in the long run.
The battery will discharge faster than it charges, the flash storage will wear out, etc etc.
I'm very excited for stuff like smart glasses ever single Glass, meta's new stuff is awesome in terms of slimming things down but the real excitement is the wristband for input. Looks like we'll be solving the display/input problems soon enough.
They seemed resistant to the idea of a compute puck but I honestly think that's fine. I'd rather have a phone in my pocket that can be used for compute than bulkier glasses, though it is nice if future glasses can do very basic tasks unaided.
I hope that pretty soon I won't even need a laptop for out of hours tasks (but would still use one for the standard work day most likely).
Obviously there would be performance constraints but at least for your $3499 you'd be getting a Mac instead of just a Mac Monitor.
There's something much more approachable about having an appliance with a built-in screen vs having to get a monitor/TV and dedicate part of your living space to something you use sometimes.
The math isn't how many people will buy Vision Pro M5, it's how many have nots can be created by putting it in the Vision Pro.
They'll keep their face computers separate for as long as they refuse to build Macbooks with touch screens. Which seems to be forever.
> keep producing
Maybe it's just me, but if they keep producing it (regardless of what chip), doesn't that mean they haven't given up on it?
Ignoring the new model: which has upgraded screens, a faster refresh rate and a new headband design amongst other upgrades - which each indicate more R&D activity on the Vision Pro than say AirPods Max or the HomePod line. One would still need to content with:
- Embracing 3rd party wide field-of-view, 180°, and 360° camera makers for direct compatibility for content creation.
- Working with Black Magic Design on a spatial production workflow and a specialised camera for simplified spatial video creation.
- The development of not just more content, but more types of content, especially around live events and sports.
- A steady stream of software updates that add useful and forward-planning functionality.
The people that are saying that it's dead are simply choosing not to pay attention or confusing apple's push into widening their AR offerings as abandoning the vision pro.
It's also hard to reason with these people because they suggest (without evidence) that the sales numbers are unexpectedly low, while also stating that the factory that makes the screens is limiting production (again without evidence). This is more the type of speak of PR astroturfing than genuine discussion.
Meanwhile you're spot on about spots, here's a news post from about a week ago:
https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2025/10/spectrum-brings-nba-g...
[1]: https://daringfireball.net/2024/10/vision_pro_bites_dog
Meanwhile, my two pairs of Meta Ray-Bans are basically trash now. Loved them while they worked — but they break way too easily, and one completely died after a software update.
Granted, I only see a VR headset like four times a year, but nobody I know bought a Vision Pro either, whereas I know a few dozen people with other headsets.
But yours, is especially an apples and oranges comparison.
The original iPhone was a flawed internet-less take on a thriving exploding market (mobile).
VR's market just questionable.
i have an avp and use it daily. but it turns out im weird and most people simply dont want to put screens on their face
If they'd focused on maximizing the device's usefulness instead of its revenue stream, maybe things would have worked out better.
To a first approximation, Apple is a manufacturer of locked-down handheld entertainment appliances whose primary function is to psychologically condition children into siphoning off money from their inattentive parents. There's no reason to suspect their vision for the AVP to diverge significantly from this user story.
I've not seen a professional desktop operating system show you adverts and click bait during worktime before and I am not impressed.
I'm taking it as an alarm bell that I should get out as soon as I can. For me and what I do, macOS or Linux are my platforms of choice.
Even billionaires get burnout.
> how does windows and Linux waste your time?
Windows is deep down the enshittification curve.
My Linux-using coworkers seem to spend a lot of time wiping things and switching distros. I'm very happy with it for servers, but not for desktop.
- 15 minute boot-up times
- Complete lack of power management ( close your laptop screen )
- Random forced updates
Personally I find a Mac to be a better development environment than Windows even for Microsoft tech like the dotnet stack.
That word right there means that we can both be correct, because I personally find MacOS to be frustrating for Dev compared to every other alternative. Great for creativity, but not so much for productivity.
But the caveat to my statement is that _everything_ added to their ecosystem to business reasons is useless and counterproductive. For example I can plug my Android phone into a Windows machine (two different companies inb4 someone uses flawed logic) and it just works. If I plug my Android phone into my Macbook it doesn't work at all...but an iPhone does! ;)
They only very recently got decent-ish Window management, basic snapping that Linux/Windows has had for at least a decade or longer. And even then their implementation is "pretty" but slow to respond. It's like just expand and snap the fucking window for fuck's sake.
In terms of the "development environment" they enjoy having had the OS built on top of FreeBSD (which yes, they have contributed to - bet Apple management hated that).
To me it's a machine that gets stuff done; they could literally strip the thing down to the bare minimum, removing all of the "magical wonderful Apple stuff with cutesy fancy sounding names" and I couldn't give a shit.
"Retina" screen? Fuck offff Apple.
This is both true and completely irrelevant, because the point of the above comment is that Apple is not in the business of catering to this use case.
Look at the annual revenues: $225 billion from iPhone/iPad, $100 billion from "services" (which Apple mostly characterizes as "app store stuff"), $40 billion from accessories (watch, airpods, etc), $30 billion from desktops. The Mac segment comes out to 7.9% of their overall revenue. And this number is shrinking in both the absolute and relative sense, as "services" continues to grow and as Mac units shipped peaked in 2022.
Even without that, calling a $30B business an "insignificant historical afterthought" is a bit of an exaggeration, no?
This is both entirely true and still manages to miss the point. Yes, Apple keeps the Mac around exclusively to accommodate the creation of iOS apps. No, they are not financially incentivized to create new categories of hardware that cater toward productivity when instead they could lock them down and milk that cow for all it's worth via the app store tax.
That doesn't mean MacOS is good, though.
> With support for the PlayStation VR2 Sense controller, players get a new class of immersive games with high-performance motion tracking in six degrees of freedom, finger touch detection, and vibration support.
Previously they seemed to be committed to finger controls only.
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