Apple Leaves the Vision Pro Without a Next Machine

Mark Gurman said Apple’s next Vision headset is on life support, with no guarantee it will ever launch. The Apple Vision Pro is still for sale. The follow-up, code named N224, is about four design studies that would not reach stores before late 2028 or early 2029, if they reach them at all.

CEO John Ternus has long treated the current visor as too heavy and too costly for a mass audience. The staff being moved first are going to displayless smart glasses, camera-equipped AirPods, and screenless health bands. That leaves visionOS, Apple Immersive Video, and the apps built for a dual micro-OLED visor sitting on hardware Apple will not commit to replace.

The Spatial Computer Apple Still Advertises

Apple’s public Vision Pro page still tells buyers the era of spatial computing is here. The headset on that page is the M5 model, announced on October 15, 2025, and in stores from October 22, 2025, with a Dual Knit Band Apple says is meant to keep people in spatial apps longer.

The worn device is listed at 750 to 800 grams on the face, including the Light Seal and that counterbalanced band. An aluminum battery pack lives in a pocket and is rated for up to 2.5 hours of general use and up to 3 hours of video. The displays total 23 million pixels. An M5 chip with a 10-core CPU, a 10-core GPU, and 16GB of unified memory sits in the visor beside the R1 chip, which Apple rates at 12 milliseconds of photon-to-photon latency.

That is the machine Apple still wants photographed. It is also the machine Ternus has described, to people who have spoken with him, as a stepping stone rather than a platform he expects ordinary buyers to wear.

The US launch was February 2, 2024, at $3,499 for the 256GB model. The M5 refresh kept the same starting price and added up to 120Hz refresh. It did not make the visor lighter. Weight and price are the two complaints Ternus has carried since before he became CEO, and they are the two problems N224 is supposed to fix.

The Puck Apple’s Bosses Will Not Ship

Gurman wrote on September 27, 2026, that the Vision team is working on a fully revamped headset under N224. Engineers are trying about four concepts aimed at weight and fit. Two of those paths are public enough to describe. The rest of the brief is the part Cupertino cannot agree on.

N224 DESIGN PATHS

• Lighter shell: One study keeps the egg-shaped visor and tests plastic, titanium, other metals, and mixed materials to cut mass without changing the basic shape.
• Split computer: Another study moves compute and battery into a standalone puck, in the same family as Meta’s new VR Glasses, so the face wears displays and sensors only.
• All-in-one holdout: Senior decision-makers want something closer to the current sealed visor, even if that choice pushes any launch into late 2028 or early 2029.

Apple already accepted an external battery on the first Vision Pro. The fight now is whether the computer itself may leave the head. People who have built dual micro-OLED visors keep running into the same limit: panels, cameras, cooling, and hours of runtime do not fit in a glasses-weight package if the chip stays on the face. A puck in a pocket is how you get the weight down. It is also a cable, a clip, and a second object to lose. That is the trade Apple’s top hardware group still dislikes.

One design in testing retains the basic egg-shaped form of the current Vision Pro, but Apple is actively exploring ways to reduce its weight by experimenting with plastic, titanium, other metals and various materials. The company has also continued to explore a standalone puck that combines the computing components and battery, similar to the approach used by Meta’s recent VR Glasses.

Mark Gurman, Power On newsletter, September 27, 2026

Gurman added that the work is on “life support” as the company weighs a new direction, with no guarantee the device will launch. That phrase is not a cancellation notice. It is a funding and calendar warning. N224 still has live studies. It does not have a ship date Apple will defend.

Meta Put the Computer in a Pocket

Four days before Gurman’s note, Meta used Connect 2026 to show Meta VR Glasses, on sale in spring 2027. Meta’s own post puts the frames at about 100 grams and $1,299.99. Sensors and micro-OLED panels sit in magnesium-alloy frames. Compute, battery, and storage sit in a puck on an optical tether that clips to a pocket, belt, or bag. Meta says that split makes the glasses five times lighter than Meta Quest 3. Input is eyes, hands, and voice. Controllers are optional.

Set the two shipping (or soon shipping) visors next to each other and the arithmetic is blunt. Apple’s worn headset is 7.5 to 8 times the on-face weight of Meta’s glasses. Meta’s price is about 37 percent of Vision Pro’s $3,499 launch tag. Apple still puts the M5 computer on the face and only the battery in a pocket. Meta put the computer in the pocket too.

TWO HEADSETS, TWO PLACES FOR THE CHIP

Gurman went further on X, writing that Meta’s glasses are what Apple’s Vision Pro should’ve been. That line is a form-factor verdict. It is not a software verdict. Meta’s glasses run Horizon OS and the Quest library. Apple’s visor runs visionOS, spatial windows, and Immersive Video. Those are different products, and only one of them is for sale from Apple today.

Where visionOS Goes If N224 Never Ships

The cheap, light product Apple is actually staffing is not a small Vision Pro. It is a pair of displayless glasses, code named N50, still aimed at 2027. Those glasses are being built as an AI wearable: cameras, mics, speakers, Siri, no in-lens display for the first generation. They can share pieces of visionOS. They cannot hang a 23-million-pixel theater in a living room, and they cannot run the spatial work apps that need a screen in front of each eye.

That is the second problem hiding under “life support.” If N224 slips, or dies, the only Apple hardware that can run the spatial computer Apple already sold is the M5 visor now in stores. There is no cheaper visor on the calendar. The N100 project, the lighter and lower-cost headset often called Vision Air, was shelved in 2025. N224 is not a budget model. It is a flagship follow-up that might cost less than $3,499 and might not ship.

Layoffs already cut into the software that both products would share. Gurman wrote in August 2026 that Apple cut about 100 jobs from the Vision Products Group, first in gaming and immersive video. By September 1, 2026, he said the cuts had reached device security, audio engineering, Siri integration, testing, and visionOS. Because visionOS is also the software path for the glasses, those cuts hit the headset and the glasses at the same time.

Senior people on the Vision side have spent months asking Ternus to keep funding the visor. He has not killed the category in public. He has also said, to colleagues, that he could walk away from head-worn devices altogether if buyers never show up. N50 still has his support. N224 has a code name and a warning label.

Ternus, Meade, and a Team Reporting Down

The visor’s rank inside Apple fell as the CEO job moved. Hardware veteran John Ternus became CEO in 2026. Johny Srouji, already Apple’s silicon chief, took the chief hardware officer title, putting chips and devices under one executive. Apple’s own Mac Studio newsroom note on August 25, 2026, names Srouji with that title. The Vision hardware group now sits further from the top of that chart.

THE YEAR THE VISOR LOST ALTITUDE

1. 2025: Apple shelves N100, the lighter low-cost headset, and ships the M5 Vision Pro instead of a new shape.
2. June 2026: Paul Meade, who ran Vision Pro and smart glasses, leaves for OpenAI after his role is moved down the ladder.
3. August 2026: About 100 jobs come out of the Vision Products Group, starting with gaming and immersive video.
4. Late August 2026: Ternus is CEO. Srouji is chief hardware officer. Fletcher Rothkopf, Meade’s successor, reports to vice president Tom Marieb rather than to the top of hardware.
5. September 1, 2026: Gurman says the cuts reached visionOS, audio, Siri, security, and testing, not only the original 100-person core.
6. September 23, 2026: Meta announces VR Glasses at 100 grams and $1,299.99, on sale spring 2027.
7. September 27, 2026: Gurman puts N224 on life support and says there is no guarantee it launches.

Rothkopf still has a visor to run. He does not have the direct line Meade once had. The people asking Ternus to stay the course are arguing with a chief executive who thought the product was too bulky before he had the final say.

The Lightweight Gear Getting the Engineers

The reallocation is not a rumor about a single lab. Ternus’s wearable bet is a stack of products that sit on a face, in an ear, or on a wrist without a visor’s mass. Displayless glasses are the centerpiece, built in-house rather than with an eyewear partner, and pointed at Meta’s Ray-Ban line. Camera AirPods are being tested as low-resolution sensors for Siri and visual intelligence, not as a second pair of glasses. Screenless health bands are in the same shift toward things people will wear all day.

Those devices can feed an assistant. They cannot replace a spatial display. Anyone who shipped a visionOS app for windows, 3D objects, or Immersive Video is writing for a product whose next revision might be three years out, and whose last cheap sibling was cancelled. Enterprise buyers who treated the visor as a desk, some of them wearing it through a full workday, are in the same queue. The M5 chip made load times and AI tasks faster. It did not change the thing on their face.

Meta, for its part, told Horizon developers they can start building for VR Glasses now, on the same OS as Quest. Apple’s visor developers are being asked to wait on a project that is, in Gurman’s reporting, still asking for a budget and a direction.

A Launch Year That Did Not Repeat

Apple has never published a Vision Pro unit total. IDC put worldwide shipments at about 390,000 in the 2024 launch year, then about 45,000 in the fourth quarter of 2025, a stretch that included the M5 debut. Those two figures are not a clean year-over-year pair. They still describe a product that spiked, then faded, with no second wave large enough to look like a platform.

WHAT THE TALLY SHOWS

• Launch year: IDC estimated about 390,000 units shipped in 2024.
• M5 quarter: IDC put about 45,000 units in the fourth quarter of 2025, including the chip refresh.
• Store floor: Gurman’s reporting has some Apple Stores moving a single unit in a month.
• Official total: Apple has not released a cumulative figure.

A visor that some stores sell once a month can still be a useful tool for the people who kept it. It is a weak base on which to ask developers to wait until late 2028 or early 2029 for a successor that might not come. N50 glasses can ship first and still leave those developers without a screen.

Apple’s site will keep selling the M5 visor as a spatial computer for as long as inventory and pride allow. The next machine that can run that software is a four-concept study with no date the company will stand behind, held there in part because the puck that would make it wearable is the one design Apple’s bosses still do not want to ship.