What's Going on with Apple Vision Pro?

(intriguing music) - This is the Apple Vision Pro,

and this is the brand new second-generation Apple Vision Pro nearly two years later.

(tense music) Yeah... (impactful music)

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. (playful music) Okay,

so this is actually a partial upgrade of Apple Silicon.

We just got (playful music continues) (box squeaking) a new M5 chip, right?

So anything that has a base chip-- this is the direction of time,

and this is the 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. (pole clanking) Okay, anyway, aside from that new chip,

the new 2025 Vision Pro is more

or less the same

as the original from two years ago.

Same dimensions, same aluminum frame and glass on the outside,

same buttons and Digital Crown, same speakers,

same exact high-resolution 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 LIDAR scanner all around the outside.

And the same R1 chip inside to combine

and process all the data from all those sensors,

same thermal systems, 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 it seems like 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 probably remember the first-gen band, this Solo Knit 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 of 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 for 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 Solo

Knit Band 'cause 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.

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 visionOS 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 longer battery life.

Now, the loading apps faster, it's 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 game changer.

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 gonna notice that,

even if you do back-to-back the M2 and M5 versions,

like maybe a handful of people on planet Earth ever will.

But yeah, it's, you know, the passthrough 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 hertz 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.

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 Moohan,"

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 Ray-Ban 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 first-gen 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 two 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, et cetera.

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 gonna 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 TL;DR:

Tech companies 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 wanna spend significant time in a face-computer,

even if it's really impressive,

even if those pixels with the passthrough 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 the next one.

Peace. (upbeat music) ♪ Hopefully will come ♪