Apple held its first earnings call under CEO John Ternus on 2 November, and anyone hoping to hear about smart glasses went away empty-handed. According to a published transcript of the call, glasses, augmented reality and spatial computing did not come up at all. Vision Pro got exactly one mention, from chief financial officer Kevan Parekh, and it was about Apple Vision Pro surgery rather than entertainment or gaming.
What was actually said
In his prepared remarks, Parekh told investors: “Duke Health performed the first surgical procedure using Apple Vision Pro for hip arthroscopy.” That was the entire Vision Pro mention. It sat among enterprise customer examples, with no new product, no price and no roadmap attached.
The rest of the call stayed on the numbers. Apple reported revenue of $114.48 billion, up 12 percent. Wearables, home and accessories, the category that includes Vision Pro, brought in $8.3 billion, down 8 percent year on year. Apple put that down to a tough comparison with last year’s Apple Watch and AirPods launches.
The surgery behind the mention
The procedure Parekh referred to was announced by Stryker on 1 September. It used Stryker’s SportSuite Vision app, which received FDA De Novo authorization on 17 July. Stryker says it is the first app the FDA has authorized for use during surgery on Apple Vision Pro.
The app places arthroscopic video, CT imaging and hip analysis tools inside the surgeon’s field of view, so the surgeon does not have to keep looking across the room at several monitors. The headset is a video see-through device, meaning the surgeon views the operating room through cameras rather than clear lenses. The first case was performed by Dr Chad Mather III, an orthopedic surgeon at Duke Health. Stryker’s release notes that he is a Stryker consultant.
Why the silence on glasses matters
Since June, analyst reports have suggested Apple is moving resources away from Vision Pro successors and towards lighter smart glasses. Apple has confirmed none of this, and the earnings call did nothing to change that. Ternus gave no timeline and no hint of a product.
Our take
At AugmentedReality.com, we think the most telling detail is where Apple chose to point investors. When a company has one chance a quarter to talk about Vision Pro, and it chooses a hip operation over a consumer product, that says something about where the headset is finding its audience. Healthcare is a place where a heavy, expensive headset makes sense, and where it can replace a wall of monitors. Whatever Apple does next in consumer glasses, this is one corner of the market where its current hardware is already doing real work.