Apple Vision Pro 2 Pushed Back to 2028 — Why the Company Is Betting on Smart Glasses Instead

Apple’s next Vision Pro headset won’t be arriving anytime soon. According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, writing in his Power On newsletter, a cheaper, lighter Vision Pro successor is unlikely to launch before late 2028 or 2029, with the category effectively “on ice” until Apple solves two specific problems: the device needs to become both significantly lighter and meaningfully cheaper than the current $3,499 price tag.

A Different Kind of Vision Pro 2

It’s worth being precise about what’s actually being delayed. Gurman has been careful to distinguish this device from “Vision Air,” a previously rumoured cheaper, lighter model that was reportedly cancelled. The successor now in testing is described as a genuine architectural redesign — moving the main chipset out of the headset itself and into an external puck, similar to the approach Meta is reportedly taking with its own next-generation headset. That’s a bigger engineering shift than a simple spec bump, which helps explain why the timeline has slipped as far as it has.

A Three-Year Slide

The delay represents a significant slip from where expectations started. Back in 2023, Gurman was predicting a lower-cost “Apple Vision” (without the Pro branding) would arrive by late 2025. That window has now moved roughly three years later, to 2028 or 2029 — a pattern that suggests the underlying engineering problems, rather than scheduling decisions, are driving the delay.

Why Smart Glasses Are Winning the Resources

The real story behind the headset delay is where Apple’s engineering talent has gone instead. Gurman has reported that the bulk of Apple’s mixed-reality hardware team has been reassigned to work on lightweight smart glasses, with the company now targeting a release in late 2027. Unlike a headset, glasses don’t need to house the same optical systems, processing hardware, or battery capacity — sidestepping the weight and cost problems that have stalled the Vision Pro successor.

This isn’t a coincidence of timing. Apple appears to be making a calculated bet that mass-market spatial computing starts with glasses people can wear all day, not headsets reserved for specific tasks. The Vision Pro line continues to receive software support — it was updated with an M5 chip in October 2025 — but the roadmap signal is clear: glasses come first.

The Wider Picture

This shift mirrors what’s happening across the industry. Meta, Snap, Google, and XREAL have all unveiled or shipped smart glasses hardware in just the past week at AWE 2026, while dedicated VR/MR headset shipments have reportedly declined as smart glasses adoption grows. Apple’s pause on Vision Pro 2 isn’t really a retreat from spatial computing — it’s a sign that even Apple sees lightweight, all-day wearables as the more immediate opportunity, with the full headset experience treated as a longer-term bet rather than this decade’s priority.

For now, the current Vision Pro remains Apple’s flagship spatial computing device — and looks set to stay that way for at least another two years.