Apple Fixes Vision Pro Forgotten Password Problem in visionOS 1.0.3

It seems like a bizarre oversight on Apple’s part, but last week, numerous folks who had forgotten the password for their shiny new $3,500 headsets found that they couldn’t reset them without shipping their units back to Apple.

While a forgotten password on any Apple device typically means you have to fully erase it to return it to factory settings and then restore from backup, the challenge for Vision Pro users is that Apple hadn’t offered any official way to do even that, since the headset has no user-accessible data port.

In that sense, the Vision Pro is more like an Apple TV or an Apple Watch. There’s nowhere to plug it directly into a computer, so, unlike an iPhone or iPad, you can’t just download and reload the operating system over a USB cable.

While the Vision Pro does have a special port for diagnostics and developer use, this requires a special $300 “Developer Strap” that’s only available to members of Apple’s Developer Program. However, while Apple service technicians reportedly use the same strap to troubleshoot and restore a Vision Pro’s firmware, it’s unclear if even that capability is available to developers who purchase the strap as it’s designed primarily to help them load their own apps onto the headset rather than Apple’s operating system.

To add insult to injury, it seems that many Apple Store employees were at a loss on what to do with a Vision Pro with a forgotten password. One new owner reported spending two hours at the Genius Bar while the technicians scratched their collective heads, studying instructions from an iPad to try and figure out how to deal with the problem. Eventually, they gave up and swapped out the headset for a new one.

Fortunately, Apple quickly sat up and took notice, which isn’t surprising after some customers reported talking to frustrated front-line support reps who felt blindsided fielding multiple calls from angry customers without being adequately prepared to deal with the problem.

Last week, Apple pushed out a beta of visionOS 1.1 to developers, reportedly including a fix for the forgotten password problem. The good news for frustrated Vision Pro owners is that Apple isn’t going to make them wait for this solution; today, it dropped a visionOS 1.0.3 update — the first since the headset was released to the public at the beginning of this month — whose sole purpose appears to be allowing users to reset their own device without making a trip to their local Apple Store.

This update provides important bug fixes and adds an option to reset your device if you’ve forgotten your passcode.

Apple

The visionOS 1.0.3 update follows two other point releases that were pushed out in the days leading up to the headset’s launch; visionOS 1.0.1 was only available to developers and some early reviewers, while visionOS 1.0.2 was pushed out as a launch-day update.

With the visionOS 1.0.3 update, users will still need to go through attempting to enter their “forgotten” passcode a few times, but rather than just leaving them in an endless cycle of lockouts, they’ll now eventually be given the option to erase the Vision Pro and start over.

Sadly, Find My support is still missing in action, and there’s no word on when (or if) the Vision Pro will gain the ability to be located remotely should you misplace it. However, the good news is that Activation Lock still works, and erasing your Vision Pro using the forgotten password technique will not disable it, so someone who “finds” your headset won’t be able to activate it without knowing the Apple ID and password of the original owner.