Apple Downsizes VR Team as the Vision Pro Gets Put ‘On Ice’
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Another report yesterday has lent more weight to the rumors that Apple is shelving the Vision Pro — or at least moving it to the very back of the stove and turning down the heat.
In April, MacRumors reported that Apple had disbanded the Vision Pro team, although in most cases it seemed employees had simply be shuffled to other divisions. However, it seems the cuts have gotten deeper, as AppleInsider has heard from one of its sources that Apple is now laying off an entire team, adding to reports that incoming CEO John Ternus has put the initiative “on ice.”
According to a reliable source speaking to AppleInsider, Apple has laid off at least 60 employees tied to Apple’s VR team, the Apple Vision Group, and similar positions.
What’s less clear is what that means for the so-called Vision Products Group. While some heavyweights like Mike Rockwell were already pulled out to fix Siri, the changes likely have more to do with VR development than an abandonment of all wearable optical devices.
That’s not entirely a new development. We already heard in October that Apple was prioritizing smart glasses over a lighter “Vision Air” — a logical move for a more lucrative market that Apple had already been pursuing since at least 2024.
However, at the time nobody was entirely sure what this meant for the Vision Pro in the longer term. Lowering the priority of a product isn’t quite the same as canceling it, but as more reports continue to pour in, it’s beginning to seem that the full “spatial computing” headset may indeed be all but completely dead in the water.
While Apple isn’t likely to stop selling the M5 Vision Pro anytime soon — it still appeals to many niche industries — it’s likely to leave it as-is for the foreseeable future. The current version still packs in the latest Apple silicon, so it should have a shelf life of at least a couple more years before Apple sees any need to address it. Still, that late 2025 model could become the new normal for the Vision Pro, marking a continuing series of updates that are little more than processor refreshes.
It’s also worth keeping in mind that Apple is still very actively developing — and promoting — visionOS. This year’s visionOS 27 update is far more than a maintenance release. It’s practically a love letter to Vision Pro owners.
In early June, the Financial Times reported that Apple had scaled back its manufacturing and marketing efforts for the Vision Pro, citing a “rare failure to draw consumers to a new device.” A few days later, analyst Ming-Chi Kuo reported that John Ternus had nixed the Vision Pro lineup entirely from Apple’s future product roadmap.
Most analysts agree that’s a decision that makes sense. The Vision Pro (and alleged Vision Air) was believed to be spreading Apple’s resources too thin, focusing on the ultra-pricey niche product at the expense of entering the much more popular smart glasses market.
Those glasses are still technically developed within Apple’s Vision Products Group, but the layoffs were from a team “dedicated to VR development” — an area that would have no application whatsoever for smart glasses or AI wearables like the camera-equipped AirPods we’ve been hearing so much about lately.
AppleInsider notes that this focused set of layoffs doesn’t mean the Vision Pro is dead for good, and Apple is still believed to be pursuing more sophisticated AR glasses, but that’s still a moonshot project that’s likely going to continue living in Apple’s skunkworks for years. Meanwhile, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman has said he doesn’t expect a new Vision Pro headset to arrive before the end of 2028 — a move that would put it right on schedule for an “M8” refresh that would be necessary by then.
[The information provided in this article has NOT been confirmed by Apple and may be speculation. Provided details may not be factual. Take all rumors, tech or otherwise, with a grain of salt.]
