A new report from The Information says Apple has steeply reduced production of the company's Vision Pro mixed reality headsets. According to what the publication calls "multiple people directly involved in building components for the device," the Cupertino company could stop making the headset as soon as November.
This comes quickly on the heels of a Wall Street Journal interview where Apple CEO Tim Cook conceded that the headset was failing.
"At $3,500, it's not a mass-market product," Cook told WSJ's Ben Cohen. "Right now, it's an early-adopter product. People who want to have tomorrow's technology today—that's who it's for. Fortunately, there's enough people who are in that camp that it's exciting."
The report is a mixed bag, suggesting that the scaled-back production indicates that Apple has enough inventory to meet the projected demand for the headset. This coincides with news that Apple halted work on a second generation of the Vision Pro due to low sales.
At $3,500, it's not a mass-market product. Right now, it's an early-adopter product. People who want to have tomorrow's technology today—that's who it's for.
Apple CEO Tim Cook
It has been reported that Apple is working on a cheaper model that may be released next year, though at an alleged $2,000, it may not be enough to get consumer attention.
According to The Information, Apple suppliers are sitting on enough components to build between 500,000 and 600,000 headsets, with at least one supplier's employees claiming that their company hasn't built new parts since May.
It has been claimed that Apple has sold 370,000 headsets this year but is only supposed to sell 50,000 more before the year's end.
Apple told one of its suppliers that it needed to wind down production in November. The company, Luxshare, is supposedly making 1,000 Vision Pro headsets a day, half of its peak.
Meanwhile, Apple's biggest competition in the space, Meta, announced the new entry-level Meta Quest 3S at the end of September, which is significantly less expensive at $299 for the base model and $399 for a 256GB version. Even the more powerful Meta Quest 3 starts at $499, just over 85% less expensive than the Vision Pro. For comparison, according to AR Insider, Meta sold close to 3 million Quest 3 headsets in the first three quarters after launch. The Quest 3S is a little too new to extrapolate on sales data for that device.
The Vision Pro has been one of the biggest gambles in recent Apple history, though, as Cook said in the WSJ interview, the company wants to embody the ethos of "Not first, but best." This was said about Apple's delay in putting artificial intelligence features in their devices.
"We're perfectly fine with not being first," Cook told the Journal. "As it turns out, it takes a while to get it really great. It takes a lot of iteration. It takes worrying about every detail. Sometimes, it takes a little longer to do that. We would rather come out with that kind of product and that kind of contribution to people versus running to get something out first. If we can do both, that's fantastic. But if we can only do one, there's no doubt around here. If you talk to 100 people, 100 of them would tell you: It's about being the best."
Does this mean Apple will continue to iterate on the Vision Pro to create the "best" headset? Time will tell, and we'll know if they release a less expensive model next year, as has been reported.
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