Apple Vision Pro looks set to come in “early 2024.” The Cupertino crew has not been any more specific than that, but thanks to a tip-off, we know it’ll be on the latter end of early next year.
According to Mark Gurman in his Power On newsletter, the Vision Pro looks set to release “sometime around March” — delayed past the previously proposed launch window of January 2024.
What’s the hold up?
Officially, the reasons are unknown, but there are some logical suggestions that give us a little more clarity on what is happening with the new headset behind-the-scenes.
First, Forbes has hinted that more “advanced device testing” may be needed before the big release. This is one of the more complex mixed reality headsets we’ve ever seen — packing high-performance eye-tracking that is even able to scan your iris as a unique identifier to unlock your device (Optic ID), alongside 12 cameras, five sensors, six microphones, the M2 chip and a new R1 processor. With that sheer amount of computation and the complex software Apple is building to ensure the headset is as simple as possible to use, more testing is not a bad thing.
And second, combined with a report from 9To5Mac, the distribution plans are going to be quite the logistical challenge that Apple needs to work through. The Vision Pro could be sold “by appointment only,” and there are no plans to sell it through third-party retailers. At $3,500, any company would want to curate the purchasing process carefully.
Global launch on the cards?
In short, no. But it’s not all bad news for those outside of the states. Gurman went on to talk about the U.S. being the first country to receive this headset for logistical reasons, which will then be extended to “certain countries” later on in the year.
Who is on this list? We don’t know, but if we take a look back at how other first gen Apple devices launched in this staggered fashion, Gurman started to make some suggestions that the U.K. and Canada are two possibilities for the next phase of launch.
