Apple Vision Pro 2 may be half the price of the original claims sketchy rumor
If a questionable rumor is to be believed, the next version of the Apple Vision Pro could be out by 2026, and cost half the price of the first model.
Apple Vision Pro at Apple Park
It is widely expected that Apple is working on creating successive versions of the Apple Vision Pro, following its introduction on the market. Speculation about the next model continues, with a dodgy claim about the second-gen model.
According to a post on X by @Revegnus1 on Friday, the second version of the Apple Vision Pro will be arriving in 2026.
The price of the headset will allegedly be between $1,500 and $2,500. If true, this could make the headset less than half the $3,500 price of the first-gen model at the low end of the range.
The tweeter adds that it is entering the Chinese SeeYa supply chain. Component samples from the chain are said to have already been sent to Apple for evaluation.
SK Hynix and Samsung are reportedly supplying LLW DRAM for the device. LLW is Low Latency Wide I/O DRAM, a form of memory that offers 128GB/s of bandwidth per module.
Somewhat questionable
The tweeter's claim is suspect in a few ways. For a start, the account is only a few days old, therefore it does not have any real history to judge rumor accuracy.
That said, since its introduction, the account has manged to make a number of leak and rumor posts in a short space of time. Most of the claims are about Apple, though there is some discussion about Android and Samsung.
There is also the possibility that this is a previous leaker who went by the name of Revegnus or @Tech_Reve, who was the source of many rumors about Apple products. The @Tech_Reve account previously made fairly reasonable claims about Apple's unit shipments, and discussed TSMC's 2nm process.
The @Tech_reve account has since been deactivated on X, which lends to the theory that the @Revegnus1 account could be a return of the leaker. But even so, there's no guarantee it's the same leaker and not someone else using the same name as a quick way to gain authority.
Other rumors and speculation about the Apple Vision Pro follow-up from leakers with substantial track records also point to a potential update as soon as the summer of 2025, though possibly running into 2026.
This does mean the leaker's release date timing seems plausible, but certainly not about the price.
There have also been claims that a cheaper model of headset is also in the works, which could surface at around the same timeframe.
However, even this consumer-grade version could remove just hundreds off the price through changes in components. One October report proposed a significantly refined consumer headset could be cheaper, but still around $2,000.
The first-generation Apple Vision Pro is also extremely expensive for Apple to produce. Estimates for the so-called "bill of materials" in February put the cost of components at about $1,542 per headset.
Unless Apple has made a significant breakthrough in cost savings, halving the price of the "Pro" model therefore seems unlikely if the consumer version can't do the same.
Rumor Score: Unlikely
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Comments
On the media consumption side it still needs time to adapt storytelling to a new experience, but it will come.
Notionally, the 2024 iPad Pro 13 could be used as an analog for how cheap Apple can drive a Vision product to. It needs to have a cheaper R1 processor, which supposedly uses wide I/O RAM, and you have to account for 2 microOLEDs versus the single two stack OLED. After 2 years of mass manufacture, perhaps their costs are driven down by half?
If so, $2000 is possible?
Bear in mind that the Vision Pro needs to have upgraded cameras, improved displays in both resolution and refresh rates, better WiFi, etc. the whole gamut of improvements.
When AV Pro 2 comes out in 2025/26 it is likely having M5 or M6. M4 was a giant leap from M2, so likely AVP2 will have some serious horsepower to bring to the table and likely by then widely established on device GenAI models in iOS and VisionOS.
Question is what this will enable us to do. Maybe the UI can start predicting intent?
Which means the price isn't going down however what Apple has done in the past is add more features over time and keep the price the same plus-minus 200-300 dollars. An example if I buy the latest iPad 13" it will cost between 2300-2500 w/keyboard and 2TB storage note 2TB wasn't available, the latest comes with more features across the board.
The original iPad Pro 12.9 that I bought 4-5 years ago maxed out cost about the same. The Vision Pro get more features (iteration) M4,M5/R2, more Memory and more features at about the same price. Plus-Minus 200-300 dollars.
Kind of like how, even at $0 cost, your comment is useless to me but may have value to someone else.