Here’s how AI led Apple to suspend work on its next headset
Apple Inc’s (AAPL) headset priced at $3,499 raised a lot of eyebrows at launch. Its pricing was ridiculed, but the company proved everyone wrong and reported good initial sales.
That early enthusiasm died quickly though. Selling at launch was easy. But maintaining the sales has turned out to be a challenge.
It was recently reported that Apple was suspending work on its next high-end headset. It now wants to focus on the cheaper version and launch it in more countries to drive demand.
On first look, it seems the iPhone maker caved in to lower sales. Not surprisingly, it gave up on the more expensive version and focused on enhancing the cheaper headset.
But to find the real reason for this move, we have to look back at events from three weeks ago.
Apple announces AI plans
On the 10th of June, Apple introduced ‘Apple Intelligence’ for iPhone, iPad, and Mac. It’s a set of AI tools that will work across its ecosystem to boost user productivity. People noticed that the Vision headset was excluded from the list of devices that would use this new tech. But that in no way means Apple doesn’t have any Vision Pro AI plans.
It seems now that Apple has a slightly different Vision Pro AI plan. First things first, it needs to work on the headset to make more people buy it. If it’s not well embedded in the Apple ecosystem, making AI products for it might not even be feasible.
But more importantly, the company needs to figure out how best to integrate AI with mixed reality. If the company hasn’t yet figured this out, it does not make much sense for them to waste their resources on a high-end headset.
That seems to be the real reason why the high-end headset went down on the company’s priority list and there were also no Vision Pro AI plans announced on its AI event.
The company won’t be launching Apple Intelligence on the Vision Pro this year. If you’re an Apple shareholder, you’d likely prefer the company to focus on integrating the latest tech on its new device, rather than ignore that tech while working on a better device.
If the Vision Pro misses out on the AI trend, it might even fail as a product, no matter how hard Apple works on its improvement.
Prioritising AI over high-end headsets
In short, Apple is prioritising the integration of AI in the Vision headsets over launching improved versions. In my view, this approach helps the company improve its product ecosystem. It also helps them make the Vision Pro more attractive, something they were already trying to do, but at quite a significant financial cost.
Speaking of headsets, Apple is also changing how it demos new headsets in stores, giving people the ability to view their own media on the headset.
The headband is also changing from Solo Loop to Dual Loop, a move aimed at making the headset more comfortable.
And here’s one for the die-hard Apple fans: there are rumours that the company is working on AirPods with infrared cameras. Could this be an improvement that will further enhance the eventual Vision Pro AI experience? We’ll have more details as the picture becomes clearer.
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