Apple Vision Pro Shelved in Favor of AI Glasses, Analyst Says

Apple has quietly shelved most of its mixed reality hardware ambitions, cutting what was once a seven-product head-mounted wearable pipeline down to two smart glasses projects, according to analyst Ming-Chi Kuo.

The two surviving products are structurally different from each other. The first is a display-free AI glasses device, closer in concept to Meta Ray-Bans than Vision Pro, targeted for 2027. The second is a more capable AR device using optical waveguide displays, currently pushed to 2029.

The detail that Kuo buries in the announcement is arguably the bigger story: he attributes the roadmap overhaul to John Ternus, describing him as Apple’s next CEO. If accurate, that framing means this hardware retreat is not Tim Cook cleaning house before an exit but Ternus staking out his product philosophy before he formally takes the role.

The Vision Pro Question

Kuo’s roadmap has no slot for a Vision Pro successor, which puts him directly at odds with Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, who has reported a lighter follow-up headset arriving around 2028 or 2029. The two accounts are not necessarily incompatible: Apple could be developing a next-generation headset without it appearing on Kuo’s supply chain radar yet, especially if it is still in early design stages.

What both accounts agree on is that the $3,499 Vision Pro, which sold in modest numbers since its February 2024 launch, is not the template Apple is scaling. The company appears to be betting that glasses form factors, not face computers, are where consumer volume actually lives.

That bet aligns with where Meta has had its only wearables success. Ray-Ban Meta glasses, with no display at all, have outsold every mixed reality headset on the market. Apple, characteristically late to acknowledge a competitor’s validation, seems to have drawn the same conclusion on its own timeline.