Apple still chasing the AR glasses dream… but fears another flop

Reports at the end of January that Apple had terminated a project to build Mac-tethered augmented reality glasses were met with widespread disappointment and skepticism. Here at Macworld, we argued that the company had killed off the wrong Vision Pro project, while many pundits questioned its appetite for the fight in what could be an important market of the future.

According to the respected Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman, however, Apple hasn’t given up on the AR market. It still wants to release a pair of standalone AR glasses at some point, he writes in the latest edition of his Power On newsletter but has been burned by Vision Pro’s lack of success and wants to avoid another failure in the short term.

“It seems like the new boss of Apple’s Vision Products Group, John Ternus, doesn’t want another flop on his hands,” Gurman writes. That’s a mildly controversial take, given that Apple has always acted like Vision Pro did exactly what it was supposed to: offer a glimpse of the future without being expected to sell in high numbers. But we can be absolutely certain that it did not sell in high numbers.

That “failure” may be the reasoning behind this latest cancelation, but the will is still there. “I’m told that Apple’s long-term goal of standalone AR glasses remains intact,” Gurman adds, “and the company will keep working on underlying technology—like screens and silicon—to help make such a device more feasible.”

The project killed off last month, in any case, was more of a stopgap than a proper sequel to Vision Pro. It would have replicated one of Vision Pro’s more popular features (the ability to reproduce whatever is currently showing on a Mac’s display in an intimate virtual environment) in a more slimline and affordable product. But it would not have offered all of the features that the company one day hopes to offer in its widely hoped-for standalone glasses.

Whereas Vision Pro is fundamentally limited in its appeal to casual consumers by bulk and cost (as, most likely, there will be any sequels to the product in the short or medium term) the glasses represent a shot at the mainstream. It’s still unclear what will eventually take the smartphone’s place as the dominant tech product in society, but we can be pretty sure it won’t be something that looks like Vision Pro. Unobtrusive pairs of glasses, discreetly feeding us information as we go about our days, though? That has a chance.