Apple halts cheaper Vision Pro follow-up, shifts to smart glasses

Apple has halted development of a planned cheaper, lighter follow-up to its Vision Pro headset and is redirecting engineering teams to accelerate work on a pair of smart glasses, people familiar with the matter said. The shift reflects a strategic move away from building a lower-cost mixed-reality headset toward developing lighter, phone-tethered and display-equipped eyewear that the company hopes will better compete with existing smart-glasses products from rival device makers.

The original Vision Pro debuted in early 2024 at a premium price of about $3,499 and drew praise for its technology as well as criticism for its weight, high cost, and a limited slate of mainstream apps. Those commercial and product challenges are factors in the decision to pause the cheaper Vision Pro variant, codenamed N100, which had been targeted for a 2027 launch. Apple has reassigned staff from that project to prioritize two smart-glass efforts, people said.

The first of those projects, referred to internally as N50, is expected to pair with an iPhone and will not include its own display. The company aims to preview this tethered model as soon as next year with a wider release in 2027. A second,...