Apple Officially Abandons Vision Pro After M5 Refresh Flop — Pivots Entire Team to Smart Glasses

Apple has officially pulled the plug on the Vision Pro. After the M5-equipped refresh shipped in October 2025 and failed to reverse a sales slump, the company has ceased all headset development and disbanded its Vision Products Group. Only about 600,000 units were sold in total — a fraction of the hundreds of millions of iPhones Apple sells annually.

What Happened

• M5 refresh details: Shipped October 2025 with a faster M5 chip, 120Hz refresh rate, 10% more rendered pixels, and 30 minutes of additional battery life
• Why it failed: The $3,499 price tag and 1.3+ pound weight kept mainstream consumers away despite the hardware improvements
• Vision Air cancelled: A cheaper, lighter model expected in 2027 with a 50% price cut has been scrapped entirely
• Team reassigned: Software engineers moved to the Siri team; hardware engineers assigned to a new smart glasses project
• Remaining inventory: Apple will continue selling existing M5 Vision Pro units until stock runs out

What This Means for Buyers

If you were waiting for a cheaper Vision Pro, it{"'"}s not coming. Apple{"'"}s pivot to smart glasses suggests their next wearable face computer will look more like Ray-Ban Meta than a headset. For current AR/VR buyers, the Meta Quest 3 ($549) and Samsung Galaxy XR ($1,799) are the active headset options. See our smart glasses guide for lightweight alternatives.