A new report says Apple has finally admitted what we all suspected about the Vision Pro

If you spent $3,499 on a Vision Pro, you might want to sit down. A new report claims Apple has effectively given up on its spatial computer, and if it pans out, the people who actually shelled out for one are stuck holding the bag.

What the new report says

A new report claims Apple has all but abandoned the Vision Pro after the M5 refresh failed to spark any real consumer interest. The October 2025 update brought the M5 chip, a more comfortable Dual Knit Band, a 120Hz refresh rate, and roughly 30 extra minutes of battery life, however the price stayed at a punishing $3,499.

According to the report's insider sources, Apple has stopped work on the headset entirely. The Vision Pro team has reportedly been redistributed across the company, with some former members now allegedly working on Siri.

It's worth noting that Apple has not officially confirmed any of this, and the M5 model is still on sale. However the report claims there are no plans for a follow-up. Sources also told the outlet that the headset has seen an unusually high return rate, far beyond any other modern Apple product.

Why this is not surprising

If true, this isn't exactly a shock. We covered back in October how the M5 refresh felt more like a placeholder than a real upgrade. The chip got better, the strap got better, however the core problems (price, weight, lack of compelling content) all stuck around.

The pivot reportedly lines up with what we've heard for months. Instead of doubling down on VR, Apple is allegedly racing to build smart glasses to compete with Ray-Ban Meta, starting with an AI-first model that supposedly won't even have a display.

Here's the rough part: the report claims Apple cannot reuse most of the Vision Pro's tech for those glasses, because it pulls too much power for a smaller device. If accurate, all that R&D and the next big thing has to be built almost from scratch.

What this could mean for people who bought one

If you bought a Vision Pro, especially the M5 model that just dropped six months ago, even the rumor of this hits hard. We already broke down why Apple's strategy here always seemed more about planting a flag than building a real product line.

The roughly 600,000 people who own one could be left with a $3,499 device that Apple is reportedly walking away from. visionOS will keep getting updates for a while, however the engineering that should be improving the experience is allegedly going somewhere else now.

Why this stings, even as a rumor

I never bought a Vision Pro, and I never planned to. $3,499 for a headset that's heavy, awkward, and barely has any content was always a hard pass for me, no matter how impressive the displays were.

What bothers me about this, even at the rumor stage, is how predictable it has felt. The signs were there: the reportedly cancelled Vision Air, the YouTube app arriving two years late and only fully working on the new model. Apple kept selling the M5 refresh at full price anyway.

If this report holds up, the trust is the part that's hard to get back. We need official word from Apple before any of this is set in stone, however the writing on the wall is getting harder to ignore.

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