In today’s Power On newsletter by Mark Gurman, he reports that Apple has opened up the Apple Vision Pro headset testing to more employees inside the company following the WWDC unveiling. One issue that has come up in expanded testing is the weight.
The Vision Pro headset is not light, partly because it is made of aluminium and glass rather than plastic materials. To combat this, Apple has developed a top strap that helps mitigate the pressure of the weight on the user’s face. But Gurman says Apple is not currently considering that to be so essential it will be included in the box.
Instead, the top strap is being considered as an optional extra purchase. It is perhaps telling that when Apple announced the Vision Pro’s price at WWDC, it said the headset would “start at $3499” leaving room for optional upgrades and extras.
The top strap is possibly one of those additional purchases. The Zeiss corrective lens will also likely be another, necessary for people who usually wear prescription glasses.
In the newsletter, Gurman writes that testing and user studies of Vision Pro have expanded to thousands of additional people this month. While only top senior employees can currently take the headset home, “that is expected to change soon”. Gurman says that while the headset hardware is complete, work on the software side continues.
There’s still plenty of time of course, given that the Vision Pro is not going sale until “early next year”, which could mean as late as May 2024.
Meanwhile, Apple has also reportedly shifted some employees to focus on work on the second-generation of Apple headsets, including a second-generation Apple Vision Pro with upgraded specifications and a new lower-end cheaper model.
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