Vision Pro 2 With M5 Chip, Apple Intelligence Arriving In 2025; No Price Cuts: Kuo

Apple launched its first mixed-reality headset in February 2024. After a few months, there were rumors that Apple had put the second-gen Vision Pro on hold, to prioritize a cheaper headset. However, the recent rumors point to a different story. According to analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, Apple is working on its next generation of Vision Pro, which is all set to enter mass production in the second half of 2025.

Kuo says the prime highlight of the Vision Pro 2 would be the inclusion of Apple’s M5 chipset, which will make it a substantial upgrade over the first Vision Pro with M2 chip. Although we don’t have many details about the M5 processor, the jump from M2 to M5 is expected to take the computing power to a whole new level and offer the best of Apple Intelligence features. Of course, the announced M5 processor will surpass the already powerful M4 chipset, which is the latest in Apple’s Silicon lineup.

It’s worth knowing that despite powerful innards, the overall design and other hardware specifications are likely to remain the same. This could help Apple manage production costs. However, the Vision Pro 2 price is speculated to fall in line with the first-generation model, which has a $3,499 starting price. We’ve also heard rumors about Apple planning to come up with a cheaper version of Vision Pro with a lower-resolution display, but there are no signs of the expected release date as of now.

Kuo mentioned that the price of the M5 Vision Pro may not change much, but Apple might deploy some clever strategy and create attractive use cases to reach mainstream adoption. This has become more than necessary after the lackluster sales of the first Vision Pro. He also emphasizes that Apple might integrate something like OpenAI’s Sora, which could dramatically elevate the Vision Pro experience. After all, the impact of text-to-video AI models would be more impressive on a head-mounted display device than on current mainstream consumer electronics.

Mark Gurman also said that Apple has plans to roll out Apple Intelligence features to the Vision Pro headset in the future. While the headset can run on-device AI functions such as all-new Siri, writing tools, and notification summaries, we might not see them in 2024. Instead, Apple may reserve Apple Intelligence integration until visionOS 3, which could potentially launch in 2025.