Apple Vision Pro followup could be 18 months away

Apple Vision Pro

Apple has, so far, released one mixed-reality headset, but you can certainly expect more hardware to be on the way. If a rumor in a new report turns out to be true, then the next release could end up being in the middle of 2025.

Briefly mentioned in his "Power On" newsletter for Bloomberg on Sunday, Mark Gurman offers to readers that Apple "is probably at least 18 months away from launching a second-generation Vision Pro."

Gurman doesn't go into detail about the timing beyond the 18-month timespan. He also doesn't qualify whether the comment is based on external sources with knowledge of development plans or an educated guess.

And, it's not the first time we've heard a late-2025, early-2026 timeframe.

Even so, it seems to be a plausible timeframe for a future Apple release.

Apple Vision Pro 2 — the ballpark schedule

For a start, Apple's development cycles for new products can be quite lengthy. Once it decides to create a new version of an existing product, Apple takes well over a year to create the next iteration, in part due to the sheer size of its operations and supply chain.

When coming up with a completely overhauled update to an existing device, Appel can take a while to produce it. For example, a 2017 interview with former Apple design chief Jony Ive revealed that Apple took over two years to develop the iPhone X, due to its introduction of a brand new edge-to-edge display and Face ID in its design.

This is, of course, different from coming up with the crucial first-generation model, which in the case of the Apple Vision Pro took quite a few years to implement.

For iterations that don't make as many changes, Apple can shorten this period down, potentially to as little as 18 months. For a device that is produced in considerably fewer quantities than the iPhone, an item like the Apple Vision Pro can have a shorter lead time due to not needing as many infrastructure changes.

A release in about a year and a half's time would be a little beyond the 2025 edition of WWDC. With Apple showing off the first Apple Vision Pro at WWDC 2023, a reappearance of a new generation model two years later at the same event feels fairly right time-wise.

Apple is also reportedly working on a new cheaper version of the Apple Vision Pro. Potentially a consumer-focused release, the lower-cost model is still rumored to be arriving in late 2025, again making 18 months seem quite possible for Apple to meet.

The tendency for Apple to introduce annual updates to its products also doesn't really apply to the Apple Vision Pro. As a first-generation device, there is no established cadence for updates as yet, and with expectations that Apple won't hit its stride with headsets until the fourth generation, a yearly update schedule seems to be a bit too rapid this early.