New Apple Vision Pro headset: N224 tests lighter designs amid doubts

The new Apple Vision Pro headset that Apple is reportedly testing under the code name N224 might never reach shelves. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman describes the project as being on "life support," with no guarantee it ever launches, according to MacRumors, reporting today on Gurman's Power On newsletter.

Apple's Vision team is reportedly exploring roughly four concepts for the device. Public reporting has described only two in detail: an external computing module similar to Meta's approach, and a lighter version of Vision Pro's current shape (MacRumors, today; 9to5Mac, yesterday).

The split traces back to disagreement inside Apple itself. Senior decision-makers reportedly consider the external-puck approach a "poor user experience," even as the company's nearer-term attention shifts toward smart glasses due in 2027, according to VR.org, yesterday.

The design fight: puck versus all-in-one

The most detailed N224 concept mirrors Meta's playbook: move the processor and battery into an external module that clips at the waist, roughly the same size and weight as Vision Pro's current battery pack, with a grippier exterior, Gurman told MacRumors, today. He's previewed Meta's own headset, so the comparison carries some weight.

That headset, called Meta VR Glasses, is due out next spring at $1,299.99, a roughly 100-gram frame that offloads its compute and battery to a puck on a cable, VR.org reported yesterday. It's the working example Apple's own Vision team appears to be studying.

A second design keeps Vision Pro's familiar shape but experiments with plastic, titanium, and other metals to shave weight without moving the compute anywhere, according to 9to5Mac, yesterday.

Despite that testing, senior Apple decision-makers reportedly want the company to stick with "something closer to an all-in-one design," viewing the puck concept as a poor tradeoff, per MacRumors, today. That disagreement helps explain, according to the same reporting, why Apple hasn't settled on a direction for N224 rather than simply refining one.

What the new Vision Pro release date reporting says

Analyst accounts diverge sharply on whether N224 exists at all in any committed sense. Ming-Chi Kuo reported four months ago that Apple CEO John Ternus approved stripping every Vision Pro successor from the company's roadmap, calling the move "the right call" as resources shift toward smart glasses, according to MacRumors, four months ago.

Kuo's version of the roadmap left just two smart glasses products standing: AI-enabled glasses aimed at the Meta Ray-Ban market, expected in 2027, and a separate AR line with display waveguides he didn't expect before 2029, per the same MacRumors report from four months ago.

Gurman's account contradicts Kuo's. He maintains a next headset remains "in testing," even while describing the project as on "life support," according to MacRumors four months ago and MacRumors today. Two well-sourced Apple reporters, two different pictures of the same project.

The organizational signals lean toward Kuo's read. Roughly 100 job cuts hit Apple's Vision Products Group in August, even as Gurman reported a new model remained merely "under consideration" for as early as late 2028, according to VR.org, yesterday. Apple's nearer-term focus is reportedly on displayless smart glasses targeted for release by the end of 2027, with N224 explicitly secondary to that effort, per the same VR.org report.

Even so, Vision Pro's senior leadership is reportedly pressing to keep the headset category "alive, funded and growing" inside Apple, according to MacRumors, today. That's evidence the internal debate hasn't been settled at the executive level, whatever Kuo's sourcing suggested back in June.

Lighter is realistic. Cheaper is a harder problem.

Weight reduction looks achievable on paper. The current M5 Vision Pro weighs 750 to 800 grams before its separate 353-gram battery pack, and Apple is actively testing new materials specifically to cut that figure, according to VR.org, yesterday, and MacRumors, today.

The Meta comparison needs a caveat, though. Meta's glasses weigh about 100 grams on the face, but that figure excludes the roughly 300-gram puck a user still carries on a cable, per VR.org, yesterday. The gain there is reduced weight on the face, not less hardware overall, an implication worth sitting with before anyone calls a puck design a breakthrough.

Price reduction sits on tougher ground. Sony's micro-OLED panels reportedly cost Apple about $300 each, roughly $600 per headset, against an estimated total bill of materials near $1,542 before R&D, marketing, or margin, according to Virtual Reality News, two months ago.

That cost pressure is why an affordable Vision-class device has struggled generally. Apple reportedly failed to qualify cheaper Chinese panel suppliers SeeYa and BOE, and Samsung Display's competing G-VR program was scheduled to wind down by this month, leaving Sony as the only manufacturer reportedly able to produce Vision Pro's ultra-dense panels at volume, per Virtual Reality News, two months ago, and VR.org, yesterday. Neither report says which display N224 itself would use.

N224 is distinct from the previously rumored Vision Air, codenamed N100, which was shelved last year, according to 9to5Mac, yesterday. Unlike that scrapped budget project, N224 doesn't appear to be aimed specifically at a lower price. It could instead be a successor to the current M5 flagship, though it might still land at a lower cost while keeping the flagship experience intact, per the same report. That's a hedge worth preserving: "lighter" is clearly on the table inside Apple's labs, but "cheaper" remains a possibility, not a plan.

The open questions ahead

Any N224 release sits no earlier than late 2028 or early 2029, according to Gurman's reporting relayed by VR.org, yesterday, and that's if Apple ships the device at all. Apple's nearer-term bet remains smart glasses due by the end of 2027.

A second display maker clearing Apple's quality and yield standards for micro-OLED production would be a meaningful signal to watch, a sign that an affordable successor is moving from concept toward plan, according to Virtual Reality News, two months ago. It wouldn't, on its own, prove Apple has committed to N224. Demand, developer support, and the puck-versus-all-in-one fight inside Apple's own leadership are separate questions that a supply-chain shift wouldn't resolve.

Until Apple settles that internal design argument, and until someone besides Sony can build the display, N224 remains what Gurman's sourcing calls it: a project still in testing, not a product with a date.