Apple is doomed because it can’t see the future

More bad news for people who get attached to rumored Apple products as Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reports that the company has canceled one of its headset projects: Apple Scraps Work on Mac-Connected Augmented Reality Glasses.

Quick side note: if you do find yourself becoming attached to a rumored Apple product, that’s probably a good time to close the laptop and go outside and stare at a tree or something for a while. Pet a dog. Do whatever it is people do with cats. Getting attached to rumored Apple product lines is not healthy.

This now dead as a doornail one is, of course, not the Vision Pro but a potential new type of glasses that Gurman reported on last year. This project apparently went from “Maybe if we offload the processing to an iPhone.” to “Oof. That’s not gonna work. How about offloading it to a Mac?” to “AR glasses you can wear while sitting at a desk? Why are we doing this again?” to canceled.

Hey, it happens. Just the other day the Macalope was thinking of going out for a nice lunch. Then time got away from him and he thought maybe he’d make a nice lunch at home. Then he ended up eating Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups at his desk.

That’s pretty much the same thing. The Macalope will not be taking questions.

Gizmodo’s take on this turn of events is the most pointing and LOL-ing the Macalope’s seen. Here’s their subhead:

Apple is lacking vision for where to go following the Vision Pro tanking.

Gizmodo, January 31, 2025

Get it? Because Vision. Yeah, you got it. Copy editors are such scamps.

The first part seems fairly true, based on the available rumors at least. Apple’s current status with its Vision efforts seems positively Titan-esque, which ain’t great. But did the Vision Pro “tank”? Apple certainly didn’t sell a lot of them, that’s for sure, but it’s questionable whether or not it sold fewer than it really expected. And if you’re comparing it to other Apple product lines, it’s worth remembering that you’re comparing it to some of the most successful consumer electronics products ever.

By ditching the augmented reality glasses, Apple is tacitly admitting that it just cannot crack the VR/AR space.

Gizmodo, January 31, 2025

That, however, is not exactly what Mark Gurman’s piece said.

Despite the project being shuttered, Apple is still working on underlying technologies that could be used in AR glasses down the road, including custom microLED-type screens, Bloomberg News reported this week.

Bloomberg, January 31, 2025

So much of Apple’s analysis relies on reporting done by Mark Gurman. It seems to the Macalope that if you’re going to use Gurman’s work as the basis for your views, you should use all of it instead of just the parts that support your thesis.

He knows it’s less fun that way.

Also, while Apple is ditching the offloading glasses, it has not ditched the Vision Pro itself. It’s still in there swinging. Maybe not connecting a lot, but still swinging.

To Gizmodo’s point, it really isn’t at all clear that Apple has a viable development path for the Vision line. While you could probably have said that about the Apple Watch back in 2015, too, those two products aren’t exactly comparable. One is priced at a consumer level and the other is priced more at an “I have a backup yacht” level.

Of course, you’re gonna wanna keep the Vision Pro on the main yacht, just in case you want to show it to another of your yacht friends. Who probably also have their own Vision Pros. So maybe do keep it on your backup yacht? Honestly, the Macalope doesn’t really know how yacht provisioning works.

The Macalope’s been wrong before but he doesn’t believe for a minute that Apple is done with AR/VR headsets. While the Vision Pro isn’t a sales hit, there is definitely enough neat technology there that can be steered into a product that might one day be a hit. It doesn’t seem like it’s going to be real soon, however.