Welcome back to Multicore. This is Instruction Set for the week of Monday, June 24th.
Computex and WWDC derailed the schedule a bit, but here’s an old-fashioned, on-time roundup of the week in tech hardware.
Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman has a report on Apple’s roadmap for the Vision Pro — or not-so-Pro.
From Gurman’s Power On newsletter:
A bigger challenge will be developing a cheaper version of the headset. Apple already has been working on such a device for years, aiming to sell something for $1,500 to $2,000. The plan was always to introduce the Vision Pro at the high end, and then roll out the cheaper model — let’s call it the Apple Vision — sometime afterward.
This cheaper device, codenamed N107, is now the focus of Apple’s Vision Products Group. The company hopes to bring that product to market as early as the end of 2025 — a plan that’s been in place since before the Vision Pro was first unveiled last year.
The problem: Apple is struggling to get the cost down while retaining critical features. It’s dealing with some difficult trade-offs.
The Information reported earlier last week that Apple is aiming to ship a cheaper headset by the end of next year.
Gurman cites ideas like using less powerful chips or removing the external “EyeSight” display as ways to get the cost down. He also says that current N107 prototypes have a lower field of view than the existing Vision Pro, which would be a worrying direction considering Apple is already behind mass-market competitors like Meta in that regard.
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