Rumor: Vision Pro 2 will use an M5 chip and run Apple Intelligence

Rumor: Vision Pro 2 will use an M5 chip and run Apple Intelligence

Christian Zibreg ∙ September 27, 2024

A successor to Apple’s Vision Pro headset should be powered by Apple’s unreleased M5 chip and run all the Apple Intelligence features.

The usually reliable Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo published a new research note on Medium, sharing his thoughts about an Apple Vision Pro successor. As you know, the current headset is powered by Apple’s M2 chip. The analyst claims that Vision Pro 2 will skip two Apple silicon generations and go straight for an upcoming M5 chip instead of the current M4 (which hasn’t rolled out to all Macs yet).

Vision Pro already has the best hardware, but the M5 will bring a significant jump in performance that will enable the headset to run Apple Intelligence.

“Other hardware specifications and designs won’t change much, which should help lower costs and price points,” he added. Vision Pro 2 should go into mass production sometime in the second half of 2025, barring unforeseen circumstances.

Rumor: Vision Pro 2 with M5 and Apple Intelligence in 2025

Kuo says that generative AI features will benefit Apple’s human-machine user interface. “Combining eye tracking, gesture control, and Apple Intelligence should provide a better user experience for spatial computing,” he wrote.

This on generative AI:

If the M5 Vision Pro can integrate something like OpenAI’s Sora, it may elevate the user experience of the head-mounted display device to unimaginable levels. The impact of text-to-video AI models on the head-mounted display device experience will likely be more impressive than on existing mainstream consumer electronics.

This sounds nice on paper, but how exactly will generative AI boost the user experience remains to be seen. Generative AI has its benefits and certainly a few nice use cases, but it doesn’t improve the user interface or the experience of using a device in any meaningful way, in my personal opinion.

And this on price:

The price of the M5-powered Vision Pro may not change much, but Apple’s head-mounted display device/spatial computing could become mainstream if this new model creates attractive user scenarios. Cost and price reductions, weight and battery life improvements, etc., will eventually happen. Compared to existing mainstream products like the iPhone, the innovative user experience of integrating Apple Intelligence with Vision Pro will be more noticeable.

The “may not change much” sounds like Kuo is purely speculating about the price. Kuo previously wrote that the next Vision Pro will come in high-end and low-end versions. The Information said in June 2024 that Apple temporarily suspended work on a high-end model to focus on a budget version of the headset.

Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman said a budget model would use iPhone-class chips, lower-resolution displays and fewer external cameras and sensors.

Tags Analyst Analysts Apple Ming-Chi Kuo Rumor Rumors Vision Pro
0