Now that the Apple Vision Pro headset has been on sale for a little more than a week people are starting to learn more about what it does well and where it could be improved. Those improvements, in the long term, will come with new and updated hardware. But in the short to medium term all eyes will be on which software updates Apple chooses to release and what those updates will bring to the table.
To that point, Apple has already started to beta test the upcoming visionOS 1.1 software update which itself brings with it some notable fixes. The troubled Persona feature has been upgraded in the visionOS 1.1 update currently in the hands of developers, and there are also changes to the way an Apple Vision Pro behaves when its passcode has been entered incorrectly too many times.
But while this update will likely arrive on headsets across the United States within weeks, all eyes are on the first big visionOS refresh. That will likely be visionOS 2.0, an update that is now expected to ship later this year. According to one usually well-connected reporter, visionOS 2.0 will "definitely" ship this year which means that we could expect to see it debut at Apple's big annual developer conference, WWDC, in June. The June 2023 WWDC event of course saw the Apple Vision Pro shown off for the first time, although it took until February 2 of this year for it to be released. Now, it seems increasingly likely that the headset will see its first big software update premiere at the same event a year later.
visionOS 2.0, coming soon(ish)
This is all according to a report by Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, writing in the paywalled version of his weekly Power On newsletter. Gurman was asked by a reader whether they should expect the visionOS 2.0 software to arrive this year. Responding in the affirmative, Gurman went on to say that he's been told that visionOS will be updated on the same development timeline as the iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, and Apple TV updates — suggesting big releases will debut in June before going through months of beta testing. The final release will then, in all likelihood, arrive in the fall — September or October if Apple's previous release cadence is anything to go by.
As for what the new update will offer Apple Vision Pro owners, that's a little more up in the air right now. We've little by way of a benchmark for visionOS updates but we can likely expect plenty of bug fixes and security improvements as have become a staple diet for Apple's updates in recent years. Performance could also be improved, but it's new features that really matter — especially to those who have yet to splash the cash on a new headset and are waiting for a killer app to arrive before they do. Justifying the minimum $3,499 outlay on the Apple Vision Pro isn't an easy task and many may choose to wait for the rumored cheaper Apple Vision model before making a buying decision. A series of hot new features in visionOS 2.0 could change their mind, however.
The WWDC 2024 event will likely also see Apple tease iOS 18, iPadOS 18, macOS 15, tvOS 18, and watchOS 11. Like visionOS 2.0, these updates will likely be made available for download this coming fall following their own beta programs.
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