Apple’s long-rumored cheaper version of the Vision Pro has hit another major setback, with display development work at Samsung reportedly winding down in a development that pushes the budget spatial computer further from launch and forces Apple to reassess its entire hardware roadmap for head-mounted devices. The move, reported this week by Macworld and MacRumors, is the latest in a string of delays and cancellations that have left Apple’s headset ambitions effectively on ice, even as competitors in the mixed reality space continue to ship product at lower price points.
The Samsung display wind-down is particularly significant because Samsung was widely expected to be the second source for the Micro-OLED panels that power the Vision Pro, complementing Sony, which is currently Apple’s sole supplier. Sony is reportedly capable of producing fewer than one million Micro-OLED displays annually, a constraint that has been a key bottleneck for any mass-market version of the headset, since each Vision Pro requires two such displays to operate. With Samsung’s work now reportedly slowing, Apple has lost a critical path to scaling display output and bringing build cost down to a level that could support a sub-$2,000 device.
Looking East for New Suppliers
According to separate reporting from The Information, Apple has begun evaluating two Chinese display makers, BOE and SeeYa, as potential future suppliers for the Micro-OLED panels. BOE is already a major Apple supplier for iPhone, iPad, and MacBook displays, while SeeYa is a newer entrant in which the Chinese government has invested hundreds of millions of dollars specifically to manufacture Micro-OLED panels. The stress testing of both firms against Apple’s stringent quality-control standards is at an early stage, but the goal is clear: add a second or third source for the displays, increase output, and bring down the build cost of future Vision hardware.
At least one source cited by The Information suggests that the supplier evaluation could include the non-Pro version of Vision hardware, the cheaper model internally code-named N109 that Apple has reportedly been developing for years. Whether BOE and SeeYA can meet Apple’s specifications at scale remains an open question, and any supplier transition would push the launch of a cheaper Vision device further into the future, a delay that has now been compounded by the Samsung development wind-down.
A Category on Ice
The Vision Pro is not the only Apple headset project in trouble. Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reported in June that a successor to the current $3,499 Vision Pro is unlikely to launch before late 2028 or 2029, and that the cheaper follow-up has been delayed indefinitely. Gurman distinguished the Vision Pro successor from the long-rumored Vision Air, which he reported was cancelled last year, a sign that Apple has been pruning its headset roadmap aggressively as it focuses engineering resources on adjacent form factors.
The current Vision Pro, refreshed in October 2025 with an M5 chip, has been a slow seller since its launch. The original $3,499 price point, combined with the weight of the headset and the limited supply of Micro-OLED displays, has kept the device in a niche reserved for developers, early adopters, and enterprise customers. Apple has not disclosed Vision Pro sales figures, but supply chain analysis has consistently suggested that production volumes are well below the one million unit annual display capacity, indicating that demand is being constrained by factors beyond just supply.
Smart Glasses Take Priority
With the Vision Pro successor delayed and the cheaper version’s supply chain now in disarray, Apple has reportedly reassigned members of its Vision Products Group to its smart glasses project, which is now the focus of Apple’s head-mounted device strategy. According to Gurman, Apple is targeting a late 2027 launch for its first smart glasses, a category that includes products like the Meta Ray-Ban smart glasses and the forthcoming Meta Hypernova. The shift suggests that Apple has concluded that the headset form factor, at least at the $3,500 price point, is not yet ready for mass adoption, and that a lighter, glasses-style product is a more practical near-term bet.
The strategic pivot comes at a time when Meta, Samsung, and a handful of Chinese OEMs are all racing to ship their own mixed-reality and smart-glasses products at lower price points. Apple’s delay could give competitors a multi-year head start in the consumer market, but the company has historically been willing to enter categories late and win on integration and ecosystem rather than first-mover advantage. Whether the smart glasses project can deliver on that playbook remains to be seen, but for now, the Vision Pro’s hardware roadmap is in stasis, and the next meaningful Apple wearable launch is likely to look very different from the device Tim Cook unveiled to great fanfare two and a half years ago.