Apple just rewrote the rules of spatial computing. On December 1, 2025, the company unveiled Vision Pro 2 at its Cupertino campus, slashing the price by $1,500 to $1,999, ditching the external battery pack entirely, and packing the M5 chip for the first true mainstream assault on mixed-reality headsets.
The original Vision Pro, launched in early 2024 at $3,499 with a tethered power brick, was universally praised for its breathtaking micro-OLED displays and eye-tracking precision but criticized for its weight, battery anxiety, and luxury-car price tag. Vision Pro 2 answers every complaint in one stroke.
The biggest cheer came when Apple design chief Alan Dye held up the new headset and declared, “No more puck.” Power now lives inside the frame itself, courtesy of a dramatically redesigned magnesium-aluminum chassis that’s 28% lighter (490 grams versus 650) and a custom silicon stack that squeezes an M5 processor, 24 GB of unified memory, and a high-density battery into the same volume as the original Light Seal. Apple claims 3.5 hours of continuous video playback or 2.5 hours of intensive 3D gaming and productivity, with 30-minute top-ups via MagSafe delivering another two hours. A new low-power mode extends standby to 18 hours for all-day passthrough wear.
Visually, the displays remain the gold standard: dual 4K micro-OLED panels pumping 23 million pixels, now 20% brighter at 2,500 nits peak and with 120 Hz variable refresh locked across all content. The passthrough cameras jump from 12 MP to 32 MP with LiDAR 2.0, delivering color accuracy rivaling the naked eye, and latency so low Apple calls it “retina-class reality.” Hand tracking is faster, pinch gestures are recognized at 180 fps, and a new wrist-based neural input band (optional $299) lets users type 110 wpm on a virtual keyboard by flexing tendons alone.
Inside, the M5 delivers 50% more GPU performance than the M2 in the first Vision Pro, enabling native 8K 3D video playback, real-time ray tracing in games like Resident Evil 4 and No Man’s Sky, and desktop-class multitasking with up to 12 floating Mac Virtual Display windows. visionOS 3.0 launches alongside the hardware, adding full-body avatars for FaceTime, spatial Persona capture from iPhone 16 Pro, and a redesigned App Store that already boasts 3,500 native apps—double the count from last year.
Apple leaned hard into the price story. At $1,999 (256 GB base) and $2,199 (1 TB), Vision Pro 2 undercuts Meta Quest Pro and Varjo XR-4 while matching or beating their fidelity. Trade-in credits up to $1,200 for original units and 0% financing through Apple Card drop the effective entry to under $1,400 for many. Pre-orders open December 5, with in-store availability December 19—just in time for Christmas.
Analysts wasted no time. Ming-Chi Kuo raised his 2026 shipment forecast from 1.2 million to 4.8 million units overnight, calling it “the iPhone 4 moment for spatial computing.” Developers at the event demoed Final Cut Pro running natively with 16 streams of 8K ProRes, Adobe Photoshop painting on infinite canvas, and a full Unity-engine medical simulator that had surgeons in the audience openly weeping.
Tim Cook closed the keynote with a single line that lit up social media: “This is the device I’ve waited my whole career to ship.”
The cord is dead. The price barrier is broken. Vision Pro 2 isn’t just an upgrade—it’s Apple’s declaration that spatial computing has officially left the lab and entered the living room.
