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Apple Shuts Down Vision Pro Gaming Team and Cuts 200+ Jobs Across Vision Pro and Siri Staff

Summary

Apple cut more than 200 jobs across its Vision Pro and Siri teams in a significant strategic shift reported Thursday. Around 100 employees in the Vision Products Group were let go, with Apple largely shuttering the team focused on building games for Vision Pro and cutting back the team that produces Immersive Video content for the headset. Apple told departing employees that the company is “realigning its priorities based on how customers are using the device,” a signal that Vision Pro’s costly Immersive Video productions have not found a large enough audience to justify their expense. The other 100 cuts came from Siri and software engineering teams, with Apple saying its new Siri AI platform requires a different technical architecture and skill set than the previous version. The company has already canceled the Vision Pro 2 and a cheaper “Vision Air” model, and is now shifting focus toward smart glasses instead.

Why it matters

Vision Pro launched as Apple’s flagship bet on spatial computing, and the gaming and Immersive Video teams were core to making it compelling beyond productivity. This week’s cuts confirm Vision Pro is moving into maintenance mode. For anyone who bought one expecting a growing content library, that library is now narrowing. The Siri cuts are a separate story: Apple is rebuilding its AI from the ground up, and the team that built the old Siri no longer fits the new architecture.

HTD Says

Apple just gutted the teams building games and Immersive Video for Vision Pro, and combined with the already-canceled Vision Pro 2, it is hard to read this as anything other than Apple acknowledging that spatial computing did not land the way they planned. This is a little contradictory to the previous news of Vision Pro-enabled baseball games (which I thought would be a pretty fun experience).

The Vision Pro is simply “too much tech” for a traditional consumer. It’s extremely niche and priced at a level that makes it practically unobtainable to most people (myself included). The technology is truly amazing, but because it started at such a high price, it immediately alienated many consumers. It’s really unfortunate that job losses result not from a poor product but from pricing the majority of consumers out of buying it.

A smart glasses product at a more reasonable price point that connects with iPhones is a more logical strategic direction, I feel. You can reach a similar price point by combining these two products as separate products with integrated experiences; the result would be many more combined and individual use cases while keeping consumers in the Apple ecosystem.

Source:

MacRumors

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