Mark Gurman claims in his latest report that Apple “is considering” making its upcoming
‘reliant on either a Mac or iPhone tethered to it. Does powering the Vision headset using an iPhone make any sense? Like all leakers, Gurman sometimes gets things wrong or misunderstands what his sources tell him. This latest claim, I think is a good example. Apple Vision Pro’s external battery could be replaced with an iPhone, which would not only provide power but also compute. This would make the headset lighter and more affordable. But upon closer inspection, there are a number of reasons this probably couldn’t work, and it’s simply a bad idea even if it could.non-Pro Vision headsetThermals & Battery
To be clear, the fundamental issue here
isn’t
peak performance. Apple Vision Pro will use the M2 chip starting in late 2022. Apple’s iPhone 15 Pro features a 6-core graphics processor that is roughly 60% more powerful than M2’s. It’s possible that the iPhone 17 Pro could be released around the time of the Vision headset. Apple is
, so this would only apply to the latest and greatest iPhone. They start heating up as they approach peak performance. Eventually, the temperature reaches a point where the device has to reduce its maximum clock speed to prevent damaging the processor. Apple can include a case that your iPhone slides in with a fan. It would not be possible to do this because it would require the user to remove the case each time they want to use their headset. It is absurd to use the iPhone for computing power in a Vision Pro. Apple could also use an M-series last-gen SoC. This is also the case with handheld consoles such as Nintendo Switch or Steam Deck. They simply could not do their jobs for longer than about 20 minutes at a stretch without it. The A-series is more efficient, but not by 300%. Even if the problem could be resolved, people would not want to use their iPhone’s battery for less than 2 hours. This will reduce its lifespan. But Glasses Could WorkNoneof this implies that Apple could not release an XR powered device in the future. But for the foreseeable future said device won’t be running visionOS, and thus won’t be a Vision headset.Gurman also writes that Apple “has renewed efforts to develop AR-only glasses”. He par for the course Apple “indefinitely postponed” glasses in January 2023 as technology wouldn’t be available any time soon. Instead, it focused on Vision Pro and the cheaper Vision headset. Apple has found a way to make this work two and half years after the initial announcement. These transparent AR panels are smaller, lighter, and more power efficient than VR displays, partly because they only add to the image. They also don’t require constant sampling and processing of high-bandwidth passthrough cameras. Further, transparent AR systems only need to render virtual objects or interfaces, not entire virtual environments, further reducing their power requirements.
Achieving a glasses form factor with true AR capabilities will require offloading at least some compute anyways. Meta will release its first AR glasses in
, and even the smart glasses it currently offers offload many of their tasks to smartphones. So why would Apple not use the device that is already inside your pocket for computing? These are full-blown “spatial computer”. Thermals, battery and practicality will prevent a device of that kind from being powered by iPhone any time in the near future, barring a breakthrough.