The Apple AR/VR headset you should actually buy may arrive in 2025 — why you should wait

After years of rumors, the Apple AR/VR headset may finally arrive at WWDC 2023 next month. And while we’re incredibly curious to see Apple’s take on augmented and virtual reality, a new rumor suggests most people will want to wait a bit longer.

The ever-reliable Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has weighed in on the subject of a second-gen Apple AR/VR headset, indicating that in 2025 Apple will release new high-end and low-end models that the company expects to ship at 10 times the volume of the original (via MacRumors).

Should you skip the Apple AR/VR headset?

Unless you are someone that is going to be making money from using the first-generation Apple AR/VR headset you almost certainly shouldn’t be buying one. Now this is based on the projected $3,000 retail price, if Apple releases it for $300 (pause for laughter) go right ahead and snatch one up immediately.

However, returning to the real world, there is every indication, given the leaked high-end specs of the first Apple AR/VR headset, that it is geared toward developers, professional content creators, and others that will generate income from the headset. As a business expense, it’s a different equation, but for consumers, it’s hard to see the logic in it.

Kuo cites evidence of Apple amassing less expensive components for a second-generation headset that should arrive in 2025 alongside a revised high-end model. Not only will this more affordable model not set you back as much as a tricked-out MacBook Pro M2 Max, but critically after at least 18 months of the original Apple AR/VR headset being around those developers and content creators will have developed and created content for Apple’s second-generation AR/VR headset so you will have considerably more to enjoy on your much less expensive headset. 

So steel yourself, Apple’s reality distortion field is strong, and with reports that some testers were “blown away” by the headset, it may be awfully tempting to pick one up after Tim and Co. spin you an amazing tale of augmented and virtual reality wonderlands such as the world has never seen. But unless you are an eccentric millionaire or will make some money from the Apple AR/VR headset, just wait, those game-changing worlds will just be bigger and better by 2025 if the product is any good and with less wallet-emptying consequences.