Vision Pro layoffs at Apple were larger than initially reported

The recent layoffs of Apple employees working on the Vision Pro were larger than previously thought, Bloomberg» reports Mark Gurman.

Last month, Gurman said Apple cut about 100 jobs across the Vision Products group, with the cuts centered on the headset’s gaming and immersive video teams. Gurman now says the layoffs also affected Vision Pro staff across the rest of the company, including people working on device security, audio engineering, Siri integration, testing and visionOS. The cuts follow the June departure of Paul Meade, the executive who led Apple’s Pro Vision and smart glasses division, who left Apple for OpenAI.

Gurman reports that Vision Pro Group members have spent months lobbying new CEO John Ternus to stay the course on the platform, even as sales continue to be disappointing. Colleagues who discussed the headset with Ternus say he was skeptical from the start, viewing it as too bulky and expensive to reach a mass audience.

Interestingly, since visionOS apparently runs on Apple’s upcoming smart glasses, the larger layoffs impact software shared between the two product lines rather than the headset alone. Ternus reportedly still supports Apple’s smart glasses project, codenamed N50, which is still on track to launch next year, but Gurman says he would consider moving away from head-worn devices as a category altogether if they never manage to win over buyers. This desire could also weigh on the revised Vision Pro successor, named N224, which is not expected before the end of 2028.