Apple Vision Pro now costs $3,699, up $200, part of a sweeping price increase across Mac and iPad. iPhones, AirPods, and Apple Watch were untouched.
The cause is a chip supply problem that predates Apple. Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron control 93% of global RAM production. When AI data center buildouts started consuming memory supply at scale, every hardware maker paid more. Meta raised Quest prices in April. Valve raised Steam Deck prices in May. Tim Cook called the increases "unavoidable."
Vision Pro holds roughly 5% of the XR market against Meta's 75%. Quest 3 sits at $499. The headset now costs more than seven times that.
Snap's Specs hit pre-order this week at $2,195, about 40% less than a Vision Pro, shipping this fall. The price difference exists largely because glasses skip the most expensive component in the Vision Pro. The headset needs custom micro-OLED displays, tiny screens built onto silicon chips that cost more to manufacture than a laptop panel. Glasses use a waveguide, a thin layer of glass that bounces light into your eye, at a fraction of that cost.
Samsung itself is caught in the same trap. Its chip division is having its best year ever because AI companies are buying every memory chip it can produce at record prices. Its phone division is heading toward its first-ever annual loss because every Galaxy phone sold requires buying back that same expensive memory at full market price. Galaxy Glasses sidestep this entirely. The components inside them don't compete with AI data centers for the same memory chips. Expected at $379 to $499, they're a product Samsung can actually make money on.
Glasses are just cheaper to build. They always were. The chip shortage and the success of Meta Ray-Bans made every company act like they were the best thing to happen in tech since Wi-Fi.
Incoming CEO John Ternus has reportedly cancelled the Vision Air and put the Vision Pro line on ice, redirecting resources toward AI glasses instead: cameras, microphones, Apple Intelligence, no display, functioning like an iPhone accessory the way AirPods do. Pricing estimates put them between $299 and $499, with a launch targeted for end of 2027.