Apple’s next Vision headset might ship from the factory with prescription lenses

Mark Gurman writes in his Power On newsletter for Bloomberg today that a future Apple virtual reality headset could be smaller and lighter, and each unit could ship customized from the factory for people with impaired vision. With the first-generation Vision Pro, the company’s solution for glasses wearers is to stock optional Zeiss-made lenses in its retail stores, which creates its own problems with managing the supply, and turning its electronics store into a health provider.

The article points out how fraught tying a product to a custom display could be, given how prescriptions can change with time and how it would limit the ability to share the headset or resell it.

But Apple has almost certainly already thought about this, and it’s filed patents as recently as August that show it’s interested in making a VR or AR display that can be adjusted to correct someone’s vision. Doing something like that would keep the company from adding a new barrier to entry to a product that’s already probably too expensive. And it could be good for customers who don’t realize they even have bad vision when they buy a new VR headset.