Vision Pro Layoffs Hit Oct. 19 as Apple Bets on Smart Glasses

A small layoff with a clear message

On October 19, Apple will permanently separate 147 Bay Area employees, many of them from the Vision Pro and Siri teams. Apple almost never cuts jobs, so the move is worth reading closely. These are not cuts to a bloated back office. They land on the content and platform teams that made the case for owning a $3,499 headset. Taken together with Apple's reported product roadmap, the layoffs point to one conclusion. Apple is keeping the Vision Pro alive but no longer trying to grow it, and the energy that used to go into spatial computing is moving to AI-driven smart glasses.

The state filing is specific. Apple's California WARN notice lists 79 layoffs at its Cupertino headquarters, 40 at 605 West Maude Avenue in Sunnyvale, and 28 at 599 North Mathilda Avenue in Sunnyvale, all marked permanent and scheduled for October 19.19 In the letter, Apple noted that the affected employees have no union representation and no contractual bumping rights.17 Roles named in the filing include software engineers, machine learning researchers, and tools and automation engineers.17 Coverage of the Sunnyvale sites says augmented and virtual reality software engineers were the largest group affected there.14

Two numbers for one round of cuts

Reports give two headcounts, and both are right. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reported on August 21 that Apple was cutting more than 200 roles: about 100 in the Vision Pro organization and about 100 in Siri and the Intelligent Systems Experience group.25 The WARN filing covers only part of that round. Several outlets warn that adding 147 to 200 would count the same people twice.2316 The best reading is that 147 is the confirmed minimum and 200-plus is the fuller count. Even that may overstate the final job losses, because affected staff can apply for other jobs inside Apple, and the company hasn't said how many have done so.22

The estimates also grew over time. An early report described about 60 departures from the Vision organization before the confirmed figure reached roughly 200.22 A Bloomberg follow-up on September 1 reported that the Vision Pro cuts went beyond gaming and video, reaching staff in device security, spatial audio, Siri integration, testing, and visionOS itself.21

Apple has published no press release. Its statement said it would create new roles while affecting "a limited number of existing roles," and that departing employees could apply for other positions.29 The company describes the move as a shift toward AI and new devices, but the WARN form does not ask employers for a reason, so the filing gives none.15

Gaming and immersive video take the biggest hit

For Vision Pro owners and developers, the key detail is which teams were cut. Gurman reported that Apple is mostly shutting down its in-house spatial gaming team and sharply shrinking the unit that makes immersive video.29 Those episodes reportedly needed several crews of staff and contractors and cost several million dollars each, which is hard to justify with so few active headset users.29 Analysts describe the change as Apple handing more of the content work to third-party developers.1627

Apple's own release schedule has not dried up yet. A new immersive film set at the surf break Teahupo'o arrived recently, and on October 13 Apple announced an immersive horror film made only for Vision Pro. Independent developers are still shipping too. Flow Chaser, a spatial rhythm game, launched alongside visionOS 27, and a free Swift package now lets developers scan a room and rebuild it as a themed 3D world. These releases were probably planned well before August. Once they run out, it will become clear whether third parties can keep the app library growing without Apple paying for flagship content.

That library was already a weakness. Apple says about 3,000 apps are available for the headset, a small number next to the iPhone's early growth.8 Morgan Stanley's Erik Woodring has named cost, form factor, and a lack of native visionOS apps as the reasons the device never sold widely.8 Cutting first-party content does nothing to fix the third of those problems.

Smart glasses come first

The layoffs fit a strategy that has been building for a year. In October 2025, Bloomberg reported that Apple had stopped work on a lighter, cheaper Vision Pro, often called "Vision Air," and moved those engineers to smart glasses meant to compete with Meta's Ray-Bans.7 The first glasses, codenamed N50, are expected to pair with an iPhone and use cameras, microphones, and AI, with no display.10 A second model with a display is planned for later.7

The launch date has moved back. In September 2025, Gurman expected display-free glasses in late 2026 or early 2027. A May 2026 newsletter pushed that to late 2027.38 His current reporting says Apple aims to release glasses in some form by the end of 2027, with an unveiling possibly at WWDC 2027.36 Meta has sold camera-equipped smart glasses since 2021 and will have held the category for years by the time Apple arrives.10

The headset business explains why Apple changed course. IDC estimated that Apple shipped only about 45,000 Vision Pros in the 2025 holiday quarter. Sensor Tower data showed Apple cut the headset's marketing by more than 95%.8 MacRumors reported in April that Apple had all but given up on the device after the M5 refresh failed. It cited total sales of around 600,000 units and an unusually high return rate.9 Retail employees have said many stores are lucky to sell one Vision Pro a month.37 MacRumors also reported that Apple could not reuse the headset's technology in glasses because it draws too much power for a small, light frame.9 Moving staff from one project to the other therefore means real retraining, not simply relabeling the same work.

Reports disagree on the next headset

The biggest disagreement in the reporting is about whether a second-generation Vision Pro will ever ship. On June 3, analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said John Ternus, then about to become CEO, had approved dropping the Vision Pro successor so Apple could focus on two smart glasses products: display-free AI glasses in 2027 and display-equipped glasses in 2029.3 Gurman's reporting describes something different. In late September he said Apple's Vision team is exploring about four designs for a "completely revamped" headset codenamed N224. One would move the processor and battery into a separate puck. Some senior executives reportedly see that option as a poor user experience.3637

The two accounts can be partly reconciled. Gurman calls N224 a project on "life support" that is unlikely to ship before late 2028 or early 2029, if it ships at all.37 Kuo was describing a product roadmap, and an early exploratory project is not on a roadmap in the same sense.36 Even so, the gap shouldn't be explained away. The more cautious reporting comes with a codename, engineers working on designs, and Vision leaders pushing to keep the category funded.37 The most likely outcome is somewhere in between: Apple keeps headset expertise in-house as an option while putting real investment into glasses.

The organizational changes point the same way. Paul Meade, who ran Vision Pro and smart glasses hardware, left for OpenAI's hardware unit in June.21 Fletcher Rothkopf, who now oversees Vision hardware, reportedly reports to vice president Tom Marieb rather than directly to top leadership.36 Ternus has told colleagues that the current Vision Pro is most likely a stepping stone to another product.37 He has also told staff that the headset and visionOS are not going away.21 Apple executive Steve Sinclair has likewise publicly rejected claims that the product had been shelved.28

The Siri cuts and the Ternus era

The Siri cuts follow a different logic. Reports tie them to rebuilding the assistant on a new AI architecture that requires different engineering skills from the people who built the old one.29 The new Siri, introduced at WWDC26, is designed to understand what is on screen, draw on personal context, and take actions across apps on every Apple device, including Vision Pro.27 That links the two halves of the layoff. Siri is expected to be the main interface for Apple's display-free glasses, so the assistant rebuild and the shift away from headsets serve the same bet.3

The Ternus era also explains why the cuts may not be finished. Since taking over on September 1, he has reportedly removed director-level engineering program managers from hardware. Bloomberg sources say some employees expect more reductions before the end of 2026 or in early 2027.13 A small cut to Fitness+ audio content followed in September.24

The financial effect is tiny. Even at 200 roles, the cuts amount to about 0.13% of Apple's workforce.27 Apple's R&D spending rose 32% year over year in the same quarter, so this is a reallocation of money within the company, not belt-tightening.22 The layoffs do show where that money is going. Fewer people are building immersive experiences for a headset few buy, and more are working on an AI assistant and a pair of glasses that still has to ship.