Top Stories: Apple Vision Pro Release Date, iOS 17.3 Coming Soon, CES 2024 Recap

Apple's Vision Pro headset finally has a release date in the U.S., and it's coming up quickly! Alongside that announcement, we learned a bit more about the device and what to expect with the ordering process.

top stories 13jan2024
Other news this week included Apple starting to pay out claims for the high-profile class action lawsuit that claimed Apple was "secretly throttling" older iPhones with degraded batteries, an approaching release of iOS 17.3 and related updates, and the annual CES tech event in Las Vegas, so read on below for all the details!

Apple Vision Pro Launches February 2, Pre-Orders Start Next Week

After being unveiled at WWDC 2023 last June, Apple's long-awaited Vision Pro mixed reality headset now has a release date: Friday, February 2. Pre-orders begin on Friday, January 19 at 5 a.m. Pacific Time. Availability is limited to the U.S., with more countries to follow later this year.

Apple Vision Pro with battery Feature Blue Magenta
Pricing starts at $3,499 with 256GB of storage, and ZEISS optical inserts will be available for $99 to $149. If you're planning to order, make sure to check out Apple's tips to make sure you're ready.

Apple refers to the Vision Pro as a "spatial computer," and it offers a combination of augmented reality and virtual reality features. The headset is powered by an all-new visionOS operating system, which can be controlled with a user's eyes, hands, and voice.

Learn more in our Vision Pro roundup.

Apple Vision Pro: Here's Everything You Get in the Box

In its press release announcing the Vision Pro's launch date, Apple revealed the various items that will be included with the headset.

Apple Vision Pro Dual Loop Band Teal Feature 2
Apple says the headset will ship with two types of head bands (a Solo Knit Band and a Dual Loop Band), a light seal, two light seal cushions, a cover for the front glass, a polishing cloth, an external battery pack, a USB-C power adapter, and a USB-C charging cable.

Apple Vision Pro Features 16GB of RAM

Apple's upcoming Vision Pro headset is equipped with 16GB of unified memory, according to files related to the device in Xcode 15.2.

apple vision pro chips
Our finding in Apple's app development tool confirms a June 2023 report from Bloomberg's Mark Gurman that said the Vision Pro would be equipped with 16GB of RAM, and that is also the same amount of memory that was included in Vision Pro development kits.

Apple Sends $92 'Batterygate' Payments to iPhone Users

Apple in 2020 agreed to pay up to $500 million to settle a class action lawsuit in the U.S. that accused the company of "secretly throttling" some iPhone models, and payouts finally started going out this week to individuals who submitted a claim.

iPhone 6s MacRumors YouTube
iPhone users have received $92.17 per claim from Apple, according to multiple MacRumors readers. The deadline to submit a claim was in October 2020.

iOS 17.3 Coming Soon With These Two New Features for Your iPhone

iOS 17.3 has been in beta testing since mid-December, and the upcoming software update includes two new features for the iPhone, including Stolen Device Protection and collaborative Apple Music playlists.

iOS 17
Related: When Will iOS 17.3 Be Released?

Apple seeded the third beta of iOS 17.3 this week, and the update will likely be widely released later this month.

CES 2024 Recap of Apple-Related Announcements

The annual CES tech conference was held in Las Vegas this week, and there were a handful of Apple-related announcements as usual.

CES 2024 Day 1 Thumbnail 2
Check out our CES 2024 news hub for a recap of new HomeKit accessories and more.

Also be sure to watch our Day One, Day Two and Day Three videos for more highlights.

MacRumors Newsletter

Each week, we publish an email newsletter like this highlighting the top Apple stories, making it a great way to get a bite-sized recap of the week hitting all of the major topics we've covered and tying together related stories for a big-picture view.

So if you want to have top stories like the above recap delivered to your email inbox each week, subscribe to our newsletter!

Popular Stories

iPhone 17 Pro Blue Feature Tighter Crop

iPhone 17 Pro Launching in Three Months With These 12 New Features

Saturday June 21, 2025 2:45 pm PDT by
The iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max are around three months away, and there are plenty of rumors about the devices from credible sources. Below, we recap key changes rumored for the iPhone 17 Pro models as of June 2025:Aluminum frame: iPhone 17 Pro models are rumored to have an aluminum frame, whereas the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro models have a titanium frame, and the iPhone X...
iPhone 16 Battery Life Feature

iOS 26's New Battery Life Mode Available Only on These iPhone Models

Saturday June 21, 2025 9:02 am PDT by
Last week, we reported that iOS 26 introduces an opt-in Adaptive Power Mode on the iPhone, alongside the existing Low Power Mode. Apple says that Adaptive Power Mode can make "small performance adjustments" when necessary to extend an iPhone's battery life, including slightly lowering the display brightness or allowing some activities to "take a little longer." The full description of...
All Screen iPhone 2027 Feature 1

iPhone Reportedly Moving to All-Screen Design in Two Stages

Sunday June 22, 2025 3:58 pm PDT by
Apple has long been working towards an iPhone with an all-screen design, and it might finally achieve the feat in a few more years from now. In his Power On newsletter today, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman said that Apple will shrink the size of the Dynamic Island on new iPhone models released next year. A year after that, he expects Apple to release a redesigned 20th-anniversary iPhone model....
ios 26 control center b2

Everything New in iOS 26 Beta 2

Monday June 23, 2025 2:57 pm PDT by
Apple provided developers with the second beta of iOS 26, introducing the first changes and refinements to the new operating system since it debuted after the WWDC keynote. Because we're early in the beta testing process, there are quite a few tweaks to iOS 26, which we've rounded up below. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos. Control Center The background behind the...
ios 26 control center b2

iOS 26 Beta 2 Fixes Control Center Design

Monday June 23, 2025 10:58 am PDT by
With the second beta of iOS 26 that Apple provided to developers today, Apple addressed one of the major complaints that people have had with Liquid Glass. iOS 26 beta 1 on left, iOS 26 beta 2 on right The Control Center buttons are now slightly more opaque, making it easier to see the different control options even on a multicolored background. The new, more opaque look is apparent with the ...
iPhone 17 Pro Blue Feature Tighter Crop

iPhone 17 Pro's Alleged Vapor Chamber Cooling System Partly Revealed

Sunday June 22, 2025 6:37 am PDT by
Apple's upcoming iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max models are rumored to be equipped with a vapor chamber cooling system, and a leaker known as Majin Bu today shared a photo of an alleged copper thermal plate for the system. Many high-end Android smartphones like Samsung's Galaxy S25 Ultra are equipped with a vapor chamber cooling system, which can manage heat dissipation inside the...
Apple Watch Ultra 2 Complications

watchOS 26 Adding a Smaller Yet Useful New Watch Face Setting

Monday June 23, 2025 9:39 am PDT by
watchOS 26 is adding a new "Show Data When Locked" setting to the Apple Watch. MacRumors contributor Steve Moser discovered the new setting within the code for the first watchOS 26 beta, and a Reddit user has seemingly found it in action, but we have yet to figure out where it is exactly. Leave a comment if you know. The new privacy setting allows you to toggle on or off the ability to...
Wi Fi WiFi General Feature

iOS 26 Adding Two New Wi-Fi Features, Allows AirDrop and AirPlay Alternatives

Saturday June 21, 2025 7:02 am PDT by
iOS 26 is gaining two new Wi-Fi features, including Captive Assist and Wi-Fi Aware. MacRumors contributor Aaron Perris discovered a reference to Captive Assist within the code for the first iOS 26 developer beta, but Apple has yet to enable the feature. It should be available by the time the software update is released later this year. In his Power On newsletter last month, Bloomberg's...
apple watch ultra 2 new black

Apple Watch Ultra 3 Finally Coming After Two-Year Hiatus

Tuesday June 24, 2025 3:40 am PDT by
Apple will finally deliver the Apple Watch Ultra 3 sometime this year, according to analyst Jeff Pu of GF Securities Hong Kong (via @jukanlosreve). The analyst expects both the Apple Watch Series 11 and Apple Watch Ultra 3 to arrive this year (likely alongside the new iPhone 17 lineup, if previous launches are anything to go by), according to his latest product roadmap shared with...

Top Rated Comments

klasma Avatar
19 months ago

Stolen Device Protection
It’s nice that Apple is now acknowledging when they are stealing a feature.
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
ChrisA Avatar
19 months ago
I think Asus might have just killed the Vison Pro

https://edgeup.asus.com/2024/asus-glasses-intro

This Asus product looks like what I want to actually want to use. The Apple product is simply too physically large to be practical.

The other thing is that Asus does not need a killer app to justify the glasses, it is just a screen. Use it for existing games or office work or just to watch a movie.
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Realityck Avatar
19 months ago

Apple refers to the Vision Pro as a "spatial computer ('https://www.macrumors.com/2024/01/09/vision-pro-developers-asked-to-avoid-vr-branding/')," and it offers a combination of augmented reality and virtual reality features. The headset is powered by an all-new visionOS operating system, which can be controlled with a user's eyes, hands, and voice.
Apple as this example avoiding any of the common acronyms they used in WWDC 2023 so they can hype the Vision Pro as totally new platform using technology they seem to have invented.

Mac World recently said it in a recent article.

Apple is desperate not to be compared to the several years worth of mixed reality products on the market already, going out of its way to use “Spatial Computing” to describe the product and insisting developers avoid terms like AR, VR, MR, and so on.
For several years it's always been about Augmented Reality on their developer pages.
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
klasma Avatar
19 months ago

I think Asus might have just killed the Vison Pro

https://edgeup.asus.com/2024/asus-glasses-intro

This Asus product looks like what I want to actually want to use. The Apple product is simply too physically large to be practical.

The other thing is that Asus does not need a killer app to justify the glasses, it is just a screen. Use it for existing games or office work or just to watch a movie.
No cameras, no AR and no VR (apart from the screen), no eye tracking, no input methods, but yes the form factor is more like it, and if it works well, it will be more compelling to the “portable virtual monitor” crowd than the AVP.
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
citysnaps Avatar
19 months ago

Actually they didn't.
In the early 1990s, as field of Virtual reality was beginning to be commercialized beyond academic and military labs, a startup called Worldesign in Seattle used the term Spatial Computing to describe the interaction between individual people and 3D spaces, operating more at the human end of the scale than previous GIS examples may have contemplated. The company built a CAVE-like environment it called the Virtual Environment Theater, whose 3D experience was of a virtual flyover of the Giza Plateau, circa 3000 BC. Robert Jacobson, CEO of Worldesign, attributes the origins of the term to experiments at the Human Interface Technology Lab, at the University of Washington, under the direction of Thomas A. Furness III. Jacobson was a co-founder of that lab before spinning off this early VR startup.

In 1997, an academic publication by T. Caelli, Peng Lam, and H. Bunke called "Spatial Computing: Issues in Vision, Multimedia and Visualization Technologies" introduced the term more broadly for academic audiences.

And that's fine, as from the above it appears to now be a generic descriptor. That Apple is using "spatial" in characterizing what their product does makes sense and it would certainly apply to AR applications. Much better than "AR" seeing as though the general public likely doesn't know what that means.
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
I7guy Avatar
19 months ago
Looking forward to is 17.3. Stolen device protection is a welcome addition.
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)