Since its February 2nd launch, Vision Pro has been a US-only device, which means it only supports the US keyboard layout and emoji. Now Apple has confirmed that the international launch of Vision Pro is coming this year, which critically includes a launch in mainland China.
Update (March 25th, 2024): As reported by Reuters, speaking at the China Development Forum in Beijing on Sunday, Apple CEO Tim Cook confirmed Vision Pro will hit the mainland China market sometime this year—when is still subject to speculation.
Considering Meta still has no appreciable presence in China due to its products being blocked by that country’s government, this potentially gives Apple a valuable foothold in the Chinese domestic market for future releases. The original article detailing the first clues of the headset’s mainland China launch follows below:
Original Article (March 14th, 2024): According to code found by MacRumors, Apple may be soon preparing for Vision Pro’s much-awaited international launch, as 12 new languages are about to be added, one of which is simplified Chinese.
Like every other Apple device, Vision Pro needs to support a wide array of local languages if it plans to have to sort of broad international launch the Cupertino tech giant is known for.
As indicated by MacRumors, code found in Vision Pro’s 1.1 visionOS update shows 12 new languages are coming. Here’s the list of languages ostensibly soon to arrive on Vision Pro:
- Cantonese, Traditional
- Chinese, Simplified
- English (Australia)
- English (Canada)
- English (Japan)
- English (Singapore)
- English (UK)
- French (Canada)
- French (France)
- German (Germany)
- Japanese
- Korean
Apple hasn’t said exactly when it’s rolling out to other countries, or even which countries to expect from Vision Pro’s international release. The languages above however suggest it’s at least coming to Hong Kong, Australia, Canada, Japan, Korea, Singapore, the UK, France, and Germany.
The inclusion of Simplified Chinese may also suggest the company is entering mainland China as well, where Apple already has a firm foothold with iPhone. Granted, Simplified Chinese is also commonly used in Malaysia and Singapore, whereas traditional Chinese script is used in Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan.
In contrast to its largest US-based competitor Meta, Quest 3 cannot be purchased in mainland China. A report from earlier this year maintained that talks between Meta and Chinese tech giant Tencent had stalled, which allegedly put hopes for a Chinese launch of Meta hardware on ice.
TikTok parent company ByteDance however could have a Vision Pro competitor launching within China fairly soon, as the company has reportedly scrapped its upcoming Pico 5 headset from XR subsidiary Pico Interactive in favor of a more director competitor to Vision Pro.
Meanwhile, a report from independent tech analyst Ming-Chi Kuo alleged Apple may be ramping production of Vision Pro, as Kuo predicts the company may launch in more countries sometime before WWDC this year, which is historically held in the first week of June.