Vision Pro arrival dates are getting delayed leaving many frustrated

Pre-orders of Apple’s Vision Pro are supposed to ship out on February 2; however several reports have appeared online claiming there’s going to be a sizable delay.

People have flocked to Reddit and X (the platform formerly known as Twitter) with screenshots of their orders now having an arrival period of February 29 to March 7. That week is commonly seen among the buyers experiencing the delay, but it’s not uniform across the board with others claiming different dates. A user on X says their unit has been pushed back to February 15 while another on Reddit says Apple’s “phone system” told them the headset won’t ship out until March 14. 

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It’s also been reported that Apple is contacting people about the shipping date pushback. A comment on the Vision Pro subreddit states they received a text from the company informing them of the shipping delay.

The setback seems to be primarily happening to two configurations of the headset: the 256GB and 1TB storage models. There hasn't been any news or screenshots showing that the 512GB Vision Pro is seeing similar delays; although we wouldn’t be surprised if it too was getting pushed back. It’s hard to say for sure as there is a lot of chaos surrounding this situation. People are understandably frustrated, plus Apple has yet to make a public statement about the new shipping dates.

To be fair, the dates are estimated delivery times. It’s entirely possible the headsets will arrive on time or the delay won’t be as extreme. In a worst-case scenario, early adopters may have to wait until the dust settles to get their hands on the headset. Or they can go onto eBay and deal with the many, many Vision Pro scalpers.

Prioritizing stores 

It’s unknown exactly what is causing the delay. A prevailing theory being thrown around in online circles is Apple’s recent decision to stock more in-store inventory in preparation for the big day. It argues that the tech giant is choosing to prioritize in-store purchases resulting in a limited amount of headsets for pre-orders. Commenters have said their in-store pickup orders of the Vision Pro are completely fine. They can go to an Apple Store and grab their device without issue. 

That could be one reason, but again, nothing can be said with total confidence due to all the conflicting information. 

So, we reached out to Apple asking if they could provide any details regarding the Vision Pro delay. Will people receive their orders on time or will they have to wait over a month? This story will be updated if we hear back.

For those planning to pick up a Vision Pro on day one with a pre-order, good luck. Industry insider Mark Gurman says some stores “are anticipating little to no day one availability for non-pre orders”, according to his sources.

There are plenty of great headsets out there if you can't get your hands on Apple's latest tech. Check out TechRadar's list of the best VR headsets for 2024 if you want recommendations.

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Windows 11’s latest update reportedly fails to install for no reason, and some users are getting really frustrated

Windows 11’s latest patch, the cumulative update for January, is failing to install for some users, and compounding the misery is that the reason for this spanner in the works can’t be discerned.

This is update KB5034123 and the trouble is that the installation process is failing, in some cases repeatedly, with the usual unhelpful error codes.

As Windows Latest pointed out, some of those include error ‘0x80188309’ and apparently more common is ‘0x800f081f’, although whatever string of characters happens to be spewed out, it’s unlikely to be of any use.

The only thing to be done with these stop codes is to search the web for them and see if there are any mentions of the specific issue in question, and possible workarounds or solutions, but in this case, there’s no apparent cause yet pinpointed.

There are reports of installation failure with Windows 11’s January update across Microsoft’s Feedback Hub and Reddit, and Windows Latest noted that it has received a bunch of reports from ‘many users’ claiming that it’s ‘nearly impossible’ to install KB5034123.

There are also some folks who are reporting that they are getting the same type of failure, namely that the update starts to download, reaches partway through (25% in many cases), and then Windows Update comes up with a failure message, offering to try again. However, retrying produces the exact same problem, and that’s pushing the boundaries of patience for some people, as you might imagine.

As a final note, some of those who are successfully installing the January update are finding that the patch is causing audio to stutter and glitch, and Windows Latest itself encountered this problem when viewing Netflix and playing games.

This might be a more isolated issue, though we have seen a scattering of complaints elsewhere about bugs with audio, graphics corruption, and mouse-related hiccups with KB5034123. Until they are reported with more prevalence, though, take them with a pinch of salt.


Analysis: A possible solution?

As a possible workaround, Windows Latest advises trying an in-place upgrade of Windows 11 (using the Media Creation Tool). Following that, whatever issue is buried in your OS might be fixed, so patch KB5034123 may then install successfully.

However, as this is a clunky and somewhat involved process, with no guarantee it will work in the end, it seems a drastic step to us. Rather than go this route, we’d recommend hanging on for now to see what Microsoft has to communicate on this issue – speaking of which, we’ve got in touch with the company to find out. If we hear back, we will of course update this article.

While it’s far from ideal to be without a cumulative update – mainly because you’re lacking the latest security fixes – it’s probably the lesser of two evils right now. As opposed to messing with in-place upgrades and hoping, rather blindly (let’s face it), that this may fix whatever issue is triggering the installation failures.

Note that these Windows 11 installation problems were first observed just after the January update was released (two weeks back), but they were very scattered in nature – and now they are distinctly more commonplace. Hopefully Microsoft will be investigating the matter as we type this.

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