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One aspect of the Vision Pro that I think is perhaps not talked about enough (and isn't mentioned in the linked blog post) is the sheer number of apps this thin

One aspect of the Vision Pro that I think is perhaps not talked about enough (and isn't mentioned in the linked blog post) is the sheer number of apps this thing will be running from day one, and how little it takes to have a first-class visionOS app. iPad apps will run unmodified as basically virtual floating iPads which is nice, but not anything too special. What's much more interesting is that existing iPadOS apps can be transformed into first-class visionOS apps by just checking the "visionOS" checkbox in Xcode, which gets the app the full 2.5D treatment with all of the various controls taking on the expected visionOS appearance and behavior. This means that the Vision Pro is probably going to have by far the best selection of day-1 apps that any AR/MR headset has ever had. Most of these apps won't be anything revolutionary of course since they're adapted versions of existing apps, but it makes the platform much more practically usable.

xwdv 3y ago
This is mostly a cheap trick to inflate vanity metrics. Giant iPad screens are not what people think of when you say “spatial computing”. Only spatial computing apps matter.
- KnobbleMcKnees 3y ago
  Yeah, I'm not sure how the "thing that no one has mentioned" is literally the USP they demoed and essentially a glorified projector. Don't get me wrong, it's cool and I'm intrigued, but 2.5D controls are about as groundbreaking as skeuomorphism.
- mynameisvlad 3y ago
  Highly disagree. One of the clear goals of the product is to serve as an alternative to monitors. In that sense, any productivity tool (like the newly launched Final Cut Pro and Logic Studio for iPad) would immediately be extremely useful in visionOS, even if it’s not fully spatially aware. It may not be the flagship spatial computing experience, but that doesn’t mean it should be thrown out as a “cheap trick” either. It likely is the more common experience for day to day interaction with the device, which is Apple’s goal.
  - xwdv 3y ago
    Oh really? Then why not just allow us to throw iPad Apps up on any monitor if that’s so ground breaking? Hear yourself man, you’re saying be able to look at iPad apps on a big monitor is the killer app for Apple Vision Pro.
    - mynameisvlad 3y ago
      You already can? MacBooks with Apple Silicon processors can run a shitton of iPad apps natively. App developers can choose not to have their apps listed in the store if they want, but many do. Or you can just… plug an iPad into a monitor with USB-C.
      - xwdv 3y ago
        [flagged]
        mynameisvlad 3y ago
        That wasn’t even remotely in the vicinity of your argument in the last comment. The goalposts you set yourself are on the other side of the field. Stick to them.
      - matwood 3y ago
        Or use continuity and interact with the iPad like an extended monitor. When the Apple ecosystem works, it's extremely powerful.
        mynameisvlad 3y ago
        To be entirely fair to the other commenter, they want it the other way around (iPad on a monitor not iPad as a monitor) which is why I didn’t include Continuity. AFAIK it’s only Mac->iPad. If you’re running an app that also exists on your Mac (or equivalent like a browser) then you’d be able to take over the context on your Mac but it isn’t technically “[throwing] iPad Apps up on any monitor”. They’re most definitely on an anti-Apple/Vision Pro crusade given their replies, but they asked for a specific thing and I gave them the exact thing they asked for.
- meepmorp 3y ago
  > This is mostly a cheap trick to inflate vanity metrics. No, it's a way to mitigate the "chicken and egg" problem for the platform. Having existing apps to make the device immediately useful is important, even if they're not all exploiting the capabilities of the platform immediately.
  - tsunamifury 3y ago
    I’ve been at this a long time and it actually isn’t. It keeps many developers from starting from scratch to take full advantage of the hardware, then disappoints the user
- gumby 3y ago
  without disagreeing with your statement "Only spatial computing apps matter", there are two other considerations: Nobody knew what the point of a microcomputer was back in the Apple II days (at the time I thought it was crazy that anyone would buy a computer rather than design and build their own). The best anyone could imagine with was keeping recipes and playing games. Yet the killer app was Visicalc, with analysts and accountants buying their own (expensive!) apple IIs and visicalc and getting around MIS (what's called IT these days). The second consideration is "onramp". Clicking a button and being able to experiment with an app you've already written yourself is way better than being given sample code. Likewise the crufty skeuomorphic cues (from the desktop metaphor of PARC and then the Mac to the "leather" of the ios notepad and shiny "wheels" of its date picker) are important onramps that get people using something so that they can develop the correct metaphors. It wasn't Apple who came up with "pull to refresh", it was the developers (Brichter's app Tweetie, then quickly adopted by others). So while you're right in the long game, I think your dismissal is premature.
  - p1esk 3y ago
    Yet the killer app was Visicalc That’s the question: what is the killer app for VR? Seems like it could be gaming but I didn’t see a lot of gaming examples during the keynote.
    - gumby 3y ago
      Gaming is at best an onramp or else the product is a failure. Apple's watch revenue alone exceeds the console manufacturers' revenue and last year was almost as large as the revenue of consoles and console games. When I say onramp: Visicalc made the Apple II but I do think gaming got it into the home.
- CrackerNews 3y ago
  This could end up being like the Post-PC paradigm that the iPad was supposed to herald in. My last experience with the iPad a couple years ago was mostly interacting with iPhone apps with few iPad apps fully taking advantage of the platform. Vision Pro could end up in a similar boat with respect to the spatial computing paradigm.
leonheld 3y ago
I always say Apple is the best embedded software company in the world and people look at me like I'm insane. They deeply care about software and it shows (even if sometimes we don't agree with their vision). Companies tend to get too hung up on hardware and end up forgetting the software, in my opinion.
- barbariangrunge 3y ago
  Do systems on a chip count as embedded? I don't mean the vision pro, I mean their hardware architecture in general. I did some embedded work at university and it was a lot of fun, but SOCs for macbooks seem like such a different thing than little PICs that I never considered them the same thing. Actually curious
atchoo 3y ago
You can run android apps on the quest and I'm not sure people care that much. People sound like they are over-rating how good interacting with 2d apps with goggles can be. It is "really neat", a really wow experience the first few times but it quickly gets old and things like "scratching your nose" or "drinking coffee" become far more valuable features than anything the goggles can provide. I think we are in for a frustrating few years where the faithful go absolutely bananas over this because of the Apple brand until people quietly admit that they don't actually like having their peripheral vision filled with fake scenary or app windows or whatever. It's much nicer to see your real cat snoozing on your desk instead.
- kitsunesoba 3y ago
  > You can run android apps on the quest and I'm not sure people care that much. Yes, but these apps aren't native to the interaction patterns of AR/VR. They're adapted touch apps, which makes them as awkward as touch apps adapted to a desktop OS are. Native visionOS apps have full affordances for eye and hand-based navigation and should be a good deal more pleasant to use in AR than emulated touch apps will be.
  - atchoo 3y ago
    Interaction has not been the sticking point for me (keyboard aside), it's the lack of a "why". I quite enjoyed browsing the web in various VR headsets, it's a fun novelty experience, but it's not sticky as a tool because it's not adding anything to the experience yet adds the irritation of goggles.
- wahnfrieden 3y ago
  I’m sure the Android app experience is as thoughtful as Apple’s
- tsunamifury 3y ago
  Dead on. Vision will attract a bunch of apple die hards that haven’t spent a few years with the quest already and realized why vr still has huge issues road does not fox at all. Namely it’s not AR…
matwood 3y ago
The Apple ecosystem is definitely being underestimated. Both the AW and iPad would not be what they are today without that ecosystem out the box. I'm still not sure if it's enough to be successful, but if an AR/VR device is to finally take off, an iteration of the VP is probably it.
iLoveOncall 3y ago
It may have the biggest selection of day-1 apps but definitely not the best. You really believe that an app made for touch on a fixed 2D screen will miraculously be pleasant to use in VR/AR just by checking a box?
spywaregorilla 3y ago
The nice thing about ipads and iphones is that you just pick it up and use it. You might not even do so consciously. You're not really playing Candy Crush. You're idling. You have to say "Ok I'm going to play Candy Crush now" and get your headset, put it on, and then do that, with largely your full attention unable to multitask because it's big. I doubt people will want to use any of these apps beyond the gimmick novelty.
barbariangrunge 3y ago
My first thought when seeing this was "neat," but my second still eats away at me: what about the tactile experience? If you can fill your physical space with floating virtual iPads, what will it be like to touch and manipulate them? You don't get to actually press against a screen when you press or scroll. If you wanted to "hold" a screen while manipulating it with the other screen, what will that be like? I'm just speculating. I find touch and weight etc to be important, personally. I'm also concerned about the weight of the headset, again, because I find touch and weight to be important. And about how it works for people with glasses who can't wear contact lenses (perhaps you could have prescription lenses built into the headsets one day?)
CivBase 3y ago
There's a big difference between apps that "work on" a platform and apps that are "built for" a platform. Consider Android tablets, folding phones, or basically any Android device with a large format display. Basically all modern Android apps work on those devices, with practically no effort required of the devs. But most Android apps were built exclusively for smartphones, with small vertical displays. Only apps which have been developed to account for large displays actually provide a good user experience on those devices. Sure, there's still value in having a big library of apps that technically work on the new platform. But if the AVP experience for an app is worse than the platform it was built for, most people will probably try it out and quickly switch back to the platform they used before. The AVP really needs a killer app to convince people to invest in it. If it can capture that investment, there will be an incentive for devs to start building their apps for it and it can grow from there. I'm concerned that I haven't seen anything that looks like a "killer app" for the AVP yet.
- Jcowell 3y ago
  >. But most Android apps were built exclusively for smartphones, with small vertical displays. Only apps which have been developed to account for large displays actually provide a good user experience on those devices. While there are apps that do this on IOS (Snapchat , Instagram) I believe the introduction of Stage Manager on iPad has prepared IOS app makers for dynamic windowing better than Android Tablets and folding phones have.
diffeomorphism 3y ago
Equating "first class" with bare minimum ports sounds like a recipe for mediocrity. Let's hope that does not happen and people actually make apps specifically for VR.

xwdv 3y ago

This is mostly a cheap trick to inflate vanity metrics. Giant iPad screens are not what people think of when you say “spatial computing”. Only spatial computing apps matter.

KnobbleMcKnees 3y ago
Yeah, I'm not sure how the "thing that no one has mentioned" is literally the USP they demoed and essentially a glorified projector. Don't get me wrong, it's cool and I'm intrigued, but 2.5D controls are about as groundbreaking as skeuomorphism.
mynameisvlad 3y ago
Highly disagree. One of the clear goals of the product is to serve as an alternative to monitors. In that sense, any productivity tool (like the newly launched Final Cut Pro and Logic Studio for iPad) would immediately be extremely useful in visionOS, even if it’s not fully spatially aware. It may not be the flagship spatial computing experience, but that doesn’t mean it should be thrown out as a “cheap trick” either. It likely is the more common experience for day to day interaction with the device, which is Apple’s goal.
- xwdv 3y ago
  Oh really? Then why not just allow us to throw iPad Apps up on any monitor if that’s so ground breaking? Hear yourself man, you’re saying be able to look at iPad apps on a big monitor is the killer app for Apple Vision Pro.
  - mynameisvlad 3y ago
    You already can? MacBooks with Apple Silicon processors can run a shitton of iPad apps natively. App developers can choose not to have their apps listed in the store if they want, but many do. Or you can just… plug an iPad into a monitor with USB-C.
    - xwdv 3y ago
      [flagged]
      - mynameisvlad 3y ago
        That wasn’t even remotely in the vicinity of your argument in the last comment. The goalposts you set yourself are on the other side of the field. Stick to them.
    - matwood 3y ago
      Or use continuity and interact with the iPad like an extended monitor. When the Apple ecosystem works, it's extremely powerful.
      - mynameisvlad 3y ago
        To be entirely fair to the other commenter, they want it the other way around (iPad on a monitor not iPad as a monitor) which is why I didn’t include Continuity. AFAIK it’s only Mac->iPad. If you’re running an app that also exists on your Mac (or equivalent like a browser) then you’d be able to take over the context on your Mac but it isn’t technically “[throwing] iPad Apps up on any monitor”. They’re most definitely on an anti-Apple/Vision Pro crusade given their replies, but they asked for a specific thing and I gave them the exact thing they asked for.
meepmorp 3y ago
> This is mostly a cheap trick to inflate vanity metrics. No, it's a way to mitigate the "chicken and egg" problem for the platform. Having existing apps to make the device immediately useful is important, even if they're not all exploiting the capabilities of the platform immediately.
- tsunamifury 3y ago
  I’ve been at this a long time and it actually isn’t. It keeps many developers from starting from scratch to take full advantage of the hardware, then disappoints the user
gumby 3y ago
without disagreeing with your statement "Only spatial computing apps matter", there are two other considerations: Nobody knew what the point of a microcomputer was back in the Apple II days (at the time I thought it was crazy that anyone would buy a computer rather than design and build their own). The best anyone could imagine with was keeping recipes and playing games. Yet the killer app was Visicalc, with analysts and accountants buying their own (expensive!) apple IIs and visicalc and getting around MIS (what's called IT these days). The second consideration is "onramp". Clicking a button and being able to experiment with an app you've already written yourself is way better than being given sample code. Likewise the crufty skeuomorphic cues (from the desktop metaphor of PARC and then the Mac to the "leather" of the ios notepad and shiny "wheels" of its date picker) are important onramps that get people using something so that they can develop the correct metaphors. It wasn't Apple who came up with "pull to refresh", it was the developers (Brichter's app Tweetie, then quickly adopted by others). So while you're right in the long game, I think your dismissal is premature.
- p1esk 3y ago
  Yet the killer app was Visicalc That’s the question: what is the killer app for VR? Seems like it could be gaming but I didn’t see a lot of gaming examples during the keynote.
  - gumby 3y ago
    Gaming is at best an onramp or else the product is a failure. Apple's watch revenue alone exceeds the console manufacturers' revenue and last year was almost as large as the revenue of consoles and console games. When I say onramp: Visicalc made the Apple II but I do think gaming got it into the home.
CrackerNews 3y ago
This could end up being like the Post-PC paradigm that the iPad was supposed to herald in. My last experience with the iPad a couple years ago was mostly interacting with iPhone apps with few iPad apps fully taking advantage of the platform. Vision Pro could end up in a similar boat with respect to the spatial computing paradigm.

leonheld 3y ago

I always say Apple is the best embedded software company in the world and people look at me like I'm insane. They deeply care about software and it shows (even if sometimes we don't agree with their vision). Companies tend to get too hung up on hardware and end up forgetting the software, in my opinion.

barbariangrunge 3y ago
Do systems on a chip count as embedded? I don't mean the vision pro, I mean their hardware architecture in general. I did some embedded work at university and it was a lot of fun, but SOCs for macbooks seem like such a different thing than little PICs that I never considered them the same thing. Actually curious

atchoo 3y ago

You can run android apps on the quest and I'm not sure people care that much. People sound like they are over-rating how good interacting with 2d apps with goggles can be. It is "really neat", a really wow experience the first few times but it quickly gets old and things like "scratching your nose" or "drinking coffee" become far more valuable features than anything the goggles can provide. I think we are in for a frustrating few years where the faithful go absolutely bananas over this because of the Apple brand until people quietly admit that they don't actually like having their peripheral vision filled with fake scenary or app windows or whatever. It's much nicer to see your real cat snoozing on your desk instead.

kitsunesoba 3y ago
> You can run android apps on the quest and I'm not sure people care that much. Yes, but these apps aren't native to the interaction patterns of AR/VR. They're adapted touch apps, which makes them as awkward as touch apps adapted to a desktop OS are. Native visionOS apps have full affordances for eye and hand-based navigation and should be a good deal more pleasant to use in AR than emulated touch apps will be.
- atchoo 3y ago
  Interaction has not been the sticking point for me (keyboard aside), it's the lack of a "why". I quite enjoyed browsing the web in various VR headsets, it's a fun novelty experience, but it's not sticky as a tool because it's not adding anything to the experience yet adds the irritation of goggles.
wahnfrieden 3y ago
I’m sure the Android app experience is as thoughtful as Apple’s
tsunamifury 3y ago
Dead on. Vision will attract a bunch of apple die hards that haven’t spent a few years with the quest already and realized why vr still has huge issues road does not fox at all. Namely it’s not AR…

matwood 3y ago

The Apple ecosystem is definitely being underestimated. Both the AW and iPad would not be what they are today without that ecosystem out the box. I'm still not sure if it's enough to be successful, but if an AR/VR device is to finally take off, an iteration of the VP is probably it.

iLoveOncall 3y ago

It may have the biggest selection of day-1 apps but definitely not the best. You really believe that an app made for touch on a fixed 2D screen will miraculously be pleasant to use in VR/AR just by checking a box?

spywaregorilla 3y ago

The nice thing about ipads and iphones is that you just pick it up and use it. You might not even do so consciously. You're not really playing Candy Crush. You're idling. You have to say "Ok I'm going to play Candy Crush now" and get your headset, put it on, and then do that, with largely your full attention unable to multitask because it's big. I doubt people will want to use any of these apps beyond the gimmick novelty.

barbariangrunge 3y ago

My first thought when seeing this was "neat," but my second still eats away at me: what about the tactile experience? If you can fill your physical space with floating virtual iPads, what will it be like to touch and manipulate them? You don't get to actually press against a screen when you press or scroll. If you wanted to "hold" a screen while manipulating it with the other screen, what will that be like? I'm just speculating. I find touch and weight etc to be important, personally. I'm also concerned about the weight of the headset, again, because I find touch and weight to be important. And about how it works for people with glasses who can't wear contact lenses (perhaps you could have prescription lenses built into the headsets one day?)

CivBase 3y ago

There's a big difference between apps that "work on" a platform and apps that are "built for" a platform. Consider Android tablets, folding phones, or basically any Android device with a large format display. Basically all modern Android apps work on those devices, with practically no effort required of the devs. But most Android apps were built exclusively for smartphones, with small vertical displays. Only apps which have been developed to account for large displays actually provide a good user experience on those devices. Sure, there's still value in having a big library of apps that technically work on the new platform. But if the AVP experience for an app is worse than the platform it was built for, most people will probably try it out and quickly switch back to the platform they used before. The AVP really needs a killer app to convince people to invest in it. If it can capture that investment, there will be an incentive for devs to start building their apps for it and it can grow from there. I'm concerned that I haven't seen anything that looks like a "killer app" for the AVP yet.

Jcowell 3y ago
>. But most Android apps were built exclusively for smartphones, with small vertical displays. Only apps which have been developed to account for large displays actually provide a good user experience on those devices. While there are apps that do this on IOS (Snapchat , Instagram) I believe the introduction of Stage Manager on iPad has prepared IOS app makers for dynamic windowing better than Android Tablets and folding phones have.

diffeomorphism 3y ago

Equating "first class" with bare minimum ports sounds like a recipe for mediocrity. Let's hope that does not happen and people actually make apps specifically for VR.