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I wonder whether the behavior Apple has exhibited around their developer relations (especially their EU / notorization related troubles) has had a chilling effe

I wonder whether the behavior Apple has exhibited around their developer relations (especially their EU / notorization related troubles) has had a chilling effect on people's willingness to support a new platform like this. Without the raw number of users that something like the iPhone has, does Apple make it worthwhile to create apps / games for their platforms? I'm not a developer, so maybe there is a more technical reason for this, but from the outside it seems as though both indie developers and large tech companies (like Google not making a YouTube app, and Netflix) are reluctant to support VisionOS. Or, maybe it isn't Apple-specific; maybe there simply isn't enough users, or VR/AR as a software paradigm is currently too far removed from how companies design their applications, and it is just a matter of time until they adapt. Like I said, I am not a developer, so maybe I'm missing something obvious here.

haunter 2y ago
>maybe I'm missing something obvious here. It's an expensive gadget for a niche [0] market. $3500 is an incredibly high price for what it is. 0, https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/ https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/ 1.75% of Steam users have a VR headset as of June this year which is lower than the people who are using Linux for gaming (2.08%). So you can see how small the VR market is. And the top alternatives are $500 (Quest 3) and $1000 (Valve Index) which are expensive on their own but $3500 (that you can't even use on Steam gaming lol) is just an astronomical difference
- TulliusCicero 2y ago
  Linux for gaming presumably includes the Steam Deck, no?
  - haunter 2y ago
    Yes If you check the GPU stats it's the "AMD Custom GPU 0405" which stands at 0.62% accross all GPUs
- jonwinstanley 2y ago
  Exactly. Revisit this stat in a couple of years once we are all talking about Vision Pro v3? This product is going to take a while to a) get good and b) go mainstream
  - schmidtleonard 2y ago
    "It's a dev kit for those willing to spend on early access to Apple's AR/VR ecosystem" was always the sane take, it was really weird watching so many people convince themselves that it was a mass-market product and then convince themselves that the failure of a mass-market audience to materialize was some kind of a disaster. I have no visibility inside Apple so I don't know if they drank their own kool-aid on this one or if this is just Ye Olde Yellow Journalism, but it's a strange amount of drama over something that in any other industry would be a complete non-story, even at ten times the dollar amount. Probably more than that, depending on the industry!
    - afavour 2y ago
      > it was really weird watching so many people convince themselves that it was a mass-market product and then convince themselves that the failure of a mass-market audience to materialize was some kind of a disaster. They were presumably following Apple’s lead. Apple predicted far higher sales than we’ve seen and have had to cut those predictions down to size.
    - TillE 2y ago
      Right, $3500 is a really clear signal that Apple knows what it's doing, that this is not even an attempt to be a mainstream product yet. Who knows if they'll succeed in the end, but this is just the beginning of a long term project.
      - ryandrake 2y ago
        I mean, when it's early in the failure, you can say this about any company's failed product: Oh, well [COMPANY] is really just thinking ahead, and might actually be playing 5D Chess... Think of what the long term might bring!
- autoexecbat 2y ago
  I'd happily buy one for $500, but $3500 is way too much
  - bee_rider 2y ago
    It seems like a developer tool for building VR apps, which could make sense if they were planning on making a $500 device later. But, absent clear plans there, I can’t really see why anyone would buy it. OTOH they wouldn’t sell any at all to consumers if they announced there was a sensibly priced one planned for the future.
    - rafaelmn 2y ago
      Apple is the last company I want a VR headset from. Like I'd buy iPad instantly if it could run a real OS (like a surface pro) - but Apple loves the app store margins soo much they will fight tooth and nail too keep you locked in, at heavy expense of capability. Likewise for Apple vision pro : - productivity - only if it fits the store model - entertainmen - only if daddy Apple approves - hackability - no way MacOS devices are a legacy from a different era in Apple business model - they would not build such devices today - and are not really expanding the range. iPhone I can live with the lockdown for the integration between MacOS, likewise for accessories (even here I might switch due to the taste their ecosystem business leaves in mouth). But VR and iPad are things where I want fully capable/hackable environments - that's not going to happen with Apple App Store business model.
  - lurking_swe 2y ago
    considering it has a CPU that is as powerful as the MacBook Pro, I find your target price extremely optimistic. hopefully once the display tech becomes cheaper, the overall price will come down quite a bit. But $500? unrealistic expectations IMO. Maybe in 10 years.
    - afavour 2y ago
      Then it won’t be a success for another ten years. You can call them unrealistic expectations if you’d like but I’ll drop thousands on a laptop because I use it day in day out. There’s simply no chance I’ll be doing the same with a Vision so the price I’m willing to pay is adjusted accordingly.
- lylejantzi3rd 2y ago
  > It's an expensive gadget for a niche [0] market With an interesting chicken and egg problem. There aren't enough users to justify making content for it and nobody wants to buy it because there isn't enough content. Pretty much all of the VR headsets have this problem. So did the Amazon Echo devices.
- SapporoChris 2y ago
  https://backlinko.com/steam-users https://backlinko.com/steam-users 132 million active subscribers. So perhaps 2.3 million VR sets on steam. Any VR producer capturing 10% of the market has 230k VR sets sold. Doesn't seem like that small of a market. But I completely agree, the high price for a VR set without good support is absurd.
- Someone 2y ago
  > $3500 is an incredibly high price for what it is. I think “$3500 is an incredibly high price for what it does for me” is true for most consumers, but if that were incredibly high for what it is, we’d see other companies sell comparable hardware at half the price. I also think that means they have a bigger problem than just bringing the price down. What it is is incredible, but what it does for me? Mwah. I don’t think it would fly off the shelves (for a company of Apple’s size) for half the price.
  - ocodo 2y ago
    "Mwah" is an onomatopoeia for air-kiss, I guess you mean "Meh"
  - seanmcdirmid 2y ago
    It could have worked for a more physical experience, but the Vision Pro does less for me than even an Oculus Quest 2. No controllers, no haptics, I just get that it wasn't aimed at me but I'm scratching my head about what they were going for. Even Meta isn't to keen on the experiences I value in VR (basically fitness), and even though they support it, I get the feeling that they would much rather be doing social experiences...I hope someone enters the VR space in the fitness area with more enthusiasm.
- ocodo 2y ago
  > just an astronomical ~~difference~~ waste of money.
- seanmcdirmid 2y ago
  > 0, https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/ https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/ 1.75% of Steam users have a VR headset as of June this year which is lower than the people who are using Linux for gaming (2.08%). So you can see how small the VR market is. And the top alternatives are $500 (Quest 3) and $1000 (Valve Index) which are expensive on their own but $3500 (that you can't even use on Steam gaming lol) is just an astronomical difference Apple Vision Pro was never touted as a gaming device, so I get that. I still hope Facebook/Meta keeps up with the Quest.
epistasis 2y ago
I doubt developer relations have anything to do with this at all. There's no users, no plan to scale to lots of users, and therefore no developers. It might be partially because of the size of the VR/AR market, but Apple's approach with Vision Pro was never to try to capture all of it. It seemed mostly to gain experience in manufacturing and start to see if anything actually materialized. In many ways it's a very anti-Apple product launch in that it didn't have a very clear use for the common person from day 1, which has been the mantra for everything from the iPhone to AirPods.
- HumblyTossed 2y ago
  > It might be partially because of the size of the VR/AR market, but Apple's approach with Vision Pro was never to try to capture all of it. It seemed mostly to gain experience in manufacturing and start to see if anything actually materialized. Did they say this, because otherwise I'm calling ... you know what. This is a failed product by Apple.
  - epistasis 2y ago
    The price was $3500. With pretty much zero killer applications. I do agree that it's a failed product, but I also don't think they had any plan for "success" with it.
LordKeren 2y ago
Apple has definitely, definitely soured their relationships with third party developers— but I think the far larger issue is the install base. There isn’t enough AVPs sold to ever recoup the cost of developing a VisionOS native application. There are also effectively 0 well qualified developers for VisionOS — it’s so new that no one outside Apple has a significant amount of experience. So even beyond pure build hours alone, getting an application launched on the platform is a non-trivial amount of developer training.
- jsemrau 2y ago
  Reminds me of the time where I taught myself AR skills and launched some mildly successful apps for iOS then applied for a bunch of roles only to be rejected soundly for all of them.
jmspring 2y ago
Apple’s issues with the EU/etc have nothing to do with it. Apple has a hard core base market. That said, the Vision Pro/headset market is small and Apple is only really going to get the Apple fanboy portion of that.
bastien2 2y ago
It's more that VR/AR is a high-cost solution still in search of a problem that makes it profitable. So far the only market for VR is niche entertainment. VRC is fun, but VR games have been arounds for decades and never gotten past novelty. AR has value as an accessibility tool because it can get around the high cost of some infrastructure changes. But like all accessibility tools, profit-focused eyeballs see it as a small, low-margin market. Enabling human rights is not considered profit.
- wkat4242 2y ago
  > So far the only market for VR is niche entertainment. That's not true. VR also thrives in corporate. Niches, yes. But it does do well there. Training and simulation scenarios in particular. There's some tools like uptale and arthur that capitalise on this. And VR games are really really good and add a lot of immersion. I don't like to game without it anymore. I don't think VR is for everything and everyone but there certainly are usecases for it.
peppertree 2y ago
The relationship is transactional. If there's money to be made developers will be there. The core problem is there's no killer app for Vision Pro and price is way to high to be a impulsive purchase for most.
crooked-v 2y ago
It's a combination of two things: there's not enough users, and the device just isn't comfortable enough for that niche of ultra-enthusiast users to use it for extended periods. Apple really shot themselves in the foot here with the headstrap design and by weighing it down with the metal and glass housing. Even the "good" strap is unbalanced and uncomfortable and so practical for very little but consuming content in a reclined position. By contrast, the Quest 3 is noticeably lighter and has an entire ecosystem of head straps that allow for extended wear without discomfort, to the point that the limiting factor is the battery. Between that and the much lower price, the market of people willing to actually buy apps and services (mostly games, but also stuff like Bigscreen or workout apps) is orders of magnitude larger.
- crazygringo 2y ago
  > practical for very little but consuming content in a reclined position. You can create content in a recline position too. It's utterly fantastic, actually, if you just have a little tray in your lap for a wireless keyboard, and a mouse on a table on your armrest. I really think the future of VR is mostly in a reclined position, actually -- headset weight becomes a non-issue, and it just avoids developing postural problems. It's infinitely better for your back and neck and shoulders than sitting in a chair at a desk all day long. The Meta Quest finally recently gained the ability to shift your environment to a vertical angle, for reclining or lying down in bed. I don't really see VR's killer app being immersive games while standing up or sitting down, because of motion sickness. I think it's going to be reclining, doing work on big screens as well as watching content on big screens and immersively. I think we're just waiting for the displays to increase their resolution a bit more, and for prices for those displays to come down.
  - adastra22 2y ago
    That just sounds so utterly dystopian that I would never want to be part of it.
    - crazygringo 2y ago
      If you have lower back pain from sitting in a chair with bad posture for decades, it's a godsend. When you're "in the zone" programming on a screen or writing a book or editing a movie, it's not like you're particularly aware of your environment anyways. And like I said -- not building up the lower back problems that will haunt you later in life.
stcredzero 2y ago
Or, maybe it isn't Apple-specific; maybe there simply isn't enough users, or VR/AR as a software paradigm is currently too far removed from how companies design their applications, and it is just a matter of time until they adapt. Like I said, I am not a developer, so maybe I'm missing something obvious here. Long term, here's what I suspect may happen. Robotics+AI is going to eat the lunch of VR. VR is only used when it's not economical to have the actual stuff, but the realm of nifty real world stuff is going to expand tremendously. This may well result in a societal bifurcation, where the rich have a bunch of robots, and the poor have to settle for VR.
HumblyTossed 2y ago
>Or, maybe it isn't Apple-specific; maybe there simply isn't enough users, or VR/AR as a software paradigm is currently too far removed from how companies design their applications, and it is just a matter of time until they adapt. Pretty much this. People, generally, just are NOT going to wear this on their face for very long, if at all. This product solved zero problems that most people have. It's literally an iPad you wear on your face and most people would much rather spend $500 on an iPad.
renewiltord 2y ago
Nah, people aren’t religious. It’s just not a large enough platform. Too niche and it looks like they’ve given up on it.
tomwojcik 2y ago
I used to work in game dev ~9 years ago. iPhone is where the users are, so naturally that's your main target. But your game will accomplish success only if you're featured in the app store (I don't own apple so this might have changed drastically). But in order to get featured... Haptic feedback in the newest iphone? You need to support it in order to be featured. You can play games on apple watch? If you support it, a guaranteed feature. New localisation guidelines? Featured only if you support all of them. So back then (not sure how it is right now) you needed to implement useless or at the very least something unnecessary in order to be featured on iPhone and make a buck. Otherwise apple wasn't able to sell their new technologies. If nothing has changed, people will try to port their games to apple vr so they are more likely to be featured on iPhone. All our games (6, iirc), were featured.
- tomwojcik 2y ago
  I can't seem to be able to edit. My wording was incorrect. It was not needed to implement all those useless features to get your game featured in the store, but very helpful. And it makes sense, imo.
  - fingerlocks 2y ago
    My app was featured many years ago, and yes it’s true that they request changes to support the latest SDK. They weren’t feature requests though, more like removal of deprecated API calls, following the UI guidelines, and accessibility was a big one. But no I wouldn’t call any of those “useless features”.

haunter 2y ago

>maybe I'm missing something obvious here. It's an expensive gadget for a niche [0] market. $3500 is an incredibly high price for what it is. 0, https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/ https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/ 1.75% of Steam users have a VR headset as of June this year which is lower than the people who are using Linux for gaming (2.08%). So you can see how small the VR market is. And the top alternatives are $500 (Quest 3) and $1000 (Valve Index) which are expensive on their own but $3500 (that you can't even use on Steam gaming lol) is just an astronomical difference

TulliusCicero 2y ago
Linux for gaming presumably includes the Steam Deck, no?
- haunter 2y ago
  Yes If you check the GPU stats it's the "AMD Custom GPU 0405" which stands at 0.62% accross all GPUs
jonwinstanley 2y ago
Exactly. Revisit this stat in a couple of years once we are all talking about Vision Pro v3? This product is going to take a while to a) get good and b) go mainstream
- schmidtleonard 2y ago
  "It's a dev kit for those willing to spend on early access to Apple's AR/VR ecosystem" was always the sane take, it was really weird watching so many people convince themselves that it was a mass-market product and then convince themselves that the failure of a mass-market audience to materialize was some kind of a disaster. I have no visibility inside Apple so I don't know if they drank their own kool-aid on this one or if this is just Ye Olde Yellow Journalism, but it's a strange amount of drama over something that in any other industry would be a complete non-story, even at ten times the dollar amount. Probably more than that, depending on the industry!
  - afavour 2y ago
    > it was really weird watching so many people convince themselves that it was a mass-market product and then convince themselves that the failure of a mass-market audience to materialize was some kind of a disaster. They were presumably following Apple’s lead. Apple predicted far higher sales than we’ve seen and have had to cut those predictions down to size.
  - TillE 2y ago
    Right, $3500 is a really clear signal that Apple knows what it's doing, that this is not even an attempt to be a mainstream product yet. Who knows if they'll succeed in the end, but this is just the beginning of a long term project.
    - ryandrake 2y ago
      I mean, when it's early in the failure, you can say this about any company's failed product: Oh, well [COMPANY] is really just thinking ahead, and might actually be playing 5D Chess... Think of what the long term might bring!
autoexecbat 2y ago
I'd happily buy one for $500, but $3500 is way too much
- bee_rider 2y ago
  It seems like a developer tool for building VR apps, which could make sense if they were planning on making a $500 device later. But, absent clear plans there, I can’t really see why anyone would buy it. OTOH they wouldn’t sell any at all to consumers if they announced there was a sensibly priced one planned for the future.
  - rafaelmn 2y ago
    Apple is the last company I want a VR headset from. Like I'd buy iPad instantly if it could run a real OS (like a surface pro) - but Apple loves the app store margins soo much they will fight tooth and nail too keep you locked in, at heavy expense of capability. Likewise for Apple vision pro : - productivity - only if it fits the store model - entertainmen - only if daddy Apple approves - hackability - no way MacOS devices are a legacy from a different era in Apple business model - they would not build such devices today - and are not really expanding the range. iPhone I can live with the lockdown for the integration between MacOS, likewise for accessories (even here I might switch due to the taste their ecosystem business leaves in mouth). But VR and iPad are things where I want fully capable/hackable environments - that's not going to happen with Apple App Store business model.
- lurking_swe 2y ago
  considering it has a CPU that is as powerful as the MacBook Pro, I find your target price extremely optimistic. hopefully once the display tech becomes cheaper, the overall price will come down quite a bit. But $500? unrealistic expectations IMO. Maybe in 10 years.
  - afavour 2y ago
    Then it won’t be a success for another ten years. You can call them unrealistic expectations if you’d like but I’ll drop thousands on a laptop because I use it day in day out. There’s simply no chance I’ll be doing the same with a Vision so the price I’m willing to pay is adjusted accordingly.
lylejantzi3rd 2y ago
> It's an expensive gadget for a niche [0] market With an interesting chicken and egg problem. There aren't enough users to justify making content for it and nobody wants to buy it because there isn't enough content. Pretty much all of the VR headsets have this problem. So did the Amazon Echo devices.
SapporoChris 2y ago
https://backlinko.com/steam-users https://backlinko.com/steam-users 132 million active subscribers. So perhaps 2.3 million VR sets on steam. Any VR producer capturing 10% of the market has 230k VR sets sold. Doesn't seem like that small of a market. But I completely agree, the high price for a VR set without good support is absurd.
Someone 2y ago
> $3500 is an incredibly high price for what it is. I think “$3500 is an incredibly high price for what it does for me” is true for most consumers, but if that were incredibly high for what it is, we’d see other companies sell comparable hardware at half the price. I also think that means they have a bigger problem than just bringing the price down. What it is is incredible, but what it does for me? Mwah. I don’t think it would fly off the shelves (for a company of Apple’s size) for half the price.
- ocodo 2y ago
  "Mwah" is an onomatopoeia for air-kiss, I guess you mean "Meh"
- seanmcdirmid 2y ago
  It could have worked for a more physical experience, but the Vision Pro does less for me than even an Oculus Quest 2. No controllers, no haptics, I just get that it wasn't aimed at me but I'm scratching my head about what they were going for. Even Meta isn't to keen on the experiences I value in VR (basically fitness), and even though they support it, I get the feeling that they would much rather be doing social experiences...I hope someone enters the VR space in the fitness area with more enthusiasm.
ocodo 2y ago
> just an astronomical ~~difference~~ waste of money.
seanmcdirmid 2y ago
> 0, https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/ https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/ 1.75% of Steam users have a VR headset as of June this year which is lower than the people who are using Linux for gaming (2.08%). So you can see how small the VR market is. And the top alternatives are $500 (Quest 3) and $1000 (Valve Index) which are expensive on their own but $3500 (that you can't even use on Steam gaming lol) is just an astronomical difference Apple Vision Pro was never touted as a gaming device, so I get that. I still hope Facebook/Meta keeps up with the Quest.

epistasis 2y ago

I doubt developer relations have anything to do with this at all. There's no users, no plan to scale to lots of users, and therefore no developers. It might be partially because of the size of the VR/AR market, but Apple's approach with Vision Pro was never to try to capture all of it. It seemed mostly to gain experience in manufacturing and start to see if anything actually materialized. In many ways it's a very anti-Apple product launch in that it didn't have a very clear use for the common person from day 1, which has been the mantra for everything from the iPhone to AirPods.

HumblyTossed 2y ago
> It might be partially because of the size of the VR/AR market, but Apple's approach with Vision Pro was never to try to capture all of it. It seemed mostly to gain experience in manufacturing and start to see if anything actually materialized. Did they say this, because otherwise I'm calling ... you know what. This is a failed product by Apple.
- epistasis 2y ago
  The price was $3500. With pretty much zero killer applications. I do agree that it's a failed product, but I also don't think they had any plan for "success" with it.

LordKeren 2y ago

Apple has definitely, definitely soured their relationships with third party developers— but I think the far larger issue is the install base. There isn’t enough AVPs sold to ever recoup the cost of developing a VisionOS native application. There are also effectively 0 well qualified developers for VisionOS — it’s so new that no one outside Apple has a significant amount of experience. So even beyond pure build hours alone, getting an application launched on the platform is a non-trivial amount of developer training.

jsemrau 2y ago
Reminds me of the time where I taught myself AR skills and launched some mildly successful apps for iOS then applied for a bunch of roles only to be rejected soundly for all of them.

jmspring 2y ago

Apple’s issues with the EU/etc have nothing to do with it. Apple has a hard core base market. That said, the Vision Pro/headset market is small and Apple is only really going to get the Apple fanboy portion of that.

bastien2 2y ago

It's more that VR/AR is a high-cost solution still in search of a problem that makes it profitable. So far the only market for VR is niche entertainment. VRC is fun, but VR games have been arounds for decades and never gotten past novelty. AR has value as an accessibility tool because it can get around the high cost of some infrastructure changes. But like all accessibility tools, profit-focused eyeballs see it as a small, low-margin market. Enabling human rights is not considered profit.

wkat4242 2y ago
> So far the only market for VR is niche entertainment. That's not true. VR also thrives in corporate. Niches, yes. But it does do well there. Training and simulation scenarios in particular. There's some tools like uptale and arthur that capitalise on this. And VR games are really really good and add a lot of immersion. I don't like to game without it anymore. I don't think VR is for everything and everyone but there certainly are usecases for it.

peppertree 2y ago

The relationship is transactional. If there's money to be made developers will be there. The core problem is there's no killer app for Vision Pro and price is way to high to be a impulsive purchase for most.

crooked-v 2y ago

It's a combination of two things: there's not enough users, and the device just isn't comfortable enough for that niche of ultra-enthusiast users to use it for extended periods. Apple really shot themselves in the foot here with the headstrap design and by weighing it down with the metal and glass housing. Even the "good" strap is unbalanced and uncomfortable and so practical for very little but consuming content in a reclined position. By contrast, the Quest 3 is noticeably lighter and has an entire ecosystem of head straps that allow for extended wear without discomfort, to the point that the limiting factor is the battery. Between that and the much lower price, the market of people willing to actually buy apps and services (mostly games, but also stuff like Bigscreen or workout apps) is orders of magnitude larger.

crazygringo 2y ago
> practical for very little but consuming content in a reclined position. You can create content in a recline position too. It's utterly fantastic, actually, if you just have a little tray in your lap for a wireless keyboard, and a mouse on a table on your armrest. I really think the future of VR is mostly in a reclined position, actually -- headset weight becomes a non-issue, and it just avoids developing postural problems. It's infinitely better for your back and neck and shoulders than sitting in a chair at a desk all day long. The Meta Quest finally recently gained the ability to shift your environment to a vertical angle, for reclining or lying down in bed. I don't really see VR's killer app being immersive games while standing up or sitting down, because of motion sickness. I think it's going to be reclining, doing work on big screens as well as watching content on big screens and immersively. I think we're just waiting for the displays to increase their resolution a bit more, and for prices for those displays to come down.
- adastra22 2y ago
  That just sounds so utterly dystopian that I would never want to be part of it.
  - crazygringo 2y ago
    If you have lower back pain from sitting in a chair with bad posture for decades, it's a godsend. When you're "in the zone" programming on a screen or writing a book or editing a movie, it's not like you're particularly aware of your environment anyways. And like I said -- not building up the lower back problems that will haunt you later in life.

stcredzero 2y ago

Or, maybe it isn't Apple-specific; maybe there simply isn't enough users, or VR/AR as a software paradigm is currently too far removed from how companies design their applications, and it is just a matter of time until they adapt. Like I said, I am not a developer, so maybe I'm missing something obvious here. Long term, here's what I suspect may happen. Robotics+AI is going to eat the lunch of VR. VR is only used when it's not economical to have the actual stuff, but the realm of nifty real world stuff is going to expand tremendously. This may well result in a societal bifurcation, where the rich have a bunch of robots, and the poor have to settle for VR.

HumblyTossed 2y ago

>Or, maybe it isn't Apple-specific; maybe there simply isn't enough users, or VR/AR as a software paradigm is currently too far removed from how companies design their applications, and it is just a matter of time until they adapt. Pretty much this. People, generally, just are NOT going to wear this on their face for very long, if at all. This product solved zero problems that most people have. It's literally an iPad you wear on your face and most people would much rather spend $500 on an iPad.

renewiltord 2y ago

Nah, people aren’t religious. It’s just not a large enough platform. Too niche and it looks like they’ve given up on it.

tomwojcik 2y ago

I used to work in game dev ~9 years ago. iPhone is where the users are, so naturally that's your main target. But your game will accomplish success only if you're featured in the app store (I don't own apple so this might have changed drastically). But in order to get featured... Haptic feedback in the newest iphone? You need to support it in order to be featured. You can play games on apple watch? If you support it, a guaranteed feature. New localisation guidelines? Featured only if you support all of them. So back then (not sure how it is right now) you needed to implement useless or at the very least something unnecessary in order to be featured on iPhone and make a buck. Otherwise apple wasn't able to sell their new technologies. If nothing has changed, people will try to port their games to apple vr so they are more likely to be featured on iPhone. All our games (6, iirc), were featured.

tomwojcik 2y ago
I can't seem to be able to edit. My wording was incorrect. It was not needed to implement all those useless features to get your game featured in the store, but very helpful. And it makes sense, imo.
- fingerlocks 2y ago
  My app was featured many years ago, and yes it’s true that they request changes to support the latest SDK. They weren’t feature requests though, more like removal of deprecated API calls, following the UI guidelines, and accessibility was a big one. But no I wouldn’t call any of those “useless features”.