Only 150 apps have been designed specifically for Apple's Vision Pro, so far
techcrunch.com
techcrunch.com
What _is_ very disappointing here is that Apple hasn't invested much effort in making novel first-party apps for the Vision Pro. They should have seen this circumstance coming and been prepared with some creative powerhouse demonstrations of the power of the platform.
The most frustrating example to me is Maps. It looks to me like the Maps app for Vision Pro is literally the same as the iPad version - meaning, if you view a city or satellite photo in "3D" in Maps on Vision Pro, it will render a 3D projection onto a flat 2D "window" in AR space. What a huge missed opportunity for Apple to build an amazing experience.
Instead we get a bunch of dull productivity apps, and then "Experience Dinosaurs". With all of Apple's money, resources and creativity, it's pretty astonishing they didn't spin up 10 teams of 5 engineers each to build some other novel capabilities to ship on day 1.
Can I ask sincerely here why this bothers you? To me the dominant use case for Maps is when I'm driving / traveling somewhere - and from what I can tell, I can't practically use this new device while driving or walking. Could there be a cool use case for "virtual travel" experience built on Maps? Sure - but good luck to whomever would spend $4000 on one of these for that entertainment.
(Shoot, maybe they should give the Apple TV screensaver team some 3D cameras and let them shoot some landscapes to walk around in. Still not worth $3K, but cool nonetheless)
I used maps for these also, but most of the time I spend on/in maps is just exploring. E.g. read a news article about something happening somewhere? Open the place in a map and have a look around.
e.g. https://www.google.com/maps/place/63%C2%B050'40.6%22N+22%C2%...
That being said I don't know what the first "wow" app was for the iPhone other than games?
It was that beautiful touch screen + real apps, namely email and a browser. Before that, the number of devices with an email client not controlled by BlackBerry and a full on browser was very small.
The articles about sales figures are equally crazy. No-one knows how many Vision Pro's Apple has sold, except Apple, and if they claim that they do, they are just pulling numbers out of thin air.
> Likely, many app developers are just allowing their existing apps to be ported over until the Vision Pro has a big enough user base to warrant the extra attention.
If the Mac App Store on Apple Silicon is any indication, many developers mays indeed allow their iOS apps to run, but they probably won’t be the ones you want the most.
I want one, but if it sticks I can see a world where an AI persona is giving me a personalized layoff message in 10 years time.
Most of the "apps" seem to be just watching video on the thing. It's mostly a desktop screen you can wear. There are only three apps listed that actually use VR/AR - What's the Golf, Super Fruit Ninja, and something called Game Room.[1]
It's still too clunky for wide use, like the last round of VR gear. Carmack wrote, after the Oculus debacle, that these things need to get down to swim goggle size to get any traction, and down to eyeglass size to go mainstream. He's probably not wrong.
I was expecting Apple to come up with something closer to the eyeglass form factor if they got into this area. Something like NReal's product in form factor, but higher resolution.[2] NReal's glasses look more like an Apple product than the actual Apple product.
[1] https://www.idownloadblog.com/2024/01/22/apple-vision-pro-ap...
No mattery how much advancement in microprocessor and display tech happens I'll never want the weight of a battery on my face. Heck, normal glasses are heavy enough without adding any extra bulk. So until medium range wireless power transmission that can be safely beemed at my head becomes a reality I think someone should work on optimizing a portable wired solution.
I think at that size, fully wireless is the chokepoint on further adoption.
Guessing this might be a bug with the emulator, but if it isn’t seems really weird. They’ve been present on the iPhone since soon after it launched in one form or another.
The productivity/vr stuff is a new use case. It’s REALLY hard to get people to change their behavior. I’m sure I’m eventually be used for all kind of stuff like job training and whatever but at first, it’s just a 10x better screen.
Not to over-hype it, but the iPhone didn't have 3rd party app support at launch either.
I think a $3,500 price tag is laughable, as is the idea that it could replace an actual computer while still needing to be light enough for long-term use and run off a battery, but I'm sold on the AR thing.
What changed it for me was trying out the Meta Quest 3 and moving around panels in 3D space. And they'd stay there! As if they really existed irl! You could have as many "monitors" as you want (in practice).
Another platform means another thing you test and commit to supporting, and the Vision Pro is even more niche.
Why on earth is everyone so mad that Apple didn't drop the Apple Tax? The court said they didn't have to.
Such a weird disinformation bubble around this issue.