Apple Vision Pro struggling to attract developer interest

Apple is said to be struggling to attract developers to attend its Apple Vision Pro developer labs. The special Vision Pro-centric labs have been set up at Cupertino, London, Munich, Shanghai, Singapore and Tokyo, with the expectation that developers would be keen to learn how to develop new apps for Apple’s so-called “spatial computing” platform. However, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, these sessions have so far been “under-filled with small amounts of developers”.

The Apple Vision Pro headset was launched to much fanfare by Apple in early June at its World Wide Developer Conference 2023, although it won’t go on sale to customers until sometime in “early 2024”, according to the company. Apple’s plan had been to launch the product in front of its developer base with the hope that it would create sufficient excitement, they would get on board and start developing apps tailor made for the platform. However, Apple’s “plan B” has been to ensure that its visionOS operating system also supports regular iPad apps that don’t require much, if any, optimization to get up and running.

The seeming lack of developer interest in the Vision Pro is not altogether surprising. While the headset might be the first all-new product category for Apple in some years, it is facing two key hurdles. Firstly, it is priced at a whopping $3,499, which is $500 higher than the already high predictions leading into the event. Secondly, despite many efforts in recent years, VR and/or AR headsets have yet to gain widespread acceptance from mainstream consumers. Further, the install base for the product - should it be successful - will take time to grow into a market that developers are likely to want to invest in.

Ahead of its launch, there were internal concerns about the viability of the Apple Vision Pro headset. Notably, Apple’s senior vice president of Hardware Technologies, Johny Srouji was conspicuously absent from the launch, despite it including the unveiling of the latest Apple silicon. Srouji is said to have dismissed the headset as a “science project” in distancing himself from it. Tony Fadell, known as the Father of the iPod, accused Apple of having “jumped the shark” with the headset, an expression which implied that the company appears to be out of new ideas. Time will tell, of course, however, Apple will be hoping that devs create some killer apps for the Vision Pro if it is to take off. The early signs of that happening aren’t promising.

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