Here are my favorite Vision Pro apps (so far)
Since Apple launched the Vision Pro last Friday, I’ve been hammering home the importance of immersive content. This isn’t a radical suggestion by any means. At this point we’re all keenly aware that hardware platforms live and die by content offerings.
Remember all the way back, for a moment, to the end of 2014. When Tim Cook unveiled the first Apple Watch alongside the iPhone 6, the product was met with some blank stares. What, many wondered, was the point of such a device? It wasn’t the Dick Tracy wristwatch we’d been promised since the mid-1940s, but rather a small-screen extension of the iPhone.
It took Apple a few years to really hone in on fitness as the device’s single biggest driver. When you wear a smartwatch these days, you get a lot fewer questions about why you would possibly want to own such a gadget. There’s no guarantee that the Vision Pro will follow a similar trajectory, but if does, it will be on the backs (faces) of app and game developers.
The Vision Pro is an unquestionably impressive piece of hardware. It does several key things — including passthrough, spatial association and high-res displays better than anyone else in the consumer space. But plenty of people are understandably still asking, “Why?” As in, why would someone spend $3,500 on that? The price and extended reality’s long, spotty history have cast additional doubt on Apple’s first headset.
Ultimately, however, the “why” can be traced back to content. A little less than a week after the device’s launch, what should we point to as the Vision Pro’s killer app? For the moment, it’s computing. This is where Apple has leaned heavily, partially in a bid to appeal to enterprise customers with deep pockets. If these organizations purchase headsets in bulk, scaling will help bring down the cost of subsequent models.
The beauty of the platform play is that it’s a method to crowdsource functionality. Apple may have more money than any deity you can name, but its developer resources are still finite.
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