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- Where's the killer app for the Apple Vision Pro?
- It can produce compelling "immersive video," but there are barely any apps highlighting that.
- Tech analyst Ben Thompson thinks Apple may have to build amazing apps itself, then hope other developers follow.
Remember back in February, when Apple launched its Apple Vision Pro headset and there was a flurry of interest in the $3,500 goggles?
When some people were declaring that the new headset would "change everything," and others were rushing out to make stunt videos of themselves walking around in public with them?
That seems like a long time ago.
I have yet to see one in the wild and I don't see that much interest in them online anymore, either. The consensus from people I've talked to who have tried the goggles — including some who actually own them — is pretty consistent: The tech is amazing! And they don't have much reason to use them.
One thing that could change all that: a killer app. Or, at least, some pretty cool apps.
But influential tech analyst Ben Thompson says Apple is failing to produce those apps, or to encourage developers to produce them.
He is particularly worried about the lack of apps showing off immersive video — video that would let you experience things like sitting courtside at an NBA game. He notes that when Apple Vision Pro launched in February, it had four immersive video experiences available, and now there are … five.
What worries me more broadly is that Apple kind of seems a bit sheepish about the Vision Pro; the company invested tremendous resources into building the device and into the in-store experience, but there has not been a commensurate investment in use cases…
It seems like Apple, broadly speaking, just sort of expected an ecosystem to materialize for the Vision Pro like one did for the iPhone; the difference is this isn't a better phone — which people were already buying — but an entirely new category that needs to be given a reason to exist. The best hope at this point, two months in with basically zero new content or meaningful new experiences, is that Apple will get started on a project it should have started a long time ago.
It's worth noting that Thompson isn't an Apple Vision Pro naysayer. He's a fan who said that using the device to watch movies on a flight was a "life-changing" experience.
Caveat: It's early days! The all-but-explicit pitch for this year's Apple Vision Pro is that over time the device will get smaller and cheaper, and as it does, more people will buy it, so more developers will build for it.
And maybe that will happen (though people expecting an Apple Vision Pro that looks and weighs like a pair of Ray-Bans may not ever get what they want).
It's also possible that Apple does indeed have a bunch of mind-blowing apps coming down the pipeline.
But the lack of wowza apps at launch was quite surprising. Apple first showed these things off to the world last spring, but you'd think it was working to build show-stopping apps — either on its own or hand-in-hand with developers — for quite some time before that. And the idea that the device wouldn't take off until someone made that killer app certainly isn't a surprise to anyone at Apple. (I've asked Apple for comment.)
Again: If you've played with Apple Vision Pro at all — it's very easy to get an appointment for a 30-minute demo at an Apple store, and I highly recommend it — it's hard not to be impressed with it. But it's also easy to set it down and not think about it that much afterward. It's up to Apple to change that, one way or another.