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- Apple first showed off the Apple Vision Pro in June 2023, hoping developers would build awesome apps for it when it went on sale in January.
- That hasn't really happened.
- Developers don't want to build stuff for devices people aren't buying. People don't want to buy devices that don't have killer apps. So, this is a hard problem for Apple to solve.
Where are the apps?
Specifically: Where are the apps for the Apple Vision Pro, the $3,500 headset Apple introduced earlier this year?
This is a question we've asked repeatedly, and the answer seems to be pretty consistent: Developers aren't leaping to build anything for Apple Vision Pro because they don't think many people are using Apple Vision Pro.
But if developers don't build for the Apple Vision Pro, then there's never going to be any reason for people to buy an Apple Vision Pro. It's an expensive Catch-22, or vicious cycle, or doom loop. You pick the phrase you like best/hate the least.
Now we have a new data point about developer's resistance to Apple Vision Pro via Appfigures, an app store tracking service: Just two apps built specifically for the device debuted in September. That's down from a high of 252 in February, following the AVP's launch. (The Wall Street Journal has previously cited Appfigure's data.)
Overall, there are about 1,770 apps for the Vision Pro in Apple's App Store, according to Appfigures' count. During Apple's most recent earnings call, Apple CEO Tim Cook said there were "more than 2,500" native apps for the device. (Appfigures says its count could be different because some apps aren't used enough to register on its charts. Apple declined to comment.)
Regardless of the specific numbers, the Apple Vision Pro just doesn't seem to have broken through into pop culture, or even the tech version of pop culture: Short of stories like this one, wondering about the state of the device, you just simply don't hear people talking about Vision Pro, one way or another, in the wild. (The only time I've heard people talking about it recently was last month at Meta's reveal of Orion, the prototype of lightweight computer glasses it hopes to start selling in a couple years. Even after taking into account the fact that Apple Vision Pro is a product you can buy right now, and that Orion only exists inside Meta's office buildings, the comparisons were not favorable to Apple.)
Standard caveats: Apple can afford to be in this market for the long haul, and seems certain to take more cracks at the category. Mark Gurman, Bloomberg's well-sourced Apple reporter, expects to see a cheaper, lighter version of the device as early as next year.
Meanwhile, Apple continues to release its own apps and software for the device. Last week, it released "Submerged," which it described as "the first scripted short film captured in Apple Immersive Video" — Apple's propriety format for 3D movies that is supposed to be one of the big selling points for the headset.
It sounds pretty cool: "The result is impressive. As water rushed into this fictional submarine, I could taste the faint memory of salt water on my tongue. When characters walked down narrow submarine corridors, I felt claustrophobic," writes The Verge's Victoria Song, who got a demo of the movie.
Then again, writes Song: "I can't say with a straight face that this is the killer reason anyone should buy one of these things." Which brings us back to where we started.