Vision: What app developers are saying after trying Apple Vision Pro

Back in June, Apple took the wraps off its first spatial reality device — Vision Pro. There was a lot of buzz and excitement around it but buyers have to wait till 2024 to get their hands on it. Meanwhile, Apple has given access to developers to try the Vision Pro and create apps for it. Earlier this month, Apple Vision Pro labs have hosted developers and designers in London, Munich, Shanghai, Singapore, Tokyo, and Cupertino. During the day-long lab appointment, developers can test their apps, get hands-on experience, and work with Apple experts to get their questions answered.

What the developers have to say

In a post on Apple’s Developer webpage, the company shared some of the experiences of the developers. David Smith, a prolific developer, visited the Apple Vision Pro developer labs in London. Before his visit, he prepared all the necessary items for his day: a MacBook, Xcode project, and checklist (on paper!) of what he hoped to accomplish. During his time with Apple Vision Pro, “I checked everything off my list,” Smith says. “From there, I just pretended I was at home developing the next feature.”
Smith began working on a version of his app “Widgetsmith

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for spatial computing almost immediately after the release of the visionOS SDK. Smith wanted to start working on the device as soon as possible, so he could get “the full experience” and begin refining his app. “I could say, ‘Oh, that didn’t work? Why didn’t it work?’ Those are questions you can only truly answer on-device.”
Chris Delbuck, principal design technologist at

Slack

, had intended to test the company’s iPadOS version of their app on Apple Vision Pro. As he spent time with the device, however, “it instantly got me thinking about how 3D offerings and visuals could come forward in our experiences,” he says. “I wouldn’t have been able to do that without having the device in hand.”
Developers can apply to attend sessions at Apple Vision Pro Labs if they have a visionOS app in active development or an existing iPadOS or iOS app they’d like to test on Apple Vision Pro.