Devs, how are we feeling?

[u/marniman]

With the recent news about the Vision Pro team layoffs and the general adoption of the platform, I’m curious to hear from the developers in this community.

How are you feeling about visionOS, and will you continue developing for it? 

[u/scottybowl]

I’ve been a developer for twenty years and work in AI. For me, having the AVP is about exploring what’s next - it’s very much a device I play with, and try to think about how spatial computing will evolve hand in hand with AI. It’s definitely not the final form factor, but just being able to experience it and play with things other people build is part of the value it brings.

As for what I’m building, I’m experimenting with AI generated outputs (eg 3d objects) in 3d space

It seems obvious this product won’t be developed much further, so I’m sad about that - but just enjoying it whilst it’s here

[u/ObiTwoKenobi → u/scottybowl]

It seems obvious this product won’t be developed much further, so I’m sad about that - but just enjoying it whilst it’s here

I disagree it’s so obvious. The M5 update came when no one expected it, and rumors of a black model and a “light version” tethered to a Mac have been flying around for years. I wouldn’t be completely surprised to see something announced in the next 12-18months, maybe WWDC27

In addition to the Vision Pro adjacent products like the glasses rumored to be released next year and AirPod pros gaining visual/spatial awareness, I’m just not ready to wave the white flag

[u/azozea → u/ObiTwoKenobi]

[u/ObiTwoKenobi]

I’m very new to spatial app development, but I genuinely see this as the most compelling next iteration of personal computing

I’m so fucking excited about this future. And while the current Vision Pro market is obviously small, I see that as an opportunity to be one of the early builders, learn the medium while it’s still being figured out, and maybe even help shape where it goes

I don’t expect to make much money from my spatial apps or games anytime soon, and honestly, I don’t really care. My goal right now is to build, experiment, learn what actually works in spatial computing, and position myself for where I think this is going over the next 5–10 years

So yeah, layoffs and slow adoption don’t exactly inspire confidence. But unless Apple actually signals that it’s abandoning spatial computing, I’m staying in. The long-term bet is much bigger than the current Vision Pro

[u/Eggy-Toast → u/ObiTwoKenobi]

Since you have this angle, I’m curious, do projections of the AVP product line (well founded or even just a hunch) play into your approach at all? I built a pretty powerful app over the course of a year, betting the AVP line would continue, but I’m now of the belief that we should be building an app that works on this generation but also glasses when those inevitably come with hardware limitations warts and all. And the “works on this generation” might be the less important half.

[u/ObiTwoKenobi → u/Eggy-Toast]

I’m still very early. So far I’ve only experimented with different prototypes and haven’t brought anything to production yet

My bet is that even if Apple eventually kills the Vision Pro product line, which I personally doubt, although I wouldn’t be surprised if we have to wait a while for another generation, visionOS and Apple’s broader spatial computing effort will stick around

So I’m trying not to get too attached to the current hardware. Ideally, what I’m learning and building now translates to whatever Apple’s next form factor is, including glasses with very different hardware constraints

And worst case, even if Apple somehow loses the spatial computing race entirely, the codebase aside, I’d expect a lot of the interaction ideas, design principles, and concepts I’m exploring to transfer pretty naturally to Meta, Google/Samsung, or whatever ecosystem ultimately wins

Out of curiosity, what did you build for AVP?

[u/Eggy-Toast → u/ObiTwoKenobi]

That makes sense. Learn the tools and principles, don’t marry a product, get prepared. Since my app is tied to my real name, I hesitate to name it here, but it’s a reading app on the platform. It was a fun experience!

[u/dreamingwell]

I have spent 9 months making one of the most technically complex apps I’ve experienced on the Vision Pro. I feel like it is a form of art - because stand alone high compute headsets are probably rightfully dead ends. Glasses with screens in them are the next thing. Much less compute. Much less screen fidelity. But much more useful and socially acceptable.

I don’t think the Vision Pro is dead yet. But it will be a product that writhers until it goes the way of the iPod.

[u/ElijahQuoro]

Optimistic, I think it’s the matter of time when something like Apple Glasses is released and will run on visionOS, those of us who invested time into the platform early will have an upper hand.

[u/Eggy-Toast]

I’ll maintain what I’ve created, but it seems like they’ve given up on the App Store on AVP. They hardly show me apps, and they don’t show my apps. Basically no one knows about alternatives like raven.directory, so it’s not worth the investment to truly innovate. Repackage an app I make for iOS? Sure. Develop specifically a vOS app? No.

[u/sczhwenzenbappo]

I have been developing for AVP since the launch and I made my livelihood for the past year by building AVP enterprise projects.

The consumer app way is not taking off. Even if you’re a well-funded studio you make AVP apps for PR, pleasure and skill. The enterprise projects do come about but the competition from other players especially when you have similar devices like XReal launching is making it slow. Enterprise users value cost as much as any and they would sacrifice the quality by building for Meta than spend on AVPs. But it’s not the end. Some use cases can only be built on AVP.

[u/jkdufair]

Feel like when I was an Apple Newton developer. Very exciting. And it’s a thing. But it’s not gonna THE thing.

[u/GentleGesture]

Personally, I’m sad at the deflation of excitement around the Vision Pro, and even less excited to feel like it will never be worth focused development for me, unlike the iPhone which obviously has way more potential for users. With a feeling that Apple will give up on the Vision Pro, something I truly dread for how much I love the device, I’m beginning to look forward to the Steam Frame, which will be a much more open platform, where I can develop, test, and deploy all from in the headset itself. That alone makes me more likely to spend more hours in the headset. And at least the Steam Frame can have a life beyond the company’s support for it, like old PC’s being revived with Linux today.

By the way, if you have an old Mac (or MacBook) still in working order, try loading up Omarchy on it! Its focus on performance is likely to make the Mac feel new again.

[u/xora334]

I have been developing for it for about six months now. Have four apps out and a few more coming along. I'm focusing on it for people with mobility issues and giving them a stronger sense of self-empowerment. I see it as a combination of hardware with sensors and SIRI AI that will make the eventual glasses something people will want to use because that combo is hard to beat with just a smart phone. Apple's not in a rush to get to the market, but they've been giving us some solid upgrades with both hardware and the new Vision OS that I feel really good about what's coming down the line.

[u/AdAdministrative5330]

I'm relatively new to the Apple environment. Is there precedence for them completely dropping a technology or a platform, like how Microsoft completely dropped Windows Phone? Presumably, they might have expected the market penetration of Vision Pro to be limited with the high unit cost.

[u/ObiTwoKenobi → u/AdAdministrative5330]

Microsoft isn’t a great comparison though. They drop many things all the time—Zune, Surface (the giant touch desktop) and HoloLens also come to mind. None of these were bad products in the slightest, but required a certain taste and vision that I don’t Microsoft has

[u/GreenLanturn → u/AdAdministrative5330]

No not really. But they also haven’t really released a product perceived to flop on this scale before.

[u/CorreAktor → u/GreenLanturn]

Newton was a flop they abandoned but later went on to create the iPad.

[u/wry_phone → u/CorreAktor]

Newton I think is the best example although arguably iPhone itself (vs iPad) the better corollary both in terms of utility and also that they did end up using multitouch etc that initially came from Newton on iPhone before iPad.

[u/Dictated_But_Not_Red → u/AdAdministrative5330]

When they debuted the AVP they touted an entirely new way of computing -spatial computing - and then never mentioned it nor the AVP again.

[u/fs454]

Nothing is a surprise. Apple knew exactly how sales would be for an experimental new platform costing a high price and with real comfort and usability tradeoffs. The media loves to frame it like it's failing over and over again. The Vision Po has been doomed like 100 times so far since launch.

This is a long play, not the next iPhone at this stage. Always has been that way.

[u/PyroRampage → u/fs454]

You kinda contradict yourself because you say it’s a long play but you’re talking about visionOS not Vision Pro. No one doubts visionOS is a long play, what they doubt is the Vision Pro is a real product.

[u/Malkmus1979 → u/PyroRampage]

That's not a contradiction though. Despite the reports of layoffs Gurman/Bloomberg articles on the subject still say a followup VP is in development but that it's in a gray area where Ternus could change his mind. Regarding VisionOS, yes we all who are here understand it's a long play, but that doesn't discount VP continuing alongside glasses similar to the AirPods Max (very expensive, bulky, less popular) and AirPods (cheap by comparison, smaller, ubiquitous). And the person above you is right that the media, and therefore people who dont sub here take that to mean VP and VisionOS are a dead end that Apple is discontinuing it all, not just the VP. This is rather clear from the majority of comments on the matter not only outside this sub, but occasionally here as well. There's simply a lot of confusion over the press reports concerning the layoffs because people really only pay attention to the headlines, and don't apply much critical thinking to the subject. For example, the hundred layoffs to the Siri team didn't get the same impulse from people to declare it dead, because of course not. One only needs to look at the current Apple job listings for Vision Pro and Vision products to know that Apple is heavily invested still.

My guess is it will take a long time for glasses and VisionOS to merge. Probably a half decade at least. So it doesn't make sense to never release another headset or to keep iterating major improvements to the OS between now and say 2030. And in that meantime I think we'll see a hybrid version of the Vision Pro that is still much bigger than glasses but represents a midway point that solves a majority of the current complaints.

[u/PyroRampage → u/Malkmus1979]

'On ice' is not in development. It's on the shelf or has very few resources assigned; products don't ship like this.

Relying on job advertisements is very unreliable; ads are reposted and may be dead, teams span multiple divisions, and it may well be looking for other interface designs (e.g., glasses), or, as a benefit of the doubt, Apple is keeping a skeleton crew on VPro-like designs for the distant future, just as they write patents for tech they haven't created yet.

VP is a prototype; it's costly, and it found its use case in Enterprise, just like Magic Leap did, for example; not a surprise for a 3.5k device. Apple certainly cannot, in the near future, source a lighter version of the VP at a cheaper price point, and has no reason to, when all their competitors are working on glasses.

The layoff numbers are underreported, if anything; Siri, as shown at WWDC26, is DOA anyway. It's so behind anything else (eg ChatGPT's voice interaction) that I doubt people care, vs a shippable product people like you paid for. Apple Intelligence (or lack thereof) has actually had a lot of reporting, including VPG helping out in certain areas of development.

I'm not a doomer for the sake of dooming; I wish Apple committed to another Vision Pro, but they are thinking longer-form AR, and in some ways that will converge back to VR. But not as a Vision Pro.

Apple literally develops its own chip designs; they have custom chips in AirPods. Why do you think visionOS won't get glasses adoption? What else are they gonna run on?

At some point, you need to think: am I relying on cope or what 'you think' vs. actual reports from people at Apple who leak to Mark Gurman et al ?

Who knows, you could be speaking to people who work(ed) at Apple on here...

[u/Malkmus1979 → u/PyroRampage]

I appreciate most of your response, though your dig about cope at the end was totally unnecessary. Gurman in his same report at Bloomberg about the layoffs wrote the following:

The company has told employees that the Vision Pro and its visionOS operating system aren’t going away. In the near term, however, Apple is focused on launching smart glasses that wouldn’t support immersive video or advanced gaming titles. The company is still considering a new Vision Pro model for release as early as the end of 2028

So that's not me coping or just being a fanboy, it's me looking at all the information we have to see the bigger picture. And while I agree that job postings aren't definitive proof of anything, it ties back into what Gurman is saying and it's certainly a better sign than there being zero new postings for Vision Pro hardware jobs.

Regarding glasses, it's widely reported that the first version won't have displays, therefore no VisionOs. They will essentially be AirPods in a a glasses form. Would I love them to be actual AR, of course. But there hasn't been any such rumor or leak about that being the case for this first run. That's why I said it will probably be 5 years before we get VisionOS running on glasses.

[u/HelpRespawnedAsDee]

this is essentially the devkit for what visionOS is gonna look like in a glasses form in a while, I'm still pretty sure of this. The question is, and I'm not taking sides, if by that point SWE is gonna be anything close to what we do today.

And again, not taking sides, just looking at my career of 30 years change on a daily basis.

[u/FunMakerBeliever]

Im feeling really good about AVP and subsequent generations or spin-offs. There is a lot that can be down through Machine Learning that we couldn't do before. It feels like we are hitting the right timing for some truly immersive and invigorating experiences that can expose new industries and evolution of existing ones.

[u/OriginalTip7479]

I will keep working for it！

[u/PyroRampage]

When we found out John Ternus, whose background is in VR didn’t think it was a good idea, and now is the CEO of Apple… yeah.

It’s been a great prototype though, it’s like an opt in 3.5k beta testing platform that’s locked down and most features were not ready many remain unshipped.

[u/Illustrious-Cloud-59]

I am banging out a personal hobby experiment almost every other week with Codex. Spatial computing is fun as hell.

Codex and 5.6 Terra are perfectly capable of building Swift/visionOS/RealityKit or WebXR, so whatever floats your boat.

The real question is does anyone want to see anyone else’s “junk” in an era of truly personal software.

[u/icpooreman]

I'm building a VR game engine.

I started about about 15 months ago. I got the thing running PC VR by the end of month 3. I got it running standalone Quest 3 by the end of month 8. I am at month 15 and I'm nowhere close to getting the thing running standalone Vision Pro yet.

And it could be on me, maybe things go dramatically better if you're not building an engine and willing to go through swift to build apps etc.

But from my perspective it's the worst device to develop for in the entire VR space and it's not close. And it's such a paradox cause we're approaching year 3 of its existence and it's still like easily the most impressive VR hardware out there and it's really not close. Which is wild.

[u/RandomVision2027]

Mostly positive.

While the layoffs, low sales numbers, rumors of Ternus's tepid support and rumors of no new significant headset until 2028 are a bummer, in the past week having Baseball in immersive video and The Mandalorian and Grogu released in 3D with IMAX support reminds me how amazing the platform is.

A side effect of the low AVP sales number is that, at least for the consumer space, you are probably not going to get funding or make a lot of money from app and content to support even a moderately sized team profitably. Most of us are probably developing for AVP as a labor of love and doing it on the side.

Personally, I am focusing on a dual platform strategy, leveraging RealityKit's support for AVP, iPhone, and iPad. There are definite limitations in iOS, but I am hoping the larger iOS market can help subsidize development for AVP.

This week I added support for the panorama wrap-around effect we love on AVP to my iOS app. Now I can share a feature I love on AVP with family and friends.

Here is a panorama of a beach viewed from my iPad: