Vision Pro app releases started slow, and got even slower
There were virtually no new apps on Apple’s headset in September.
We’re often told with virtual and augmented reality that the possibilities are almost endless. On the $3,499 Apple Vision Pro headset, however, the amount of new experiences for users to explore seems to have already slowed to a near standstill.
According to data from Appfigures, cited recently in The Wall Street Journal, there were 300 new apps released for the Vision Pro in February, its official US launch month. In September, there were 10.
Apple has a slightly higher tally for the total number of releases so far (perhaps owing to some apps not attracting enough users to register on Appfigures’ system, the data company conceded), but even its own estimate that 2,500 apps had been purpose-built for the Vision Pro by August puts it far behind previous Apple device launches.
Late developers
While there will naturally be a whole host of reasons that app makers aren’t building for the Vision Pro as eagerly as they have for other products — there were more than 10,000 apps on the Apple Watch ~five months into its existence, for instance — a hefty chunk of the explanation is simply down to low demand for the product itself. Originally, Apple expected to shift 800,000 units of its mixed-reality headsets in 2024; now it reportedly expects to sell between 400,000 and 450,000.
Demand looks likely to pick up next year, thanks in no small part to the expected release of a cheaper version of the VP, but whether the ecosystem is big enough to keep users hooked by then is another matter entirely.
