Apple has just rolled out the first visionOS Developer Beta and the visionOS SDK, which will let developers try out the Vision Pro operating system and create third-party apps for the spatial computer. After so many years of using Apple devices, we know that developers will come up with killer ideas that will make the Vision Pro worthwhile, on top of Apple’s own interesting Vision Pro app ideas.
Apple already said that Vision Pro would run iPadOS apps, which means the device will have a rich catalog of apps on release even if developers do not create native visionOS apps. But it sure looks like developers are excited to try out the visionOS SDK. And some of them needed only a few hours to create versions of their existing apps for the Vision Pro.
In what follows, I’ll cover some of these first Vision Pro apps that developers are already showing off on social media. From the looks of it, there’s plenty of excitement about Apple’s new operating system. We’ll likely see plenty of iPhone and iPad apps get the visionOS treatment in the coming months.
Also, these are just first drafts, made in the first few hours after the visionOS SDK release. Developers have plenty of time to polish these apps further and develop more ideas until the Vision Pro launches next year.
The Task App
Developer Mustafa Yusuf said on Twitter he felt like a “god,” as the first version of the Task App for Vision Pro got no errors as he built the first version for Vision Pro.
Flighty
As the name implies, Flighy lets you track flights on iPhone and iPad. The developers have already created a version of Vision Pro that looks like this.
Planny
Writing about Planny, developer Kevin Reutter said a lot of work is still needed. But this is the first version of the app for visionOS.
Mercury
If you want to see what a weather app would look like on the Vision Pro, the Mercury devs are here to help. Unlike the previous visionOS app screenshots, we have a video this time. It shows the Vision Pro apps are more than iPad/iPhone apps layered on top of the real world.
The apps feel like objects, and you can move around them to change your perspective.
Unnamed location journaling app for iPhone
The following app isn’t official, so it doesn’t seem to have a name. But the developer said he could port it to visionOS with ease. Like Mercury, this one has a video demo:
Adalbert
Adalbert is a 2010 app its developer ported to Vision Pro using the recently released SKD.
ComicReader
This is what reading comics might look like on the Vision Pro. You’ll be able to read any sort of content on the device, of course. Still, comics might be especially interesting, considering you have a massive, virtually unlimited display in front of your eyes that allows better zooming than iPhone and iPad.
Is this a generative AI app?
The following is either a chat app or a generative AI app for VisionOS from China.
DayBridge
DayBridge is a calendar app for Vision Pro from a team of developers who haven’t made an iPad version of the app. They needed less than an hour to build a visionOS version of it:
Timetable
Again, video demos are much better than screenshots for visionOS apps. The Timetable app demo for Vision Pro gets that video treatment. You get to see the overall look of the app and the user interface:
These are only a few examples of the first visionOS apps that developers are making. But we’ll see more concepts soon for existing iPhone and iPad apps that will be ported to the Vision Pro. As for the new ideas developers are coming up with, I’d expect those to remain secret until those apps are ready.
Still, it looks like the third-party Vision Pro app ecosystem is off to a great start.
