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> Look at how snubbing developers has worked out for the Apple Vision Pro. I think it's mostly the lack of users. Apple snubs mobile developers all the time, b

> Look at how snubbing developers has worked out for the Apple Vision Pro. I think it's mostly the lack of users. Apple snubs mobile developers all the time, but since they gate access to a large chunk of well-paying customers, developers are ready to jump through any hoops. If there were millions of Apple Vision Pro users I'm sure the developers would have followed, but it's of course a chicken and egg situation considering Vision Pro lack of content.

modeless 1y ago
It's not really a chicken and egg situation, it's more of a cost problem. It still costs $3500. Even if the next version is a third of the price it will still cost three times more than the competition.
- throwanem 1y ago
  And if I'm buying it as a devkit I'm sure my accountant and I will find a way to write that off, anyway. $3500 isn't quite pocket change, but it is close enough to petty cash. But why do that if there's no users? And even the day-one diehards among my colleagues stopped wanting to be seen in them before long. I think it isn't really chicken-egg, is what I'm saying. Devs were so hot to target iPhone from day one that the first or second major OS update added an entire infrastructure to make that possible. There was so much interest it made Apple back down! For the Vision Pro they had that on day one and it wasn't nearly enough to sell the thing to devs, because again, nothing did nearly enough to sell the thing to users.
  - WD-42 1y ago
    What made the early apps great and viral on iPhone were the indie developers. The ones making flashlight and farting sound boards. They paved the way, and for them $3500 is a lot of money. Who cares if it’s pocket change for google or meta, nobody wants another Facebook app.
    - throwanem 1y ago
      Sure. And those early indie devs paid, inflation adjusted, iirc around $500-1000 for the hardware they developed against to put those indie flashlight fart noise apps on the then nascent App Store, because that's what an iPhone cost. $3500 is, as I said, pretty close to petty cash even for a sole-owner LLC that needs taking at all seriously, and I would front that sum without a second thought out of my own personal pocket if I thought VR had legs, the same way I've put about $9k toward inference-capable hardware in the last two years because AI obviously does have legs. It's an investment in my career, or at least toward the optionality of continuing a career in software in a post-AI world, assuming I don't decide to go be an attorney or something instead. I appreciate not everyone can drop a sum like that, like that. I can and I'm not ashamed of it. Why should I be, when it's exactly what I've worked the last 21 years straight to earn?
      - Bluestrike2 1y ago
        I think the issue is less the cost to developers and more the cost to users. Were there more users, no doubt a larger number of indie developers would be able to justify the expense. Without those users--or at least a reliable promise of those users in the near future--it's tough to justify even dipping your toes into it. It's a chicken and egg problem that's fundamentally tied to cost as well as hardware limitations. Discomfort from the bulk and weight was my biggest sticking point even before the price, for example. Plus, the hardware is just the initial starting point. Your initial outlay will quickly be eclipsed by the dev hours spent working on Vision versions of your app(s), and that's when the opportunity costs become particularly noticeable. Time spent on a Vision app that may have no real market for years is time you could be spending adding features, testing changes, fixing bugs, marketing, etc. Skipping on Vision Pro is really a no-brainer for most indie developers, at least for the foreseeable future.
        throwanem 1y ago
        Yes. That was my original point, just above the head of the branch where you responded. Could I have been more concise or more clear? Serious question, I am mildly retooling my prose style of late.
  - babypuncher 1y ago
    The price isn't as much of a problem for developer adoption, it's a problem for user adoption. Users aren't buying the Apple Vision Pro because it's $3500. Developers aren't writing apps for the Apple Vision Pro because it has no users.
    - throwanem 1y ago
      I said precisely as much in the comment to which you replied. Can you offer advice on my prose style therein?
      - pests 1y ago
        You didn't really talk about users at all. The only part of your comment about users is "But why do that if there's no users?". There can be many reasons why there are no users, price being just one of them.
        throwanem 1y ago
        That's fair. The implication was all in the comparison with week-1 campsites for iPhones versus day-1 yawns for Vision Pro, but it's smeared across two paragraphs and should have been hoisted and made explicit. Thanks for the review!
chmod775 1y ago
What killed the Vision Pro is the complete lack of support for the two main things people use VR for. Productivity is a distant third behind the likes of VR Chat and pornography. If Apple managed to capture only 1% of VR Chat's monthly userbase, they would've tripled their pathetic sales numbers. Apple tried to focus on productivity and some light entertainment and didn't even throw the other two a bone by supporting a PC link feature. Particularly they didn't make a physical link possible - Wifi is not reliable/high bandwidth enough for most people, so those third party solutions aren't cutting it. Apple users are mostly locked out of the existing PC VR ecosystem - Apple didn't have to rely on developers writing dedicated apps.
- spacedcowboy 1y ago
  I bought the AVP for one thing only - long haul flights. It makes the experience completely and utterly different, and it's less than the cost of a business seat. It "works for me".
  - nemomarx 1y ago
    what kind of flights are you buying that cost 3500 for a business seat? do you get them very last minute?
    - chmod775 1y ago
      Pretty standard for a ~10-12 hour flight. It's not like there's much reason to care about comforts on short flights. Anyone can tolerate economy for an hour and you'd probably not get out your VR headset for a short hop either.
    - toyg 1y ago
      From the perspective of a UK flyer, $3500 for a return ticket over the Atlantic in business class looks fairly cheap. Last time i checked (with one-month advance), I was quoted 4500+ GBP. Regardless, you don't throw away your headset after a flight, obviously, so even if the ticket were half the price you'd still come out ahead after two or three trips. This said, headsets like AVP improve the flying experience but don't magically solve it: they are still too heavy and uncomfortable to wear for more than 1-2 hours. That's why I'm betting on the more lightweight (and cheaper) sunglass-like products to actually win that market.
RajT88 1y ago
I know a lady who owns an ISV. Per her, you make a lot more money on the app store compared to other platforms.
- RajT88 1y ago
  Why the downvotes about an anecdote about the owner of (actually a couple of) software companies? She gives talks, in those talks she says she makes more money off iOS apps than other platforms. You can probably find a few of those talks on Youtube. Her gaming company you can read about here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webfoot_Technologies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webfoot_Technologies

modeless 1y ago

It's not really a chicken and egg situation, it's more of a cost problem. It still costs $3500. Even if the next version is a third of the price it will still cost three times more than the competition.

throwanem 1y ago
And if I'm buying it as a devkit I'm sure my accountant and I will find a way to write that off, anyway. $3500 isn't quite pocket change, but it is close enough to petty cash. But why do that if there's no users? And even the day-one diehards among my colleagues stopped wanting to be seen in them before long. I think it isn't really chicken-egg, is what I'm saying. Devs were so hot to target iPhone from day one that the first or second major OS update added an entire infrastructure to make that possible. There was so much interest it made Apple back down! For the Vision Pro they had that on day one and it wasn't nearly enough to sell the thing to devs, because again, nothing did nearly enough to sell the thing to users.
- WD-42 1y ago
  What made the early apps great and viral on iPhone were the indie developers. The ones making flashlight and farting sound boards. They paved the way, and for them $3500 is a lot of money. Who cares if it’s pocket change for google or meta, nobody wants another Facebook app.
  - throwanem 1y ago
    Sure. And those early indie devs paid, inflation adjusted, iirc around $500-1000 for the hardware they developed against to put those indie flashlight fart noise apps on the then nascent App Store, because that's what an iPhone cost. $3500 is, as I said, pretty close to petty cash even for a sole-owner LLC that needs taking at all seriously, and I would front that sum without a second thought out of my own personal pocket if I thought VR had legs, the same way I've put about $9k toward inference-capable hardware in the last two years because AI obviously does have legs. It's an investment in my career, or at least toward the optionality of continuing a career in software in a post-AI world, assuming I don't decide to go be an attorney or something instead. I appreciate not everyone can drop a sum like that, like that. I can and I'm not ashamed of it. Why should I be, when it's exactly what I've worked the last 21 years straight to earn?
    - Bluestrike2 1y ago
      I think the issue is less the cost to developers and more the cost to users. Were there more users, no doubt a larger number of indie developers would be able to justify the expense. Without those users--or at least a reliable promise of those users in the near future--it's tough to justify even dipping your toes into it. It's a chicken and egg problem that's fundamentally tied to cost as well as hardware limitations. Discomfort from the bulk and weight was my biggest sticking point even before the price, for example. Plus, the hardware is just the initial starting point. Your initial outlay will quickly be eclipsed by the dev hours spent working on Vision versions of your app(s), and that's when the opportunity costs become particularly noticeable. Time spent on a Vision app that may have no real market for years is time you could be spending adding features, testing changes, fixing bugs, marketing, etc. Skipping on Vision Pro is really a no-brainer for most indie developers, at least for the foreseeable future.
      - throwanem 1y ago
        Yes. That was my original point, just above the head of the branch where you responded. Could I have been more concise or more clear? Serious question, I am mildly retooling my prose style of late.
- babypuncher 1y ago
  The price isn't as much of a problem for developer adoption, it's a problem for user adoption. Users aren't buying the Apple Vision Pro because it's $3500. Developers aren't writing apps for the Apple Vision Pro because it has no users.
  - throwanem 1y ago
    I said precisely as much in the comment to which you replied. Can you offer advice on my prose style therein?
    - pests 1y ago
      You didn't really talk about users at all. The only part of your comment about users is "But why do that if there's no users?". There can be many reasons why there are no users, price being just one of them.
      - throwanem 1y ago
        That's fair. The implication was all in the comparison with week-1 campsites for iPhones versus day-1 yawns for Vision Pro, but it's smeared across two paragraphs and should have been hoisted and made explicit. Thanks for the review!

chmod775 1y ago

What killed the Vision Pro is the complete lack of support for the two main things people use VR for. Productivity is a distant third behind the likes of VR Chat and pornography. If Apple managed to capture only 1% of VR Chat's monthly userbase, they would've tripled their pathetic sales numbers. Apple tried to focus on productivity and some light entertainment and didn't even throw the other two a bone by supporting a PC link feature. Particularly they didn't make a physical link possible - Wifi is not reliable/high bandwidth enough for most people, so those third party solutions aren't cutting it. Apple users are mostly locked out of the existing PC VR ecosystem - Apple didn't have to rely on developers writing dedicated apps.

spacedcowboy 1y ago
I bought the AVP for one thing only - long haul flights. It makes the experience completely and utterly different, and it's less than the cost of a business seat. It "works for me".
- nemomarx 1y ago
  what kind of flights are you buying that cost 3500 for a business seat? do you get them very last minute?
  - chmod775 1y ago
    Pretty standard for a ~10-12 hour flight. It's not like there's much reason to care about comforts on short flights. Anyone can tolerate economy for an hour and you'd probably not get out your VR headset for a short hop either.
  - toyg 1y ago
    From the perspective of a UK flyer, $3500 for a return ticket over the Atlantic in business class looks fairly cheap. Last time i checked (with one-month advance), I was quoted 4500+ GBP. Regardless, you don't throw away your headset after a flight, obviously, so even if the ticket were half the price you'd still come out ahead after two or three trips. This said, headsets like AVP improve the flying experience but don't magically solve it: they are still too heavy and uncomfortable to wear for more than 1-2 hours. That's why I'm betting on the more lightweight (and cheaper) sunglass-like products to actually win that market.

RajT88 1y ago

I know a lady who owns an ISV. Per her, you make a lot more money on the app store compared to other platforms.

RajT88 1y ago
Why the downvotes about an anecdote about the owner of (actually a couple of) software companies? She gives talks, in those talks she says she makes more money off iOS apps than other platforms. You can probably find a few of those talks on Youtube. Her gaming company you can read about here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webfoot_Technologies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webfoot_Technologies