These kind of comments baffle me. You can use a physical bluetooth keyboard in that moment, a touchpad, a mouse. If it makes sense to do this with a Vision Pro is a different question. But of course it's possible.
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Here Are All the Apps Pre-Installed on the Apple Vision Pro
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What…no Clips??? 🤣
The Vision Pro comes with a number of Apple apps that are also available on the iPhone and the iPad. We've seen some of the apps over the past few months in tidbits of information that Apple has provided, but the Vision Pro technical specifications that went live today alongside pre-orders list every app that the device comes with.
Pre-installed apps optimized for Vision Pro:
- App Store
- Encounter Dinosaurs
- Files
- Freeform
- Keynote
- Messages
- Mindfulness
- Music
- Notes
- Photos
- Safari
- Settings
- Tips
- TV
Pre-installed apps not optimized for Vision Pro:
- Books
- Calendar
- Home
- Maps
- News
- Podcasts
- Reminders
- Shortcuts
- Stocks
- Voice Memos
Curiously, while there is a Keynote app that's pre-installed, Apple does not list the other iWork apps like Pages and Numbers. Find My is not on Apple's list, nor are the Health, Clock, Contacts, and Weather apps. FaceTime is not on the list, but the fine print confirms that there is indeed a FaceTime app and also a Capture app for taking video and photos on the device.
There may be some Apple apps that are not pre-installed but able to be downloaded from the App Store after launch, and there will be a number of third-party apps designed for the Vision Pro.
We'll be sharing a list of Vision Pro apps closer to when the headset debuts, and it is also worth noting that many iOS apps will run on the device automatically unless developers opt out.
Article Link: Here Are All the Apps Pre-Installed on the Apple Vision Pro
Apple Books -- but NOT a PDF Viewer.
Of course you can read a PDF in Safari, but that's a massive PITA, especially a long PDF.
I may land up passing on this until a decent PDF reading solution is available. Maybe GoodReader from iPad wants to port over?
Apple criticised android as having non optimized blown up phone apps, that looks like that, not even using all that space for a ticker tape.
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
Yes, but that doesn't replicate for the cheaper options like the XReal example I offered, they need a tethered battery and the computing in a phone or computer too.
Vpro didn't work "in" the battery either... but there is a whole computer inside... which can work separately from Mac or iDevice. To replicate that in normal sized glasses must overcome the "big 3":
1. Where is the power source?
2. Where is the computing so user can see something, wifi or cellular to connect to something, etc.?
3. How does a "regular glasses" format keep the external/surrounding light OUT, so that whatever the eyes are seeing is not washed out by bright light seeping in?
With the XReal "regular glasses" option available now, that's...
1. Tethered to separate power, like Vpro
2. Tethered to the computing device to produce some picture (which can also supply the battery power for #1)
3. ??? Wrap one's head in a heavy towel? Only wear "sunglasses" at night? Build some kind of "stuffing" to wrap around all sides where light can get in?
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They’ve been developing the hardware for years.
They’ve been developing the OS and interaction for less time.
Those things need to be relatively stable before they can develop the applications so only more recently.
It’s a lot of work to reimagine applications and to code them. Resources are limited so they had to prioritize some apps over others. Until we have spent time with AVP and Spacial Computing, no one is entirely sure what works and what doesn’t. How and what we do with AVP will likely evolve quickly over the next couple of years. Remember our original expectations for using the Apple Watch and how that changed over time? Some AVP apps may need more changes, others may never need any changes from the iPad versions. We’ll see what happens after people have used this for a while.
People, please form an orderly queue and have your payment ready. Strictly one Apple Vision Pro per customer.
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
Apply the same to iPhone, iPad and Mac. There are functional $200 smart phones, $100 Fire tablets and $200 laptops.
All Apple offerings are relatively expensive for doing whatever one wants to do with them. Yet Apple sells tons of all of their high-priced stuff every year, yielding "another record quarter of revenue & profit" over and over and over again... even throughout Covid when many thought the sky was falling, depression was impending, etc.
For this ONE thing, it's like many of us have flipped our imaginations to the counter view, but only time will tell (soon) if buyers show up in sufficient volume and then value what they are buying here or not.
It makes zero sense to dig the grave before we even get to examine the body. Imaginations have run wild over what is still vapor today... but all that imagination is about to face reality in less than 2 weeks. Then, any of us will know what it can and cannot do, how well it does it and even gain the ability to directly compare it vs. cheaper competitors with our own eyes... instead of other people's guesses about this wonder product or pile of... depending on which post any given person reads.
I look forward to having a good look myself... and then pass my own judgement vs. jumping to conclusions on vapor imaginations.
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What is the “killer app” for a laptop? Or any other general purpose computing device?
Previous apps that some people called “killer apps” were not usually planned to be that. They were adopted by people as they used a device and discovered what worked and what mattered to them. Killer apps are not preconfigured. They evolve out of how the devices get used.
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Apple Books IS a PDF reader for long form PDFs.
Files has a built-in PDF reader.
GoodReader may very well enable their iPad app on the AVP. Any iPad app is available by default unless the publisher chooses to manually block it. The same goes for dozens and dozens of other iPad PDF readers.
his extreme scepticism doesn't seem any more or less warranted than the extremely optimistic people.
Lets see. Personally, I'm not impressed with the software they have lined up here. It feel to me like the only argument people have for "why" this will be the headset that makes VR take of is that "its apple and they make cool things" often followed my an unwilling baa.
I'm waiting for the eventual debate about Vision Pro actually being a computer vs how the Apple tried to market iPads as being a computer. Since VisionOS is closest to iPadOS it seems.
I wish I had known that Netflix wouldn't be supporting Apple Vision Pro.
It doesn't actually affect me, because we dropped Netflix last month, after more than a decade and a half on the service and many years watching DVDs from Netflix.
However, if I had known, I would have waited a month so we could rage-quit.
It doesn't actually affect me, because we dropped Netflix last month, after more than a decade and a half on the service and many years watching DVDs from Netflix.
However, if I had known, I would have waited a month so we could rage-quit.
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IMHO I think the news that Netflix, YouTube, Spotify, won't make optimized apps is pointing to the difficulty/cost involved versus supporting a small user base that the VP represents initially. Is doing this for Apple benefit them in any possible financial way versus all the other platforms watching or listening to content exists? As I said everyone in MacOS/Windows uses a browser anyway when a app doesn't exist.
That will be fun. A Commodore 64 was a computer, since it had a keyboard. It didn't have a screen of any kind, though. You had to hook it up to a television. You can attach a keyboard to an iPad, and it has a screen.I'm waiting for the eventual debate about Vision Pro actually being a computer vs how the Apple tried to market iPads as being a computer. Since VisionOS is closest to iPadOS it seems.
I guess the difference is that computer like a Commodore 64 is more powerful and can do more than a non-computer, such as an iPad.
I also feel like it's kind of insane, but then I read your list of examples and they're all just gimmicks. I think that's the core problem Vision Pro faces. As media consumption devices, VR goggles are great. But what else are they really good for?
Am I really going to put on VR goggles just so my weather app has an immersive feel? It's a weather app. I just want to check it quickly and get back to whatever I'm doing. I don't need effects and I certainly don't need a changing background to show me conditions outside...when I can just look out the window.
Maps...another gimmick. Sure, it might be cool to fly over a 3D map, but unless you're a map geek who enjoys pouring over maps for hours, what's the advantage? I just want directions quickly and efficiently. I'm not going to use a headset to guide me anywhere. I often find 3D map views more confusing than helpful. A 2D map view gives me all of the information I need. I see the whole route. I can read all the street names. I don't have to turn my head or look around to find something. 3D is a gimmick. It doesn't add any real value, just inefficient eye candy.
These forums are full of fantasy use cases and a handful really do sound compelling. The rest are just gimmicks. What strikes me again and again is how visually cluttered all of these suggestions sound. Big windows floating everywhere. Virtual objects on real world surfaces. It looks good in sci-fi movies, but I don't (yet) believe that it makes for a better or more productive user experience.
I don't know that it's difficulty as much as user base size. It's probably not that hard to port an existing app to visionOS, but then you have to maintain it, update it every time Apple releases a bug fix or update, and support a very small number of users relative to other platforms. From a developer point of view, what's the incentive?
I won't be the least bit surprised if most developers sit on the sidelines and wait to see how things play out. In the end, unit sales will decide developer support. Vision Pro needs to sell iPad or Mac level units before we see any sort of robust developer support.
On my iPad or iPhone, if I receive a PDF in mail, I can open it and read it with no problems. I can save it to my library in Books, or save it in Files.
One thing I noticed when I first started using Macs...
Well I first started using Macs in the mid-1980s, but I didn't own one until 20 years later...
One thing I noticed when I first started using OS X Macs 20 years ago was that when I printed something, there was an option to "Save as PDF" instead. I also noticed that sometimes graphics that were perfect on screen looked less perfect in the saved PDF. Those same graphics had the same imperfections when printed. An example would be lines that made up a box wouldn't meet in the corners exactly. I don't see this any more, but seeing it then made me think that Apple was using the same engine to generate the PDF as it used to generate the image to be sent to the printer.
Nothing earth shattering there, but my point is that PDF was integrated deeply into OS X, and it seems to be integrated into iOS and iPadOS. I'd expect that integration to continue in Vision OS.
Since Vision OS has the Notes App, I have a question (which I'll answer myself on February 2). I use the notes app often because it has an excellent, easy to use document scanner, which saves the scans as PDFs. I'm hoping that the same functionality will be available with Vision OS. It certainly seems that it would be even easier to use the document scanner when you have both hands free to hold and position the document you're scanning. But is the camera on the Vision Pro high enough resolution to produce decent scans?
This reminds me of some PC users' reactions to Windows. Graphical interfaces were a gimmick. WYSIWYG was a gimmick. To save your work, it's backslash-F-S! How is it better to reach for a mouse, figure out where your pointer is on the screen, move it to the menu bar, click to open the File menu to drop it down, and then move it to the Save menu option?
From your description, I'd guess you think Maps is a gimmick on a Mac. No one walks around or drives around with an open laptop giving them directions!
Well, no one excpept me, in 2000, using Microsoft Streets, in a rental car, with a big yellow GPS antenna on the dashboard and the laptop's audio playing on the car's stereo by way of an audiocassette adapter, trying to find the Sheriff's office in Broward County, Florida.
But how I use maps on my Mac in 2024 is to explore places I want to visit (e.g., find a hotel that's near a train station or an attraction), or places that I'm curious about. I would use maps on Apple Vision Pro the same way.
Would I put on a headset just to look at a map and get directions? Probably not. Would I put it on to virtually explore a place I'm interested in? Yes, if it offered me a qualitatively better experience. And if I also needed directions, I might get them while I'm there, preview the route in case it takes me near something else interesting, and then maybe send the directions to the Maps app on my phone.
Would I put on a headset to check the weather? Probably not. I can't imagine a qualitatively better experience that would make it worth putting on the headset. But if I were using Apple Vision Pro and I needed to check the weather, having a weather app would be useful so that I don't have to take off the headset and pick up my phone.
I would love to see, live wallpapers in some more 3 D effect, I do really like Live wallpapers on ATV and on my Mac Studio with 5K display, they are truly special in my opinion, I think most of them taken by Space Shuttle?
It is interesting that Apple won't port all their apps to AVP and yet they want developers to port there apps. I am curious how this product will evolve over time. I remember preordering my first generation iPad while everyone was telling me it was a stupid product that has no uses.
Laptops have killer application in that you don't have to carry your desktop/monitor/keyboard/mouse/electric power with you, sorry if that sounded obtusely obvious but it kind of is and was true of the very first laptop. But I was being a bit facetious anyway, even though there is a grain of truth in there as even other VR headsets have yet to find a killer app or functionality (except maybe for gaming), at least in terms of widespread market penetration similar to an iPhone. As AR/VR becomes smaller and more feasible to wear I think they will become more ubiquitous, but I always hate talking about the maybe of tomorrow as if it's a certainty today.
Personally I have decided to give Apple the benefit of the doubt, even with the utter lack of a roadmap they are providing, and see if this next 1-2 years are meant mainly as development years (or more aptly termed "help devs, save me by inventing something" years). I'm not buying one, but won't denigrate anyone else's purchase, especially if they simply want the best VR headset on the market. I am, however, a bit concerned as a shareholder at Apple's lack of purpose here, but at least most of their other cylinders are fully firing. I suppose every tech company throws stuff to the wall to stick and we have to give Apple some freedom in this regard, at least for a little while.