Considering most of these companies are in the middle of budget cuts and layoffs (including specifically in the YouTube division), it should be obvious that they aren’t going to be rushing to staff up teams to build an app for an untested device that will probably be in the hands of a few thousand people at launch. “Wait and see” is the best approach right now.
I don't know that they've made the effort (or would want to) but Apple has an opportunity here I think to make next-generation video site that favors material that works well for VisionPro and whatever follows it. If YouTube isn't willing to encourage content for the platform, and someone else is, they risk ending up as an also-ran.
It's a small population, no doubt. But it's also a population that's willing to spend a substantial amount of money, and if you can get people creating content for your platform ("VPTube" or whatever you'd call it) then it's going to be harder to pull those content creators back to YouTube after that wait and see period. They're dealing with that problem with TikTok right now.
> Apple has an opportunity here I think to make next-generation video site that favors material that works well for VisionPro and whatever follows it
I certainly remember the period when Apple didn't want to hand over the user IDs for users while they were accessing Google's map data and Google refusing to allow turn by turn driving directions on iOS until they did.
Apple's solution was to spend a fortune to develop their own Map data.
I wouldn't bet against them rolling their own 3D video sharing site.
> Apple's solution was to spend a fortune to develop their own Map data.
They most likely just downloaded openstreetmap database and spent nothing. Do you have any source that the logical and easy thing is not what they did?
Apple initially licensed data primarily from TomTom and also from others.
They've been replacing licensed map data with data they gather themselves for over half a decade now. So far, their own data covers North America, Europe, Australia as well as a few countries elsewhere. 35 countries so far.
No. GP is right. Apple Maps was originally created from a dump of Openstreetmap data. Apple then collected its own data to build its own maps from scratch and contributed none of that back. It used, and still uses, TomTom for traffic incident data. https://gspe21-ssl.ls.apple.com/html/attribution.html
Almost all of the large tech companies with a mapping product contribute data to OpenStreetMap, with Google being the sole exception that I'm aware of.
> They most likely just downloaded openstreetmap database and spent nothing. Do you have any source that the logical and easy thing is not what they did?
Yes, openstreetmap's data was WAYYYY better than Apple Maps at launch.
In central London Apple Maps had such bad data that some of the business listings hadn't existed since before Apple Inc was formed as company, which were certainly not problems in openstreetmap.
Apple maps was worse at launch than Google Maps was at the time.
However I welcomed the change as it was Google which was preventing Siri from working outside of north america ("find restaurant near me"; didn't work in the UK until after Apple Maps)
Today the landscape is different. Google Maps is positively littered with ads which makes it in some cases very annoying to use.
Turn-by-turn navigation, if you have carplay is much superior with apple maps.
They have comparably updated maps data.
So, it's a marginally better usability in some cases and equivalent in most.
Google has two advantages: Reviews and more accurate points of interest (if they are businesses).
> Google Maps probably has MUCH better worldwide coverage. Which means that Apple Maps is useless in large parts of the world.
But that is not a major disadvantage for everyone. It’s a disadvantage in those areas only. Same app version might work great for me, but not for someone else. I wonder if they specifically target improved coverage in areas with most iPhone customers?
That's not as obvious and not true for most applications. A game or a note taking app will be great or crappy regardless of the area. Maps is an application where the same version works great in on area and then completely unusable in another geographical area. That's pretty odd if you think about it. So then it leads to endless debate "It works great for me, better than Google maps" and of course there will be someone who says "NO! It's complete crap and never works". And both may be right.
> And I assume even Americans and Californians want to travel to places with bad coverage.
Most people don't travel that much. iPhone and Apple's ecosystem in general was never positioned as affordable to 7+ billion people everywhere. I don't know if Apple is going to bother mapping details of some remote village just become an iPhone carrying American might visit. Maybe eventually, but they'll start with US probably.
> The remaining 7+ billion people, tough luck.
Sure. Apple doesn't run a charity and providing details and accurate navigation and maps everywhere is not something they're in the business for.
Where I live, OSM is quite ok. It doesn't generally have the opening hours of the venues… but the opening hours in google are generally made up so that's ok.
OSM has all the mountain trails and caves and hostels, where as gmaps just shows a huge green blob.
3. Apple has global coverage for its maps (or at least equal to Google). Apple maps is formerly Tomtom after all.
Google Maps excels in providing comprehensive information on public transportation routes with much better coverage, but driving routes are equivalent.
4. Eh. We are talking about Apple products so hardly relevant.
Apple successfully displaced Google on its platform with a product that is sometimes better and not particularly worse.
> Reviews and more accurate points of interest (if they are businesses).
Uh?
Google maps will never ever send me to a restaurant that is 200m from me. It will rather show one that is 5km away and not show the nearby one.
Same thing for hotels.
Once, at maximum zoom level, it didn't show the restaurant I was in. So I added it… turns out it was in their database, they just decided to not show it.
I think they're running a mafia racket and if you don't pay for ads, you are basically taken off the map.
It was certainly horrific for a while, I work in agriculture across a large area and we "banned" a coworker from using it because all of the pins they would send us would end up a mile away somehow, whereas they didn't have that problem with google maps.
However it is very much improved these days, and workable enough. Definitely worth a re-evaluation.
Incidentally, I encounter two intermittent bugs in google maps:
- This past year there's a bug that mirrors the old apple maps problem of sending me somewhere way off from my destination in some rare and particular (barely inhabited) areas, like an AI is trying to snap the point to something normal people would recognize as a destination. But no, my destination really is the side of a field. I find I can get around this by doing a longer hold press when setting the location which seems to force the coordinates. It's always important to double check the destination didn't change on me.
- Sometimes when clicking "Start", the app will get stuck presenting some kind of text only directions with no way to get away from that damned useless white screen until I kill the app and re-enter the destination.
It might be uneven in different markets, but they’ve been working very hard at improving the content and UX and in a number of markets it’s a viable and very strong competitor to Google Maps.
It will sometimes feel the lack of Google Business Listings, but the driving/walking/biking/transport/streetview experience is uniformly great where they’re released optimised versions of their maps — in my case Australia.
I thought the same thing till I bought my new car recently and started using Maps due to Carplay. It has MASSIVELY improved since launch. In fact, my wife is an Android user and we will compare them regularly on trips and in many case Apple Maps will cover parts of the route that Google Maps will not. An example is gated communities, Google Maps usually ends at the gate, Apple Maps will route to the house.
I think Google Maps has better traffic data (but that’s thanks to buying Waze), but Apple Maps has better routing. Google Maps has more up to date POI data, but Apple Maps is not far behind. Try it again and see, you still may be prefer Google Maps but it’s not the night and day difference between the two it once was.
I find it pretty acceptable these days. And has some advantages over Google maps due to native integration, like showing directly navigation screen when you take your phone out of your pocket without a need to unlock your phone or touch the screen.
I think the fact that apps are available for Meta's products show that (at the time) there was confidence into a potential growth category. And (currently) there is no confidence that Apple's product makes any commercial sense (in the near future). This is even emphasized by Apple clearly launching this in small quantities with excessive margins.
Apple and YT would miss-out on advertising to a captive, targeted demo of UHNWIs, corporate types, and those with expensive toys. Second to being a UBS or Tesla customer list or list of people with ASW accounts, it's a target-rich environment of that particular demo. Of course, marketing to that demo is very precarious and must be done deftly because it could easily backfire.
I highly doubt VR is going to replace a phone for users. People will still sit in bed and stare at their phone. vr is more of a hobby than it is an everyday computing device
Apple doesn't really have experience with building a platform for user generated content. Sure, they have the technological might, but content moderation, recommendation fairness, ad monetization, etc. are different beasts and usually come with awful publicity risks that might just not be worth the effort for the world's richest company.
They are like 99% there tho. You can start group chat in iMessage and share iCloud videos there. There's some moderation built in iCloud imagine scanning.
That was to let governments know they are willing to write software to find files the government doesn't want people to have. Child porn is just the icing smeared on that turd.
Good point. Although I'd also say that the barrier to entry for content producers is somewhat higher for App Store. You'd likely need some level of computer science education and their review process also takes longer and is controversial at times.
As someone who worked on platform and partnership in big tech:
Because they smell leverage. Vision Pro adoption has to be subsidized by Apple, there’s no demand. To bootstrap demand popular apps with users need to be available. They have no risk of losing customers to a competitor by not shipping this.
So they are building negotiation ammo for a bit for the next round of conversations over platform fees, app review processes, etc.
Heavy +1, as someone often involved from the other side.
For whatever reason the VR industry has been a particularly strange stand off ground in this universe because of a certain huge player trying to get mainstream user interest to take off to make their negotiating hand with potential suppliers much stronger, but it has not worked.
Yea that's is exactly it and fair play. Eg afaik Netflix pays double digit percentage points for in app sales to Apple through their app. Why shouldn't they then question that if Apple want them to support a totally new UX paradigm.
Likely because the Vision SDK is going to be buggy in the beginning and they don't want to deal with the crash reports, support tickets etc. As well as all of their telemetry and product analytics data being messed up with people using their products in weird ways.
If I was any of those companies I wouldn't bother either.
Not likely. Large companies do not make these sorts of decisions based on fear of bugs. They make them based on revenue, strategic advantage, etc.
Can you imagine any hard-charging SV CEO saying "actually it might be a bit buggy or muck up our analytics data, best leave it for now folks, enjoy your weekend, take it easy"
Large companies do not have the CEO getting involved in Product decisions like which platforms to develop for or the various downstream implications of those decisions.
It's left up to Product Managers who very much do care about whether their analytics data is messed up given that it is often used to evaluate their performance.
> Large companies do not have the CEO getting involved in Product decisions like which platforms to develop for
My sweet summer child, the relationship between Apple and Netflix/Google is entirely determined by their respective platform Bizdev teams + executive relationships. Product happens after the business terms are hashed out.
I don’t think the SDK is necessary for an iPad app to run unmodified on Vision, only if you want to specialize for the environment. However, I can see them maybe actively disabling their apps until they can test them, or perhaps they were buggy but didn’t think it was worth fixing given the limited user base.
The YouTube web app allows you to download videos you might want to watch offline. Not sure about the other apps, but it's easy. So, no need for an app there.
Either Google only built it to use Widevine (which Safari doesn't support) or Safari's limitations on the amount of data that can be stored make it too unreliable to roll out to customers.
You're implying native app. Previous comment said (browser) web app. Not sure who is correct on feature support, but you're cross talking on the product SKU.
I thought people in Apple world desired the walled garden experience where the guardian is so strict to "monitor the quality and safety of apps" that you can't possibly allow for side loading.
Why allow subpart experiences onto a new platform that makers can't afford to make "safe and perfect"?
This is interesting as a symbol of how times have changed because YouTube was one of the handful of built-in apps on the original iPhone, before the App Store.
(For some reason the iPhone YouTube app's icon was an image of a retro cream-and-brown 1940s TV. I guess Steve Jobs just liked that design because it certainly didn't have anything to do with YouTube's branding and didn't look like anything Google would have picked for any product.)
When Microsoft shipped the revamped Windows Phone a few years later, the "app gap" was one of the main problems. High-profile apps like YouTube never became available on the platform because by then Google was busy promoting their own mobile OS.
> the "app gap" was one of the main problems. High-profile apps like YouTube never became available on the platform
There were great native third-party YouTube clients in the official Store on Windows Phone. On the contrary, I missed my Youtube client after I had to switch back to Android (until I found NewPipe).
The app gap was the generic bland comment about windows phone every writer put in their reviews/articles/tests. I didn't feel I was missing many apps with my lumia 640 and I don't think it's what solely derailed the platform but that mantra felt like death by a thousand same cuts.
It was as boring and stupid as reading "yeah that igpu is fine but not for gaming of course unless you restrict yourself to 2d or indie games" is.
With Safari, and Safari’s ability to run sites like apps (assuming this will make it to VisionOS), I don’t see this as that big of an issue. Not like it was for Windows phone.
Spotify isn’t something that should need a dedicated app to play music in the background, it could run in the browser just fine. I think the same
Is true for YouTube. It may not have VisionOS specific features, but watching videos shouldn’t be a problem.
I removed the YouTube app from my phone a few months ago, because I thought I was using it too much. I still load it up in the browser all the time and it works fine. I don’t have background audio anymore, but that should not be an issue on VisionOS, and is a premium phone feature that most users don’t have.
> With Safari, and Safari’s ability to run sites like apps (assuming this will make it to VisionOS), I don’t see this as that big of an issue. Not like it was for Windows phone.
It's not like Windows Phone didn't have a browser too (IE). And it's not like Apple aren't the ones making sure Safari doesn't support everything for Progressive Web Apps which could have come handy here.
> Spotify isn’t something that should need a dedicated app to play music in the background, it could run in the browser just fine.
Maybe. Would it work if your browser is on the background while you're reading something from another app on the Vision Pro?
> Would [Spotify] work if your browser is on the background while you're reading something from another app
Not sure about Spotify, but the only thing that stops YouTube’s mobile website from working in the background is its own code. On Android, with the Firefox addon disabling the Page Visibility API for it, it plays perfectly in the background.
Only time will tell. From what we’ve seen so far, VisionOS seems more like macOS, where a user will be multitasking across multiple applications in front of them at once. I’d be shocked if a user can’t watch a video or listen to music in one window, while doing something else in another. It would be DOA without that basic function.
> With Safari, and Safari’s ability to run sites like apps (assuming this will make it to VisionOS), I don’t see this as that big of an issue.
I do see a big issue: not having the ability to use Netflix' and YouTube's (app only) download feature, to allow you to watch videos offline (on a plane for instance).
> With Safari, and Safari’s ability to run sites like apps (assuming this will make it to VisionOS), I don’t see this as that big of an issue. Not like it was for Windows phone.
That’s exactly what Windows Phone strategy was. And web browsers still can’t run websites like apps no matter what the PWA advocates say.
Things have changed a lot since Windows Phone. Electron has become huge for desktop applications, and many mobile apps are simply wrappers for a web app. The apps we’re talking about in this case aren’t very resource intensive, and both have very capable web experiences.
> Electron has become huge for desktop applications
Electron isn't the same as PWA and runs in Chrome for starters and also has an underbelly you can control and extend with native code. Apple intentionally limits Safari's multimedia capabilities to push you towards making apps.
the microsoft phone missed an incredible opportunity to undercut the established platforms by both supporting native (windows) apps, but also encourage web based mobile "apps" (this was the era that pwa would've been able to take root). Unfortunately, microsoft thought they would get enough native clout to own a platform instead of giving in to a standard.
You wouldn't be saying this if you had used the absolutely pathetic browser they shipped with Windows Phone. They even called it "Internet Explorer", that's how blind they were to brand damage done by IE6.
Mobile web apps were pretty janky until 2016 or so, and the last Windows Phone came out in 2014.
Wasn't that design partly because early iOS was driven by "skeuomorphic design"? So thinking in terms of that "YouTube" would remind people of "the tubes" AKA usually another word to describe a TV.
Think he looked at the home screen like ad space and didn't want the YT logo on all the iPhone marketing and being the first thing people see when they unlock it every time.
It did? I guess it's forever stuck in my mind as the YouTube iPhone icon and I've forgotten it was used elsewhere.
A quick googling doesn't come up with any instances of this icon except the iPhone. The 2005 YouTube logo was already the familiar black and red. Where else was the old TV icon used by Google?
I don't know, I didn't say that I agree with NoPedantsThanks. But Skeuomorphism was a real hype in the 00s. But I think it got mostly popular through Apple/Steve Jobs.
Most comments here seem to be convinced that this is because these companies don't want to put in the engineering hours to build and support an app on a niche platform.
Is it possible that this is actually a coordinated message to Apple that these large media companies are done paying the 30% Apple tax? Especially if this thing has a fully-featured, desktop-like web browser. The blocking of the existing iPad apps tells me it's the later.
In Spotify’s case I would wager it has more to do with them not having a core group of empowered and capable iOS engineers. Their app still doesn’t support AirPlay 2 many years after it was introduced, a feature that solo developers like Marco Arment (Overcast) supported long ago.
I suppose it could be some bizarre internal political vendetta against Apple has led them to be unwilling to invest in improving the iOS app, but that seems like an odd strategy.
> "Once again, Apple has demonstrated that they will stop at nothing to protect the profits they exact on the backs of developers and consumers under their app store monopoly," Spotify said in a statement.
The example you gave has nothing to do with Apple system specifically. It's all about the bad quality of Spotify in general - be it on iOS, Android or web. They truly are terrible, missing the most basic of features, and this has been the way they operate from the very beginning.
A long time ago, during the Flash time, the recurring theme on the Internet was the low quality of engineering in Adobe products.
There was a popular response to that whining which superficially sounded like a rebuttal: "Hey, be cool and always remember that not all of the bad programmers are employed by Adobe".
I guess there was enough of them to fill all the positions at Spotify.
If you're serious: because third party apps can absolutely kill first party ones, and they do, all the time.
Netflix remains the dominant player over Apple TV+, for example.
Chrome remains more dominant than Safari.
Outside of Apples specific ecosystem: Do you know anyone who seriously uses Windows Media Player or built-in Calendar/Mail apps? (Outlook is not the built-in).
If your third party app is better and has better social capital: it can kill the first-party app.
I'm just forgetting which ones completely died because: they are history.
The inference being made here of course that all the remaining people not using Safari are using Chrome which is or course not true; but it shows somewhat the fragility of the incumbent software: as Safari is actually quite good for users, chrome has very few feature advantages compared.
They aren't my stats. Just pointing out using one stat from source A and another stat from source B to draw a conclusion when source A has both stats seems like hunting for stats that support a predetermined conclusion.
Possibly as some sort of protest, but also rememebr that Spotify and Netflix already don’t pay Apple’s tax and YouTube is free (or at least most people probably use the free version).
I think companies want to go where users are and if and when there is some sort of mass adoption of Vision Pro these companies will at the very least enable their iPad apps to work on it.
> because these companies don't want to put in the engineering hours to build and support an app on a niche platform
Like who would at this point till it's established? Look at all the time and effort wasted on Apple Watch apps, Apple TV apps for very little returns.
Apple needs to realize that expecting developers to write apps for 5 different operating systems to get coverage across their ecosystem is absurd in both engineering time and engineering team money.
End of the day the $3500 vision pro needs Netflix more than Netflix needs the vision pro, and they already had a VR app that Apple could have supported but chose to build something completely new and bespoke requiring all devs to write completely new code.
We may get to find out. Google blocked MS from developing their own YouTube app for the Windows Phone (by changing YT APIs in incompatible ways whenever MS made it, no less). If they want to attack Apple, they will probably do the same.
Google also has blocked Amazon's competing smart speaker with a display from accessing Youtube, the Amazon Echo Show. Google later blocked Amazon's Fire TV as well.
>Is it possible that this is actually a coordinated message to Apple that these large media companies are done paying the 30% Apple tax?
It's an interesting problem for the rest of us. We seem to be heading to a situation where there are a bunch of tech companies, each with their own silo and little direct competition between them. If they won't talk to each other or cooperate then we all end up with diminished solutions.
> YouTube said in a statement Thursday that it isn’t planning to launch a new app for the Apple Vision Pro, nor will it allow its longstanding iPad application to work on the device. YouTube, like Netflix, is recommending that customers use a web browser if they want to see its content: “YouTube users will be able to use YouTube in Safari on the Vision Pro at launch.”
> Spotify also isn’t planning a new app for visionOS — the Vision Pro’s operating system — and doesn’t expect to enable its iPad app to run on the device, according to a person familiar with matter. But the music service will still likely work from a web browser. Bloomberg News reported on Netflix’s decision Wednesday.
Emphasis mine. No need for Apple loyalists to convince themselves that they never liked these services anyway.
Apple control iOS, iPadOS and visionOS. Not only that, but they made their UI frameworks screen resolution/size independent some years ago. I am sure Apple will be able provide a premium ‘native’ experience for existing deployed iPad apps with minimal to no additional effort on their part. Does Catalyst ring a bell?
The apps need to be enabled to run on other xOS devices, an iPad can run iOS apps but the developer need to enable the flag.
In this instance it would be the same, visionOS can run iPadOS but the devs won't enable the flag.
If Apple strong arm them to run without a flag it can get pretty messy for Apple since they would be taken over control of what the app developers allow or not with their own apps.
I don’t use either of these services in existing VR headsets and experience no loss. Odds are low I’m gonna shed tears about their absence on one more headset.
edit
I should add that that I can certainly expect many people who might buy this won't be thrilled, and for them if this is the kind of thing they are interested in, I would understand their dissapointment.
I’ve had a Quest 2 since the covid shut-in era, and I now only ever use it to watch the Netflix and Prime Video apps — both of which are basic and haven’t been updated for years. Which is weird, b/c right now, the home theater experience is one of the only things that VR indisputably (for the most part) does better than non-VR platforms. Right now the main flaw is that these basic apps stream at a low resolution (480p in Netflix’s case)
It makes no sense why Netflix/Amazon would neglect apps for a 20m userbase. The most rational explanation is that the VR userbase still has a very low active/attach rate. Maybe Netflix/Amazon aren’t excited to help Meta, but it’s not like they’re making their own VR headsets yet.
Maybe it isn't VR they're shying away from, maybe it is apple.
I wonder if Apple's handling of the app store has finally come around to bite them.
Steve Jobs was a pretty good integrator, and got the people in different industries to work together. That's all over as apple turns inwards and doesn't do "relationships" anymore.
I think it's this. Apple is actively pulling 27% cut for web purchases nonsense after the Fortnite ruling. If I were an app developer, I wouldn't support an untested platform managed by a hostile entity like Apple. If Apple wants native apps, they'll need to sweeten the pot.
This seems like the biggest factor to me. I can't even count the number of stories I've see that made me think that I would never ever want any significant income or business to be dependent on Apple. It would be more surprising to me if everyone was clamoring to jump on a new untested Apple platform given their behavior over the years.
Because those devices have lots and lots of users they can't lose.
Vision Pro has 0 users so far, will have a negligible amount for a while given the retail price, and almost certainly every single user of Vision Pro will have another device that these companies' apps already exist, so they aren't losing potential users.
But it's perfect if you do want to watch alone. Depending on the app, 5.1 audio is spatialized. Resolution is effectively 1080p in terms of detail if you make the screen comfortably large.
And if you have the right app, you can lie back on your bed and watch your movie on a cinema screen that feels like it's floating above you in the sky. Incredibly relaxing, and amazing if you have any kind of back problems.
Also the best way to watch 3D movies -- no loss of brightness like in cinemas, and none of the ghosting you get using Bluetooth shutter glasses with a TV/projector.
Also worth noting that - while it's not ideal for sharing movies in person - it's fantastic for sharing movies online. I've been watching movies with friends from all over the globe in VRChat, and it's a fantastic experience. Looking forward to Apple spreading it with SharePlay in the Vision Pro!
Although my Elac speakers and SVS sub have an opinion of their own, but I agree generally regarding Oculus. Apple MacBook Pros are the best approximation for stereo-only. My Thinkpad T series has terrible speakers, so headphones are an improvement for almost any activity there. Quest Pro sound is pretty good, but it's nothing spectacular and good luck casting or viewing multichannel media there, i.e., there's no Plex or VLC for Oculus (this app doesn't work on Quest[0]). Without the encouragement and convincing of each major app vendor to get on another platform, they won't and can't justify the expense. This is one of catch-22's of platforms being double-ended marketplaces that must be addressed, or it will bomb.
I've been to enough boutique hotels in the Netherlands with clear glass doors from bedroom to bathroom to say that probably wasn't a "future" thing, just a Dutch thing...
> Either way, I think it’s on Meta to do some of the legwork to land third parties.
Oh absolutely. If Meta want a good film rental service on the Quest they'll have to either cut someone better terms on the 30% or pay for one themselves, but they've done neither. Apple are almost certainly doing some of those, and the most interesting Vision Pro launch is their own service which they paid for. Meta keep chasing metaverse experiences that are not ready for prime time instead of services that could be good now like collective film watching even if they are less exciting for internal slidedecks.
I've had a Quest Pro (free from work) but haven't used it except to play a Half Life VR-only game. The StreamVR and Oculus apps were/are fragile and required constant reset ceremonies to work. As such, it's mostly gathering dust by the printer.
I tried it for use as N external monitors, but I can't see the point (no pun intended) when I have a 49" wide monitor or for anything else specific because I have an 85" TV on the wall.
The only real case I can see would be if most people on a work team worked in VR and "Zoomed" on a platform that supported VR, then it would make some sense if some people chose not to live stream video of themselves but wanted to participated more than audio only by sharing a VR "Workplace"-like stream instead.
> I tried it for use as N external monitors, but I can't see the point (no pun intended) when I have a 49" wide monitor or for anything else specific because I have an 85" TV on the wall.
Right but that's a lot of space that not many people have available in their home office. Not to mention how much more portable a laptop + headset would be.
I'm sure Google is a little terrified of the Vision Pro actually working out, so they'll do what they can to make it less enticing. Just like they did with Windows Phone. [1]
Lol, Google is still in that battle against Microsoft. They still won't release Google Chrome for Windows ARM to force people to stay on Chromebooks instead of looking at Windows ARM alternatives. Kinda petty if you ask me.
What's Linux's market share compared to the rest? From there compute the profit margins left after you subtract the amount of issues and support tickets the Linux userbase will generate in relative to the amount of sales and revenue. Chances are you're not breaking even.
Meanwhile Google wouldn't need to provide support for Chrome on Windows ARM(or any other platform) since it's not a commercial product consumers pay money for and are entitled to support, it's just a free product shipped withotu warranty financed by vacuuming your personal data.
Your argument is that office is not on Linux because the user base is too small and not worth the support burden.
The parents argument is that Linux's user base is smaller because critical applications like office are not available there.
These arguments are not mutually exclusive. Microsoft would rather keep it's dominate windows market share _and_ have less support burden.
On the other hand, Steam making Linux work well is a massive support burden for a smaller user base, but it prevented os vendor lock in for their platform.
Decisions to release or not release software is not so easily distilled to single metrics such as support burden.
Not worth the trouble of 2% userbase, they can use the Web version, it is like the Electron apps most people swear by on GNU/Linux, with advantage there is nothing to instal besides their favourite browser.
Most them seem quite happy to use Google Docs, so Microsoft Office 365 should also be alright.
The Web Version sucks badly though.
Even the most basic features like using your corporate/university PowerPoint Template won't work (with an active 365 Subscription)
Probably enough to annoy the users who really want to stay on Chrome and the Google ecosystem, but not enough to annoy the users who really like Windows on ARM since there's also Firefox for ARM64 Windows. Google is just being needlessly petty here IMHO.
Considering the quality of YouTube's Apple TV app[1], this should come as no surprise, and frankly it's probably for the best. This type of thing is better off starting small with applications that actually work well, instead of bolting on some well-known names that are just going to phone it in and disappoint users in the long run.
[1] Anecdotal, but: it recently added its own screensaver that plays instead of the system one, and never stops playing, meaning if I accidentally leave YouTube open, my TV never switches off. The VLC app can't discover UPNP services on my network as long as YouTube is in the recent apps list. It decides to be in French sometimes. (Our system language is not French). And, not entirely Google's fault, but there are about three different ways to cast a YouTube video from the iOS YouTube app to the same gorramn TV, and which one is actually going to work today is completely random.
The indifference YouTube gets away with on Apple TV tells me, if that team made an app for Vision Pro, it would provide guaranteed headaches. Apple is dodging a bullet here.
I remember the era when third party clients for online services were quite common. Now consumers get stuck in the middle of various corporate pissing matches instead.
Windows Phone and BlackBerry had apps that acted like two-way RSS for your messages. Everything in one app. They broke frequently because the app vendors changed their APIs, not wanting their products to become dumb pipes that just sent and received messages (the horror!).
I also watched something on the Quest 3 using the Amazon Prime Video app the other day. It was a cool experience, but for now, I still find a TV better. This might change as the technology improves.
Which is why I find the choice not to release an app for the Apple VP odd: it has better hardware so the experience should also be better. Maybe it's because they expect the VP to sell a lot less than the Quest 3?
Seems like Walt Mossberg made the girl comment in this video where Jobs is talking about headphones for video. Mossberg also made fun of Dell’s large phone, saying it was like holding a waffle up to your head, and the market proved him wrong there.
These devices, in their current form, aren’t something to wear while walking around town, like someone might do with headphones.
>Steve immediately shot his idea down and told the guy that he would probably trip and fall if that were the case. Steve also suggested he should get a girlfriend so he has someone to keep him company while running.
These devices, in their current form, aren’t something to wear while walking around town, like someone might do with headphones.
I predict that we will see people driving with these things on.
People are already so self-absorbed that they text and watch movies on their phones while driving. A lightweight, untethered headset is an ideal conduit for distraction in the car.
I'm actually a little excited by the prospect of a large company (in this case Apple) having a battle with other big tech firms that might revolve around User-Agent, or at least the concept of identifying users and treating them differently based on the software/technology they are using to connect to your services.
I genuinely prefer the user experience of linux and firefox -- I'm not religiously opposed to Windows^, Chrome, MacOS, etc. I also don't generally complain when websites don't work well for me, or the experience isn't perfect, I know that kinda comes as a package deal.
But, I often know that package deal is unnecessary. Netflix might not want me to watch 4K because of requirements from copyright holders, or some website might not have tested on Firefox so they throw up an error page (even though standards are standards...). But if I lie about who I am sometimes things work perfectly -- and those are the moments when I feel the unfairness sitting just adjacent to me, resting it's hand on my arm.
In this case, I wonder how well Apple can make the web.spotify (and netflix etc) sites work on their hardware, and how much they will have to lie about who they are when they're connecting to those services. I'm absolutely confident that the hardware and software will be capable of correctly and capably displaying movies, playing music, etc. It's more a question of trust, truth, and power.
For me, in my little home on my little street, while I don't usually fight that battle I'm still aware of the potential injustice. But when the big dogs fight over it? I feel it's good for me, shining a light on these kinds of issue. Netflix doesn't want to spend money and put dev work in to making things work perfectly on Apple's headset? That makes perfect sense, no problem. But attempting to block it, if Apple has spent the time and money to make it work? That strikes me as unfair.
You might argue it's not a 100% clear cut issue - should platforms have some say in how their content is presented? - but I feel very comfortable disagreeing when a website says "must be viewed using ACME OS™", or even worse, "can be viewed everywhere except COMPETITOR OS™".
In wonder whether Apple will change its rule about iPad apps. Currently they’ll work on visionOS, but the author has to give permission. Will they make work by default saying “I’m totally an iPad”?
There are so many sites out there though that will, when you browse with an iOS device, tell you to download the app and refuse to show the same website you see on desktop. This could happen here. This is what the OP was talking about.
Now it would probably be stupid of Netflix etc to block VP users after refusing to also port their app or allow their iPad apps to run on the VP, but never underestimate companies' potential for counter-intuitive decisions!
Even if they did, based on past performance of VR headsets, I don't envision this being an iPhone like jackpot for Apple.
It will outsell during the first years due to people with deep pockets eager to own one, and then it will wither and die, like most of the other attempts.
I see the big difference in design. VR consumer headsets were designed being cheap first, trying to sell in the millions, then adding features later.
If they don't sell millions, there is no income and the product dies, or it does have a big company like Meta burning billions of dollars at it from investors.
What Apple is doing is bringing a product to market with no compromises on quality. It will be much more expensive but if it is useful for someone they will pay. They won't need millions of users for breakeven but tens of thousands.
I bought and restored a second hand Lisp Machine (with hardware accelerated Lisp). It was über expensive, but was a dream at the time to use. Even today it has things normal IDEs do not have. It was super expensive but did things nobody else could do at the time and that was worth it for companies that needed those things.
What’s the actual impact of this, if you can just use the website? I understand that future versions of apps might have more features to make the experience more immersive, but in the early days wouldn’t it be pretty much the same as using the website?
I would guess one would reach for Apple TV+ or Apple Music instead, but then again I really don't like those experiences on any of the native apps -- so I wouldn't hold my breath.
Do you think 3D movies will continue to be considered gimmicks, even on devices like these? I thought that 3D TVs were silly, but my expectation is that they will be much better on AVP.
Regardless of quality of execution, I do think 3D movies are gimmicks because they are mostly (wholly?) there to attract attention and publicity, and are less about the story or characters. I am not saying that any technology applied to movies is a gimmick (e.g. sound, higher resolution, color, etc.). And gimmickry also applies to other devices that weak directors or cinematographers or script writers employ sometimes like contrived plot points, using animals to pull on the heart strings.
Note that I'm not saying that gimmicks cannot be effective. They can and it is a distinction worth keeping in mind.
But in the case of 3D movies I think they are not only gimmicks, but they will also be (commercially and immersively) ineffective compared to a great movie that doesn't rely on that crutch.
Ah true, that would be a differentiator. I’d guess there’s not a large catalog of content that could work. But if they could, it would be a neat trick, and might allow them to charge a hefty premium to subscribers who can afford an AVP.
Adult apps aren't allowed on the Apple Store, so it'll depend entirely on the web. If you can launch multiple browser windows at the same time to cover the full FOV then I'm sure someone will eventually make use of it...
I'm not sure why existing Meta headsets aren't being used for this purpose, or what features distinguish Apple's headset from existing products.
If Apple's headset ships with 3D video recording then there's probably an opportunity for some pair of adult creators to go viral by recording the first porno on it.
Haha! This straight question is honestly the elephant in the room. It's a killer product for porn and PornHub and Xvideoes are in return top 4, 5 respectively most popular sites on the Internet (December 2023, according to Semrush).
But we can't talk about it for obvious reasons. It's such a funny scenario to think of.
But the allure of porn was always the ease of access and instant gratification. I don't think Vision Pro fulfills any of this due to the barrier of entry with its price point.
It may be true for media formats, but I don't think its generally applicable like that. I doubt a mainstream tech CEO will stand up on stage to promote adult content as their early adopters in front of journalists.
If Apple would stop boning people over app payments, stop using MFI as a weapon, and implement RCS some people would probably come over and play.
I 100% would steer very clear of any new Apple marketplace. The once friendly and open platform literally considers things you buy from them ‘theirs’ (Tim Cook’s words).
One thing the Vision Pro announcement has done is kick up some competition in the market. If the Apple Quest can get enough people excited about VR, we'll get better offerings from other companies for cheaper.
It's the sort of impact I wish Microsoft HoloLens had, but I suppose HoloLens was released too early for the technology to make sense.
Presumably a wait-and-see approach? No one buying an Apple Vision Pro doesn't already use these apps, so it's not like they're missing out on a huge new user base.
Companies announcing that they’re not going to do work, and actively doing work to hamper said platform (e.g. Netflix disabling the iPad app from working on the VisionPro) sure comes across that way.
Damn. Gonna really boost Apple Music and Apple TV+ then over time if Apple Vision Pro works out. Already both great products. Especially with the more recent improvements made to Apple Music.
I don't expect Apple Vision Pro to be more than a niche product, at least not in its current form. It is simply too expensive.
It is more of a proof-of-concept thing, so that Apple can show off their "vision" of VR. If successful, it may lead to a mass market product in the future, but by that time, YouTube, Nexflix, Spotify, etc... may actually provide first party support.
True. I'm a huge VR enthusiast working in IT and even some VR/AR projects.
And I wouldn't even consider this unless it drops below 2000€. It's just insanely priced. Here in Europe with tax it'll be way beyond 4000€. And I own multiple Quests. And a gaming pc with 4090. All those added up didn't cost that much.
Of course it won't be as good at a €1500-2000 price point but I don't care. If it's three times as good as the quest 3 for 3 times the price, it would be amazing.
But my point is, if even an enthusiast like me won't even consider it.. And I travelled to a different country to wait for hours before opening to buy the first iPad :) A product I wasn't even as passionate about as AR/VR.
They're clearly aiming at the richest 1% even in the western world. But those are not necessarily the kind that would have affinity for this stuff. And the people that have enough money to buy it as a toy will have a lot of money to buy a lot more toys all competing for their attention.
I think a lot of these are going to get bought and end up as an expensive showpiece without seeing much use. The amount of people who have both the affinity to make the most of it and the purchasing power to actually buy it will be so few.
I am also a huge XR enthusiast (since just before the first Rift Kickstarter) living in Europe, with multiple headsets across generations, and I'm considering flying to another country to buy it.
There is no competition for it yet, and the competition that will come out (Samsung/Google's collaboration, Meta's next attempt at Quest Pro, etc) will alike Android 1.0: planting a flag, but the actual experience will be measurably worse.
It's a fully-integrated standalone MR headset with access to the wider Apple ecosystem, the highest-quality components of 2022 (yeah, it's shipping late, but it's still better than the competition), and it's backed by Apple, which will end up redefining the conversation around XR as a whole.
Even as a portable home cinema I'd consider it, especially in my small European apartment :-) The price is high because it's expensive to make (~1700 USD [0]), they need to make the money back on R&D, they're supply-constrained [1], and likely because - yes - they want to limit the mass market's exposure to 1.0. Still, as an enthusiast, I've been waiting for this for many years; I'm ready to try it out for myself.
Oh yeah I was also a Kickstarter backer. It was so nice when we got a CV1 for free!!
But as for Apple vision pro, I don't really see the value at this point. And with the limited amount of headsets that will be out there due to the price, it won't be interesting for content creators.
I have to say though I'm mainly in it for the immersion. I don't really care about mixed reality scenarios as much. I've been trying them with the quest 3 but even when keeping the much lower quality in mind I just don't really find them exciting as I do real immersive VR.
Yeah, that's fair; I enjoy VR gaming, but it's not really where my interest lies (outside of hanging with friends in VRChat). That being said, it definitely has potential for immersion for what the reviews have said - it just may not be the most interactive immersion :sweat_smile:
I'm much more enthused about the future of computing; I've wanted to get away from monitors for a long time now, and this finally feels like the first step towards that in the consumer market.
The Vision Pro is definitely for early adopters, they've priced it so high that "normal" consumers won't even consider it.
Unless this flops completely and developers/Apple can't figure out actual use cases, there _will_ be a Vision Regular with all the stuff removed that's not 100% necessary for the main use cases (like the stupid "see your eyes from the outside screen :D) and it will be a lot more affordable.
I think EyeSight is more important than most people give it credit for :p
A huge problem I've had with demonstrating - and being demonstrated to with - MR headsets is that I can't actually see what the user's looking at. This is much more troublesome with MR and passthrough, where it's very important for external users to be able to see that the user is looking at them.
Yeah, there's still a few quirks that need to be worked out, but I think it's a fundamentally important part of future MR headsets, and Meta agrees [0] (much more rudimentary 2021 prototype at [1]).
Curious how many Apple TV+ users are out there. Despite all the noises, I don't personally know anyone who used the service, or often, even heard of shows on that platform. They never release subscriber numbers (of course), and Apple likely doesn't care if it loses money during early stages. But everyone knows streaming is mostly a money losing business, and wonder how Apple is doing there
I don't know, but I gave it a try for a few months and was seriously disappointed. I tried 3 series, watched them to the end, and all 3 were severely lacking in quality. They had good casts, good sets, good music, but the stories were all very shallow and predictable.
Not to mention weird bugs in the iPadOS app - if you try to download more than X episodes too quickly, like because you're at the airpot before boarding a plane and want an offline cache to last the long flight, the downloads fail with a useless (classic Apple) error message, and nothing outside of a restart of the device fixes it. I hit this a few times, and there are forum reports going back years.
So yeah, had one free month, paid for 2, and cancelled because it isn't even close to being worth it.
PORN will drive answers to all your technology market questions
What will the PORN industry decide?
Does this new platform drive new, exclusive revenue sources for immersive PORN?
If the answer is yes, then the technology and commercial infrastructure will follow. I suspect the answer sounds like an out-of-context Carl Sagan quote, "...Billions and Billions..."
Whoever drives that content through those goggles will be rich beyond measure... unfortunately.
I assumed Apple will be running these apps in a container that it thinks is an iPhone, and then project it onto a virtual screen in augmented space. I guess maybe resolution maybe an issue — so maybe it will be the web version or a AppleTV container that allows 4k etc (phones downsample maybe?)
That will work as a stop-gap, sure, but having the app projected in 2D inside a VR headset kinda defeats the point. Vision Pro will only be successful if its apps can be immersive.
OTOH, the visual aspect is not the most important for Spotify (as long as the music plays) or Netflix (as long as you can play the video). None of these 3 services really need to be that immersive. On iPhones and iPads their website behaves well enough. I am sure the experience will be good enough for videos being played from a website.
The app isn’t just about playing music in the background but also browsing catalogs, curating playlists, search, discovery, playback controls, casting and more. All the current UX is designed with touch in mind, so who knows what the actual experience on the Vision Pro will be.
They won't need apps, just use the browser. Sure you won't get native level features, but at least users can still access the web-app versions. Something is better than nothing.
Im definitely not going to defend Apple here but I think this could drive people even more into the ecosystem. With new purchases Apple grants access to Apple Music and TV+ for some time and I think some people might stay afterwards.
As far as YouTube goes, I only use it in the browser due to my adblock working there.
Maybe I’m wrong but this could turn out as a win for Apple.
The people who are excited enough about the Vision Pro and have $4000+ in fun money lying around to buy it on launch day are probably firmly in the demographic who have Apple TV/Apple One already.
I was excited in June about Vision Pro now after buying the latest meta Ray bans, wearing them pretty frequently and enjoying them I'm perplexed why Apple didn't go in the same direction? That crazy heavy looking expensive storm trooper looking helmet (vision pro) is where they chose to start in the AR space ..weird?!
The Meta glasses don't actually display anything, though. Apple will get there eventually, but they're focusing on quality and fidelity of experience first.
Yeah but it's next update will have audio AR/AI added in ... like i think i saw Boz demo where he asked how many fingers am i holding up and it answered him (AR counting of things) or it was some type of AR/AI cool demo and it was all achieved through voice and audio.
Though at this point Hey Meta's reliability of actually answering/working is 60/40, so i don't use it much. These glasses are great for taking pics and videos!
In time Spotify will back down just like they did with native Apple Watch support. Pretty easy for them to take this stance when very few customers will own the first gen, but give it a decade for a cheaper version that’s mass adopted and we will see them bending over to please their customers.
I would guess most Apple Vision Pro users are using Apple Music anyways? Though I’m not even sure how relevant audio apps are to a VR headset? I guess they do music videos, but hardly seems like core application to headset.
I expect a use case for Spotify on the Vision Pro to be multitasking — listening to music while browsing the web or using other apps, same as phones and computers
And both applications are terrible and recommended against. I never use them and I don’t know anyone who actively does out of those I know with headsets.
"Out of the 46 most popular apps on the App Store, none of them will have a native visionOS app at launch, according to findings from MacStories. This list could always change — and some of the apps will still offer Vision Pro support through their existing apps on iPhone and iPad — but the lack of native apps just weeks away from the Vision Pro launch isn't particularly encouraging."
I’m on the opinion of boycotting visionOS as a protest on their link tax decisions, green bubble shenanigans and other non competitive moves.
The future should be innovative and inclusive with fair competition and equal opportunity.
Enough is enough.
Considering that the main purpose of YouTube seems to be forcing me to see as many ads as physically possible, I would say good riddance. I will keep using the website, where I have some degree of control over what is being done and what I end up seeing.
They are every bit as bad as cable TV, IMO. They are more frequent and they don't even have a transition from the video to the ads, it just interrupts mid-sentence half the time. And for some reason three 30 second ads isn't nearly as bad as a single 1:30 ad. Sure sometimes you can "skip" but then they just interrupt you more often until you watch the whole damn thing.
For now. I guarantee they will start putting ads in your premium membership plan. It's already happening in other services. They will do it using the boiling frog method. There is no way they will pass up a chance to make even more money. This is not a slippery slope argument either, this is what has happened over and over throughout history.
Well, at some point they pretended to care about user experience. They could not have got their user base if they were that user hostile from the beginning.
I can't think of a worse thing than having YouTube ads beamed into my eyes, but you'd imagine the ROI on that would be pretty decent as a company that's mainly built around selling ads.
Apple has already set themselves up for a rotating pummelling of regulatory restrictions, having clearly demonstrated that it will not restrain itself at all from its worst instincts. There is a 0% chance most jurisdictions would allow Apple to buy Netflix, or any similar "competitor".
Not sure why you're multiplying trade volume with their share price? It's a stupid scenario to think of, but the offer would be some combination of cash and shares they own, not newly printed shares out of the blue.
And if they did print more shares, how would it "tank their share price to 0"? It's not like a stupid acquisition would instantly vaporize a 2+ trillion market cap company overnight.
Most of this cash is in offshore accounts and Apple can't use it domestically without paying a boat load of taxes on it. Moreover Netflix's market cap at the moment is $212B and with even a conservative 30% acquisition premium Apple would have to pay $275-300B. They simply can't afford it.
