Original Title: Why the Killer App for Apple XR is Hard to Find?
Killer apps are not discovered.
Author| Zheng Yue
Editor | Jing Yu
On the last weekend of March, the Civil Aviation International Conference Center in Wangjing, Beijing, was probably the place with the highest concentration of Visionpro in China.
This marked the first global developer conference since the launch of AppleVisionPro, where hundreds of people gathered to share the latest news on VisionOS app development.
There are now over 1,300 native vos apps, and more than 1.5 million apps compatible with iPhone and iPad. Meta, after 10 years, has not reached these numbers.
The people most interested in VisionOS from both home and abroad gathered to discuss what exactly is that killer app everyone is curious about, despite being almost tired of the term.
As soon as I entered the venue, I saw two people wearing Visionpro, gesturing with 'magic wands' in their hands, attracting a crowd of photographers. Inside, the talks and booth displays were filled to capacity, and lines formed to try the hot applications.
The longest queues were always at the Inspaze booth developed by Zhiwen Group, deemed by many to be the current 'killer app' for VP.
Inspaze is a social application bringing a whole new imagination to social interactions within VP, combining real-time voice translation, persona, spatial audio, and social mini-games, providing a personal space that supports social interactions on both iPhone and VP. Friends can visit your space and sit on your living room couch to enjoy music you play or play chess together.
Socializing in virtual spaces isn't new to the VR era, but earlier apps lacked due to hardware and computing limits. Inspaze, however, makes it appealing to visit someone's 'QQ Space', surrounded by butterflies and vinyl music, to play tabletop games and chat. Makes one wish VP wasn't so expensive to enjoy it more often.
Inspaze is the only app developed by a domestic internet company from scratch without relying on existing businesses.
Despite the China version of VP not yet being released, the enthusiasm among Chinese developers and consumers is very high, perhaps making them the most passionate VP developers.
However, users quickly notice that VisionOS lacks Chinese input methods and voice recognition. The Dino app addresses this by allowing offline voice-to-text input in Chinese. Once you finish speaking, Dino automatically adds the text to the clipboard, which can be dragged into any text field.
According to some users who've had VP for a while, the most used feature is watching videos on the ceiling, which substantially reduces strain and dizziness as you lie in bed motionless.
The MoonPlayer, an essential app for AppleVisionPro, supports various video formats providing a stable and smooth viewing experience. Another product, MoonPortal, allows users to freely decorate spaces, explore AI worlds, and various 3D scenes.
The weather forecast experience in VP is also a big improvement over the 2D era. The immersive weather app, seaons, based on AVP includes 34 immersive weather atmospheres and spatial audio, allowing users to feel the weather at another location on asking 'What's the weather like there?'
Developers feel lively, hopeful to catch a 'VP moment' similar to the 'iPhone moment.' VisionOS development is supported by a rich ecosystem, including a complete set of UI interaction solutions by Apple. It starts with SwiftUI instead of Unity, indicating a platform designed for apps, not games, lowering the learning curve.
The union of spatial computing and AI is expected to enter a new era. Unfortunately, current AI is not yet effective in generating 3D content for professional use, though it could become a useful tool for user-generated content (UGC).
The underlying theme of this conference was to support developers and consider commercialization opp ortunities in the ecosystem.
Moloco, an AI company, discusses new hardware and its potential to capture user time, emphasizing the role of machine learning in commercialization.
The general consensus is that we have not yet reached the time for a killer app for Vision Pro. Appfigures data shows that most apps on the Vision Pro platform are paid downloads with an average price of $5.67 (about 41 RMB), 53% of which are paid, a sharp contrast to the rest of the App Store.
Investors and media love to talk about killer apps, as noted in a podcast by Xu Wu from True Fund, who believes the next three years are a 'foolish window' for VP app startups, predicting significant advancements in hardware and ecosystem in the next 6-7 years. In ten years, consumers' sensory experience will be intensely strong.
It was reported that Vision Pro would launch in China in April or May after hosting the global developer conference. Whether we are close to seeing a killer app for Vision Pro remains a question.
This article is from WeChat Official Account: Geekpark (ID: geekpark), Author: Zheng Yue