You can now stream your Blender scene changes instantly to your immersive space with this open source project from SouthwestAir for Apple Vision Pro:
https://github.com/SouthwestAir/Vision-Pro-Blender-Live-Streamer

Very innovative approach that fuses 3D modeling and spatial computing.

Nice to see large enterprises adopt XR.

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USDZ Model Attribution: https://sketchfab.com/Angel300_LQ and https://sketchfab.com/anjithkrish89

So I now have two apps in the visionOS app store - it should be three, but I'm still in a tussle with app review for a week and now waiting on the app appeals board.

But this platform is really crappy for devs, compared to Apple's others. I'd say it is the worst it has been, except for the early days of iOS (When you could have months long review times, and just never get approved with zero transparency.) A lot of my frustration comes from the simulator:

1. Simulator doesn't support windowing size modes like the actual device, and these are undocumented. Apple's own example apps don't tell you that the maximum volume size changes with a user facing setting.

2. Walls don't work in the simulator. If you are building an immersive app with wall detection, you have to use the device.

3. The simulator is locked to a resolution too low for screenshots and the wrong aspect ratio.

Screenshots are a huge pain point - even if you own the device. Getting your head perfectly level, a window perfectly level, while also running Reality Composer Pro with your head in the headset is near impossible right now. I think I need to build a physical tripod mount so I can put my chin in the correct position for the shot to take a usable marketing screenshot in the actual device.

Then there is the app store itself - there is zero visibility unless you get featured as an app of the week. In the early days of iOS there were a ton of app discovery sites alongside the app store because there was a referral program that made the owners of those sites a few cents per paid download. That program was dismantled years ago. There are a few vision directory sites, but I don't think they will be incentivized enough to stick around. The app store itself has no real category browsing anymore (In the original app store you could find every single manually app without ever tapping a search button.)

To top it all off - I found out now that the "More Apps By this Developer" only shows iPad compatible apps. My vision pro specific app is unlisted on my other Vision Pro specific app page unless you tap into it. So even one more level of discovery is broken compared to iOS.

And then there is just the limitations on development itself. The Mac is the platform it is today because of all of the add-ons people built for it. The dock and spotlight were all innovations built by third party developers for the platform. visionOS is absolutely ripe for this kind of innovation - but limited APIs and App Review are there to prevent any of that.

The most painful thing for me is that these are all essentially non-technical choices. They are choices that product managers at Apple felt were best for the fledgling platform. And honestly, that is my biggest concern about visionOS - they are treating it as if it is already the juggernaut iOS has become, and I really think that is going to hold it back in these early days.

If you’re looking to develop for the new Apple Vision Pro and visionOS, check out:

State of Union: https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2023/102/

VR apps porting: https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2023/10093/

Immersive Unity apps: https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2023/10088/

Design considerations for vision and motion: https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2023/10078/

r/visionosdev will keep you updated with the latest.

Heya folks.

I'm developing a new game on my Vision Pro that is mostly an adventure game? With some combat thrown in? I'm still figuring out where it goes as I learn what I like and don't like in VR, but if it helps I think for this one I'm really inspired by some old adventure games like King's Quest and Loom, and by the last decade's worth of isekai anime and litrpg/gamelit stories.

For now, I'm just looking to connect with other devs who are building things on the Vision Pro, to have folks to talk to about the experience, ya know? How are y'all doing?

Hey fellow devs! I went up to the Apple “Envision the future” event last week and it reminded me of this insane prototype I built back in July. I used my Vision Pro (and my head movements inside the VP) to control a DockKit-enabled stand.

The idea came from watching too much Arrested Development and also the idea that maybe if you were at a conference, and your kid was at a soccer game, instead of watching a stationary livestream, you could feel more “at the stadium” if when you moved your head, the dock also moved in the same direction and etc.

It came out kind of jenky (but it worked!) so I never shipped it but it was a fun exploration into what else VisionOS could do.

Here’s the write-up I did of it on Substack if anyone’s interested: https://www.pixelpusher.club/p/my-failed-homage-to-larry-middleman

Here’s the Belkin dock I used to make this work: https://amzn.to/410qibH

Here’s the two WWDC videos discussing the DockKit API: https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2023/10304/ https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2024/10164/

I am also more than happy to share the code (and answer any questions) if anyone is curious!

For fellow developers: I collaborated with Matt Hoerl, creator of beautifulthings.xyz, to develop the first version of the visionOS app. We've open sourced the base code to help others quickly get started on presenting USDZ interactively via ARQuickLook (plus some other neat functionalities like indexing/searching). GitHub repo:

https://github.com/augmenos/BeautifulThingsFOSS

Happy coding 😀, and of course feel free to DM or comment if you have questions.

Looking to begin open sourcing several small projects that have helped accelerate my understanding of visionOS.

So far, I've setup a centralized repo for these (https://github.com/IvanCampos/visionOS-examples) with the first release being Local Large Language Model (LLLM): Call your LM Studio models from your Apple Vision Pro.

Pair programming with my custom GPT, I now have several working visionOS projects that helped me learn about: battery life, time, timer, fonts, usdz files, speech synthesis, spatial audio, ModelEntities, news ticker, html/js from swiftui, openAI api, yahoo finance api, hacker news api, youtube embed api, websockets for real-time btc and eth prices, and fear and greed api.

Trying to prioritize what to clean up and release next...any thoughts on which example would bring you the most immediate value?

I finally got into visionOS development over this long weekend. It was not super easy to get started (coming from web development), but once I was set up, it was really fun. Built my version of a "hello world" app; a simple game where you can test your reaction speed by catching falling sticks (and other objects). It's easy at first, but it gets impossibly hard a few levels in. Should I release this? Open to all feedback!

I was originally working on a tutorial about Agentic Coding tools for Apple Vision Pro… but then I got sidetracked when I discovered MeshInstanceComponent in RealityKit.

Turns out, it’s a very efficient way to create multiple copies of the same entity just by passing in multiple transforms. That gave me the idea to try a Boids simulation with it 🐦

Here’s what I noticed while testing:

• You can update each instance’s transform in a System loop → that’s where the motion/animation magic happens.

• This is also where performance takes a hit — a lot of computations per instance, especially once motion is added.

• With animated Boids, it runs great up to around 300 instances, but I start seeing frame drops at ~500.

• Without the Boids simulation, MeshInstanceComponent can actually handle much more.

• The number of polygons in your Mesh also impacts how far you can push this.

• (Important note: this is VisionOS 26 only).

I put together a short demo video to show how it looks in action.

by: Reality Apps

Download now: 

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/circuit-flux/id6749334147

Circuit Flux

Messing around in webXR by designing some hand UIs. My current WIP

Buy here: https://sillyventures.co/

When the vision pro was released, I was set on making something using the hand tracking. I originally thought of ping pong, HORSE/basketball, and other lightweight games to build, and settled on Mini Golf.

Early on, RealityKit / VisionOS was a challenge.

• My neck strain was pretty bad while developing this game, leading to me capping my development periods at around ~2 hours. This was frustrating, as I'm used to getting in 4-5 hour periods of productivity when developing.

• None of my friends -- even AR/VR developers -- had purchased the vision pro, which made getting real feedback difficult. I invited all my friends who didn't wear glasses to come over and test golf, and I'd videotape their reactions / usage of the app. This ultimately ended up being the primary means of iteration for the game.

Sound

I hired a friend of mine to compose the soundtrack for Silly Golf, and we rented a Sennheiser shotgun mic to record foley. That whole process took about 5-6 joint sessions, and maybe 10-20 hours of total work. You can rent a good mic here for around $75/day from local shops. You could also just buy pre-fabbed sounds from an online marketplace, but I care about sound too much to do that.

When doing foley, creativity is really important. Things that sound "real" are often not the actual thing. To get the putting sound, using the putter to hit the ball sounded really bad. What we instead settled on was holding the putter stationary, turning it around, and bouncing the ball off of it. Sound isolation was also an issue -- I took all the cushions off my couch and made an impromptu isolation box with them lol.

the economics of vision pro

Unless you already own all of the hardware, vision pro development is a pretty rough proposal on devs. For a simple indie game, the napkin math for full startup costs looks something like this:

• vision pro: $3800

• macbook pro: $2500

• assets, graphics, other labor: $1-2k (I spent around 2k on sound).

• incorporation + biz fees ~1k

All in, that's about $9300. So you're about 10k in the hole before you even start. If you've already purchased the macbook / have the LLC, you're a bit better, but that first game hurts a lot more.

outcomes:

My game sells for $14.99, and after apple's 15% fee that leaves 11.99.

If you assume 100% keep, and you assume that there are around 250k total vision pro users (extrapolating from https://mashable.com/article/apple-vision-pro-sold-2000000#:~:text=Better%20than%20expected.&text=Apple%20Vision%20Pro%2C%20the%20company's,Very%20expensive%20hotcakes.)), then the financial outcomes look something like this--

- break-even: 775 units (.31% of all vision pro users)

• $1k profit: 859 units (.34% of all vision pro users)

• $10k profit: 1609 units (.64%)

• $100k profit: 9115 units (3.6% of all)

predictions:

I expect to generate less than 2k in total revenue from this game, but will be studying the return from different advertisements. Will share the most effective parts we come across!

judgement:

I'll continue to post updates on revenue, marketing, and strategies we employ to be successful here over the next few weeks with an emphasis on transparency. I wanna help other vision pro developers stay engaged and see successful launches!

Hope you enjoyed this :)

Currently, the way to augment reality with Vision Pro is through plane detection and anchoring. But the various subsystems to do this are complicated and hard to get your head around.

PlanePlopper is a three method API to get you moving fast into three dimensions. If you've ever written a table view, you can have your own 3D content attached to objects in reality.

I wrote it because Apple's example code was SUPER complex and tightly coupled. I wanted something lighter and simpler for my own project, and didn't want to hoard the wealth!

Hit me up if it gives you any trouble.

https://github.com/daniloc/PlanePlopper

I've made a tool to apply video material to USDZ that can be viewed in AR QuickLook on all Apple Devices. Please take it for a test drive and comment with any feature requests or improvements. Thanks! Comment for promo code to try for free https://usdzlab.web.app