Apple's Vision Pro launched with the usual fanfare and the usual problem: a headset so expensive that only tech reviewers and people with a suspicious amount of disposable income actually bought one.
Now, months later, the app situation is finally getting interesting — just in time for everyone to remember they own one.
The latest wave of Vision Pro apps is leaning hard into the "spatial computing" pitch Apple has been shouting from the rooftops.
We're talking immersive sports viewing, virtual workspaces that make you feel like Tony Stark minus the charisma, and meditation apps that promise to calm you down after you check your credit card statement.
But here's the thing about a $3,500 device with a limited user base: developers aren't exactly tripping over themselves to build for it.
The apps that do exist tend to fall into two camps — genuinely cool experiments from big studios, and half-baked ports that feel like someone discovered the visionOS SDK on a Friday afternoon and decided to ship by Monday.
Several now let you pin multiple virtual monitors in your living room, which sounds incredible until you realize you're wearing a heavy headset for three hours and your neck is filing a formal complaint.
The novelty wears off around the same time your battery does.
Watching a movie on what feels like a giant floating screen is legitimately impressive, and sports content in particular has been a bright spot.
If you've ever wanted to feel like you're courtside at a game without paying courtside prices, this is probably the closest you'll get from your couch.
Apple keeps insisting the Vision Pro isn't a gaming device, which is a convenient stance when your gaming catalog is thinner than a gas station menu.
A few standout titles exist, but if you dropped three grand hoping for a VR gaming rig, you may want to sit down.
Finding good Vision Pro apps feels like wandering a mall where most stores are shuttered and the directory is written in a language you don't speak.
Apple's App Store curation for visionOS is improving, but "improving" is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence.
If you already own a Vision Pro, sure, poke around — there's more to do than there was six months ago.
If you don't own one, nothing in this app lineup is going to justify the price of admission.
Apple clearly wants this to be the future.
The apps are slowly showing up to the party.
The problem is that most of us are still standing outside, looking at the cover charge, and deciding we'd rather just go home and watch Netflix on a regular TV like a normal person.
Final Thoughts
The Vision Pro remains a fascinating glimpse at what computing could become, wrapped in a product almost nobody can afford and even fewer actually need.