Apple's $3,500 headset launched with a serious problem: not enough to actually DO inside it.
That's changing fast, and the apps flooding in right now are the kind of thing that makes you forget you're wearing a computer on your face.
Take the new wave of spatial streaming apps.
Forget scrolling a flat grid on your wall.
These apps drop you into virtual screening rooms where the screen stretches wider than a movie theater, and the sound engineers have been tweaking spatial audio so precisely that users report flinching during jump scares.
Netflix still won't play nice with a native app, but third-party developers have built workarounds that turn Safari into a shockingly good theater.
Apps like the updated Zoom and a handful of meeting tools now let you pin coworkers as floating windows around your desk, which sounds gimmicky until you realize you can actually make eye contact with twelve people at once without a grid of tiny faces.
Early adopters say it cuts meeting fatigue, though skeptics call it an expensive way to avoid a webcam.
Not the AAA blockbusters, but the weird indie stuff.
There's a spatial puzzle game where you physically rotate floating mechanisms with your hands, and a meditation app that builds a forest around you based on your breathing rate.
One developer turned his apartment into a playable escape room that overlays digital locks on his actual doors.
It's the kind of creativity that made early iPhone apps feel magical.
Even the boring utilities are getting interesting.
A grocery list app now floats your list on the fridge door while you cook.
A language app places virtual labels on objects around your home so you learn vocabulary in context.
These aren't headline-grabbing features, but they're the daily-use glue that keeps a device from collecting dust.
Here's the catch: most of these apps are still rough around the edges.
And the price of entry is still a mortgage payment.
But the momentum is real, and developers are clearly betting big on spatial computing.
If you already own a Vision Pro, this app surge is exactly the reason to stop treating it like a demo unit.
If you don't, the software still isn't worth $3,500 on its own, but it's finally starting to look like a platform instead of a prototype.
Final Thoughts
Give it another year and the conversation might be completely different.