AVP Year One

I just can’t believe it’s already been a year since I flew from Paris to Boston to buy the Vision Pro. I think now is a good time to reflect on everything that has happened since then.

I think a lot of us in the industry were hoping the launch of the Vision Pro would “save” the XR market. But for all the reasons we now know, 2024 was never going to be that year.

That being said, one thing Apple did by entering the market was reignite competition. Meta has made significant improvements to their OS over the past year, and the user experience on the Quest 3 has gotten much better! As an Oculus fan from the early days, I’m glad to see the quality of the OS making a comeback—it really felt like it had dropped off ever since the Quest 1.

Google also announced AndroidXR and their partnership with Samsung and other manufacturers that will support their OS. All this news makes me pretty hopeful for 2025—we have some great things coming in the next few years from all the major players.

Boston - Boylston Street Apple Store. A big nerd with a huge smile 😄

What’s truly striking, though, is that both the headset and the OS look very similar to visionOS and the Vision Pro.

Project Moohan headset, a mix of the Quest Pro and Vision Pro

AndroidXR looking very familiar

Apple is once again setting a new standard for the years to come with its designs, so in my book, it’s a win for both the industry and Apple. visionOS is one of, if not the best, OS out there for XR and is currently the killer feature of the Vision Pro.

The Vision Pro represents a glimpse into the future, embraced by early adopters and those who believe in Apple’s long-term vision. As I’ve been saying since before its release, the AVP is for those who think ahead. I believe we’ve now reached a point where the noise—whether from overhyping or criticism—while not entirely gone, has quieted enough for us to focus on the next chapter. But make no mistake, this next phase won’t be easy—far from it!

Ever since its launch, the press and media have been describing the Vision Pro as a failure and spreading reports that Apple has stopped production. While this news may be true, it’s far from being the end of Apple in this product category. At this point, we’re pretty sure they’re set to launch a new Vision Pro and a cheaper version too.

I’m still convinced Apple has the power to be a key player in XR and find its niche in the ecosystem, but it might take a bit longer than we thought.

In 2024 I had the opportunity to talk about the Vision Pro at multiple events and also co-organized the local meetup for the first worldwide visionOS hackathon. All these events and the people I met there led me to believe that there is great potential in the platform and comforted me in the idea to create Tab To Tap. I’ll dedicated a good part of my energy in 2025 for this platform as I’ve been doing for the past year but now as a freelance developer & product manager to help companies be ready for this new chapter.

Speaking at en event to present the Vision Pro in Paris

Paris Meetup for the visionOS hackathon

Betting on the Apple Vision Pro is not for the faint-hearted. XR is far from the easiest field in tech, but in the end, the reward will be there—that's at least my core belief and has been for more than 10 years of doing this. I know I’m not alone in feeling this way; there’s a core group of builders doing amazing work on this platform, ready to prove everyone wrong in the next few years.

Over here, I’m going to keep building and not listening to the haters. So for now, I guess we’ll meet in February 2026 to see how the year went. But until then, I’ll leave you with a few of my wishes for what I think is needed to make the platform grow stronger in 2025:

Hardware

• Vision Pro 2 will apparently have almost the same design, but I hope they find a way to improve comfort by choosing lighter materials or reworking the weight balance.

• Vision Air should be priced below $2,000.

• A one-size head strap and light seal option to make it easier to share the device with others.

• Controllers.

Software (visionOS 3)

• Camera access permission without needing enterprise APIs.

• Improved guest mode with remote control.

• Support for multiple accounts on the Vision Pro—or at least multiple saved profiles.

• The biggest update to RealityKit & Reality Composer Pro yet, making it an even more viable replacement for Unity3D.

• RoomPlan support.

• Better World Anchors support to share anchors between devices via the cloud or locally.

• Persona API to be used outside FaceTime / SharePlay

Other

• A grant program (one can hope!).

• Keep doing developer events around the world! Workshops were a great way to give feedback and meet other developers. Apple should double down on this—especially since they’re not providing financial support. It’s the least they could do!