Right now, the Apple Vision Pro headset is only available in the US, and Apple has been pretty vague about when it might be released in other countries – and which countries those will be. Now, though, we might have had a hint that reveals where Apple plans to launch the device next.
That’s because MacRumors has spotted visionOS code that reveals which languages the headset is due to support next. That includes Cantonese (traditional), Chinese (simplified), French (for Canada and France), German, Japanese and Korean. As well as that, support for English in Australia, Canada, Japan, Singapore and the UK is also apparently nestled in the code.
That implies that the Vision Pro could become available in these nations next. According to Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, Apple might expand the number of supported countries before this year’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in June, so we may not have long to wait before we see if MacRumors’ prediction was correct.
But hold on – there’s also a chance that this code actually means Apple is planning to roll out support for these languages to users in the US – that is, American users who would prefer to use the Vision Pro in another tongue. That makes sense for the aforementioned languages such as Japanese and Korean, but less so for regional dialects of English such as British English. In our view, the inclusion of these dialects seems to suggest that Apple is indeed preparing to introduce the Vision Pro to new markets.
VLC on the Vision Pro
Whatever the case, new language support is not the only big change coming to the Vision Pro. The other is that VideoLAN’s popular video app VLC could soon make an appearance on the device.
Speaking to Lowpass (via 9to5Mac), VideoLAN president Jean-Baptiste Kempf revealed that “We already have a version of VLC running on the Vision Pro.” That will be encouraging news to any Vision Pro users who are still waiting for the free video app to launch on Apple’s headset.
However, before you get too excited, there is a major caveat to Kempf’s announcement. Namely, Kempf revealed that VLC has not yet launched on the Vision Pro because the user base is still very small. “I’m not sure there is any use case yet,” Kempf stated, which mirrors reports of other app makers holding back while they assess the Vision Pro’s long-term popularity.
So, it seems that there could still be a wait for VLC to debut on the Vision Pro. While we know the app’s developer is actively working on it, there’s no release date in sight just yet. Fingers crossed that VLC joins the growing ranks of Vision Pro apps sooner rather than later.
