Before its big reveal at WWDC, plenty of details about Apple Vision Pro had already leaked out. That’s just an occupational hazard for a company with products that attract as much attention as Apple.
But what’s interesting is that while plenty of the predictions came true, others were missing from Apple’s unveiling earlier this month. The headset will launch in the US next year and in other countries over 2024.
Now an insightful report from The Information digs into why these parts have been cut and whether they could resurface later.
Here are the five cut features, and why they were abandoned … for now.
First-party fitness apps
While the idea of wearing a headset while working up a sweat won’t appeal to everyone, virtual reality has proved to be a great way to make workouts interesting on other platforms like the Meta Quest 2.
But Apple didn’t show off any traditional workouts when it showcased Vision Pro – which feels odd, given the company has spent so much on tailored workouts with Fitness Plus.
It was considered, but in the end the company shied away from it, The Information claimed. According to “former team members”, Apple might have been wary about endorsing fitness uses because of the external battery pack and the front-facing glass which might not survive a bump against furniture.
But fitness was taken seriously enough at one point for Apple to consider collaborating with Nike, and there was also talk of different face cushions, more suitable for sweaty workouts. The report also mentions a Peloton-style stationary bike experience, and a yoga app that uses the cameras to measure breathing.
In other words, it sounds like Apple will have a lot more to say about first-party fitness in the future – just maybe on a second-generation product that is better built for it.
Immersive VR gaming experiences
Given games are virtual reality’s big seller, the absence of gaming content in the Apple Vision Pro reveal felt a little odd. Yes, the company did mention support for over 100 Apple Arcade titles, but what about the best VR games around, like SuperHot, Beat Saber and Half-Life: Alyx?
Don’t hold your breath. The Information article reported that in a Slack briefing for developers held after the event, an engineer told participants that while hand tracking worked well for gestures and finger interaction tasks, it is not the best choice for very precise interactions – which is bad news for gamers.
At the very least that means that straight ports of popular VR titles are presumably out of the question. Headsets like the Meta Quest 2 and Pico 4 come with dedicated controllers, and developers will have to make games fit the controller-free format if they’re going to work well.
That could open the door to unique creative masterpieces that play to Vision Pro’s strengths, but it could equally mean that immersive VR games are few and far between.
Native Mac apps
While Vision Pro supports the ability to do Mac work on the headset via an extended desktop, originally Apple apparently had something bolder in mind. It planned to let users drag apps from the desktop or laptop and run them natively on Vision Pro.
On paper, that shouldn’t be too taxing. Vision Pro uses the same M2 chip that is found in recent MacBooks so it’s not a performance issue, but Apple “killed this feature early on” all the same.
The problem was the operating system: Vision Pro runs visionOS, which is based on iOS – the software in iPhones. This made it too much of a headache, and one that probably wasn’t worth addressing when the virtual desktop solution works well enough as it is.
Apple TV Plus content
While there’s nothing stopping you watching shows on a virtual giant cinema screen, what was curiously absent from the public demo was any kind of Apple TV Plus content tie-ins.
Before it launched, this was rumoured to be a big part of things. Apple has the rights to broadcast both Major League Baseball (MLB) and Major League Soccer (MSL) games after all, and there was talk of being able to view live games as if you were there with a pitch-side view.
Indeed, some journalists were shown a virtual courtside basketball game, so why was it not shown publicly?
This is probably one for further down the road on the product roadmap. The Information believes that “the current state of internet speeds and the amount of data [required] … to make the experience feel seamless” is a block on this for now.
Full-body tracking
Apparently, one of the reasons that Vision Pro has two cameras that point downwards is to capture the wearer’s body and hands for full-body tracking.
This would mean the possible tracking of a person’s body in 3D-space, allowing for a feature called co-presence where two Vision Pro wearers could chat to each other naturally, as if they were in the same room.
But it won’t be ready for release, according to the Information. Representatives from Apple told developers over Slack that the feature won’t be available when the headset ships later this year.
That isn’t the same thing as it being abandoned and, if just one of the features from this list appears in Apple Vision Pro at some point, you would bet on it being this one.
