Apple's Vision Pro might have been announced way back in June of 2023 but it's only just getting ready to finally go on sale. That'll happen on Friday, February 2, 2024, and those who were lucky enough to get their preorder in early can expect theirs to arrive on or around that date. Once it arrives you can bet that one of the first things they'll do is head into the visionOS App Store and start downloading all of their apps. And when they do, they'll see a familiar icon among the options.
That icon will be Carrot Weather, an app that has been around for the iPhone, iPad, and Mac for some time now, not to mention the Apple Watch as well. So when you know that an app is already available for every other major platform that Apple owns, it probably shouldn't come as all that much of a surprise that it's also coming to the company's latest and greatest, too.
The Vision Pro is Apple's first foray into a new product category since the Apple Watch debuted almost a decade ago, and the company is betting big that it will be the future of computing. Spatial computing, in Apple parlance, and it'll need an App Store full of standout apps if that's going to happen. Carrot Weather has long been a big part of Apple's ecosystem, and its arrival on Vision Pro is a solid start indeed.
Marquee features
Screenshots of the new app have been shared by X user @M1Astra and developer Brian Mueller has been talking to MacRumors about what users can expect. One of the screenshots that were shared shows a giant globe floating in the middle of the room, and that's something that Mueller says will be the “marquee feature” of the app. “It's just really cool being able to look at a globe floating in your living room,” Mueller said, and it sure does look great in the screenshot — we can only imagine how much better it will look when it's in 3D and floating right in front of your eyes. Sure, the cynics will call the globe a gimmick but it's gimmicks that will help make Vision Pro stand out from the crowd, especially when you can of course just check the weather on your iPhone. And you can surely expect the usual carrot Weather attitude, too.
Carrot Weather for Apple Vision Pro! pic.twitter.com/oPotJwrqwiJanuary 20, 2024
All of the usual weather data and forecast information that you'd expect is present and correct of course, while the floating windows that house it all make for an experience the likes of which Carrot just can't offer on other platforms. It's a uniquely Vision Pro-like experience, and that's exactly what we want to see. The more developers that build their apps to make the most of what Vision Pro can do, the better the app ecosystem will be. And the more successful spatial computing will be as a whole.
The apps will need to be strong, too. Starting at $3,499 for the 256GB version the Vision Pro isn't a cheap purchase by any stretch of the imagination. It's very much a work in progress although those calling it a beta product are being uncharitable at best. Apple reportedly sold around 200,000 Vision Pros already, and beta products don't sell like that.
