Issue 618  July 14th 2023

It’s been a few weeks since they were published, but I’ve had two videos on my mind recently, both covering the Vision Pro headset demos from WWDC. First, just a couple of days after the conference ended, Paul Hudson posted a video covering his demo experience. Then a week or so later, Malin Sundberg and Jordi Bruin documented their experiences.

Like you, I’ve seen several first impression videos from YouTubers and members of the mainstream press, but these two videos are different. Paul, Malin, and Jordi¹ had the same 30-minute demo but also attended another session the day after the keynote, staffed with engineers.

There are common points between these videos and those targeting consumers, but I love how these videos reveal details about the operating systems that most people wouldn’t find interesting. If you’ve not watched them already, I recommend watching both. Many of the details are also covered in visionOS session videos, but it’s important to hear unofficial perspectives.

It’s impossible for every developer to have the chance to try on a headset before next year’s release, and only a small subset of Apple platform developers will be able to buy one at release, whether that be due to the cost or the fact it won’t be available outside the US! 🇺🇸 I’m happy to see Apple give some developers this chance, though, where hardware previews would usually only be for the press. I don’t think this is a policy change or anything we’ll see for new iPhones, iPads, or Macs, but because this is an entirely new platform. Whatever the reason, I’m glad it happened and that they were allowed to document their experiences.

It’s also worth a quick reminder here that there are upcoming visionOS labs that become “Available in July”, so you might want to set yourself a daily reminder to visit that page if you want to join the group of lucky developers who get to try an app out on real hardware before 2024. 🤞

Dave Verwer