If you were looking forward to using Apple Vision Pro with native YouTube and Spotify apps once the headset launches on February 2, we’ve got bad news for you.
According to Mark Gurman at Bloomberg, not only are these companies joining Netflix in not offering a Vision Pro app — but their iPad apps, which can easily be made to work on the headset, won’t be allowed on the platform either.
Instead, you’ll be asked to use Apple’s Safari web browser — completely missing the point of what a video app is capable of with Vision Pro. Other streaming apps, like Disney Plus, are confirmed for the headset and, in Disney's case, will take advantage of features like Environments. So, if you’d like to sit in Luke Skywalker’s speeder in Tatooine from Star Wars and watch a 3D movie via Disney Plus, you can.
However, when it comes to using YouTube, Spotify, or Netflix, you’ll have no choice but to type in each URL on Safari for Vision Pro.
A baffling decision by all — iMore’s take
Since September 2023, Apple has allowed developers to let their iPhone and iPad apps work on Vision Pro. It’s nothing more than ticking a box in Xcode, Apple’s developer platform for creating these apps, to enable this function.
For reasons known only to these three musketeers, the checkbox is something they’re not prepared to do.
In a time where these services have raised their subscription prices in order to, essentially, survive — the ease of simply downloading the apps to Vision Pro is not possible. That ease of use may be what could tempt users of these services to cancel their subscription with these three apps — especially when you’ll be able to access apps like Disney Plus on the headset.
Hopefully, all three will reverse course and click that checkbox for their iPad apps to work on Vision Pro. For now, though, if you decide to buy Apple’s headset, make sure that you’ve got these services bookmarked in Safari so you can easily access them in visionOS when the time comes.
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