In the days leading up to the launch of the Vision Pro, Apple has heavily promoted some of the apps intended for its spatial computing headset. Download Disney Plus and watch Tatooine movies! Slack and Fantastical and Microsoft Office in your face! FaceTime with your friends as a floating hologram! But it's increasingly clear that the initial success of the Vision Pro, and much of the answer to the question of what these headphones are actually good for, will come from a single app: Safari.
That's right, friends. Web browsers are back. And Apple needs them more than ever if it wants to make this $3,500 front-end computer a success. Embracing the web will mean threatening the very things that have made Apple so powerful and so rich in the mobile era, but at least at first, the open web is Apple's best chance to make its headphones a success. Because at least so far, it seems that the developers are not exactly jumping to create new applications for Apple's new platform.
Historically, Apple is unrivaled in its ability to keep app makers up to date with its new developments. When you release features for iPhone and iPad, a large portion of the App Store supports those features within a few weeks. But so far, the developers seem to be taking the Vision Pro development in stride. The exact reason varies by App Store, but there are plenty of good reasons to choose. One is simply that it's a new platform with new UI ideas and usability concerns on a really expensive device that few people will have access to for a while. Sure, you can more or less check a box and transfer your iPad app to the Vision Pro, but that may not be up to everyone's standards.
The broader reason is that Apple and its developers are increasingly at odds. Some of the high-profile companies that have announced that they are not yet building apps for Vision Pro and its visionOS platform (Netflix, Spotify, YouTube, and others) are the same ones that have taken issue with how Apple runs the system. . App Store. Spotify has been criticizing Apple's 30 percent cut of in-app purchases for years. Netflix got a good deal with Apple years ago to share just 15 percent of the revenue, but it has recently refused to participate in the discovery feature of the Apple TV app and long ago stopped allowing you to subscribe to Netflix from your device. iOS. YouTube stopped allowing in-app purchases a few years ago and even canceled subscriptions that people bought in the App Store to avoid Apple's commission.
You would think that the recent end of the dispute between Apple and Epic would have improved things, as Apple was required to allow developers to connect to other places where users can pay for apps. But Apple changed its terms to say that, in reality, even if someone clicks the link and subscribes through the web, the developers still owe Apple a commission. Sure, it's 27 percent instead of 30, but that's not likely to change anyone's mind. The message was clear: if you sell a product through the App Store, Apple will take its cut one way or another.
All of this corporate infighting has the potential to completely change the way we use our devices.
But what if you no longer need the App Store to reach Apple users? All of this corporate infighting has the potential to completely change the way we use our devices, starting with the Vision Pro. It's not like you can not use Spotify on headphones; It's just that instead of tapping the Spotify app icon, you'll have to go to Spotify.com. The same goes for YouTube, Netflix, and any other web app that chooses not to create something native for Vision Pro. And for gamers, whether they want to use Xbox Game Pass or just play fortnite, you will also need a browser. Over the past decade, we've all stopped opening websites and started tapping on app icons, but the era of URLs may be returning.
If you believe that the open web is a good thing and that developers should spend more time on their web applications and less on native ones, this is a big win for the future of the Internet. (Disclosure: I believe all of these things.) The problem is that it's happening after nearly two decades of mobile platforms systematically degrading and ignoring your browsing experience. You can create bookmarks on the home screen, which are just shortcuts to web apps, but those web apps don't have the same access to offline modes, inter-app collaboration, or some of your phone's other built-in features. After all this time, you still can't easily run browser extensions on mobile Safari or mobile Chrome. Apple also makes it infuriatingly difficult to stay connected to the services you use on the web across different apps. Mobile platforms treat browsers as web page viewers, not app platforms, and it shows.
There are some reasons to be hopeful, though: Apple recently added multiple profiles, external webcam support on the iPad, and a few other features to Safari, which at least shows that Apple knows Safari exists and is willing to give you access to some of it. native functions. . For years it seemed like Apple would happily abandon Safari entirely if given the choice; After all, it tightly controls everything related to its platforms and the web is a completely uncontrollable place. But the company appears to still be investing in making Safari work. (All the antitrust pressure focused on Safari is probably helping things move forward, too.)
Safari for visionOS will also come with some platform-specific features: you will be able to open multiple windows at the same time and move them around in virtual space. tech/apple-vision-pro-safari-web-browser-video”>A leaked video It recently showed a user manipulating a 3D object within a web page. Apple engineers said at WWDC last year that they completely redesigned the tab overview for visionOS, and also made some changes to make the browser work with both touch and the eye-tracking and double-pinch mechanics that are critical to visionOS. Apple has been warning developers to prepare their apps for all kinds of new screen sizes and layouts, as users do strange things with their headphones. The company also confirmed that will be compatible with WebXRa browser-based protocol for virtual reality that can be used for incredibly immersive things.
Many users may not notice the difference between opening the Spotify app and going to Spotify.com.
Rumors have also been circulating for a couple of years that Apple is dropping its WebKit requirement for developers, which would mean other browsers could be built on other rendering engines. If that happens, you might be able to run full Chrome or Firefox on your Apple devices, potentially including Vision Pro. That change, along with the increased focus on progressive web apps (PWAs), web-based cross-platform apps that Android, Windows and even Apple are starting to admit more aggressively, they could make the browser on their headphones much more powerful practically overnight. . With a good browser and powerful PWAs, many users may not notice the difference between opening the Spotify app and going to Spotify.com. That's a win for the entire web.
A powerful and deeply integrated desktop browser will make Vision Pro useful and powerful from day one. Apple should adopt Safari, allow other desktop browsers, and treat Vision Pro like the power user platform it is. However, no one has yet seen enough of Safari for visionOS to know if it is all of those things, and I'm not sure if Apple wants it to be that way. Because here's the real question for Apple: what's more important, getting Vision Pro off to a good start or protecting the sanctity of its App Store control at all costs? As Apple tries to create a platform shift to take on computers, I'm not sure it can have it both ways.