App Store coming to Vision Pro later this year

September 6, 2023 in iOS by Brenton ‐ 1 min read

Apple has confirmed that the Vision Pro App Store is coming later this year.

Apple Developer News:

Starting this fall, an upcoming developer beta release of visionOS will include the App Store. By default, your iPad and/or iPhone apps will be published automatically on the App Store on Apple Vision Pro. Most frameworks available in iPadOS and iOS are also included in visionOS, which means nearly all iPad and iPhone apps can run on visionOS, unmodified. Customers will be able to use your apps on visionOS early next year when Apple Vision Pro becomes available.

Apple continues to be on track to make Vision Pro headsets available for purchase in “early 2024”.

Even though very few will have physical hardware to test the App Store on, making it available for those lucky enough to have access to a developer kit is a significant milestone in preparing for the public launch.

While most iPad and iOS apps will “just work” on visionOS, not all frameworks are supported. In these instances, Apple will mark apps as unsupported in App Store Connect so that the app doesn’t show in the App Store on visionOS.

Developers can also require specific functionality using the UIRequiredDeviceCapabilities property list value. While limited in value for now given there’s only one Vision headset, this may become more useful over time.