How developers will test their apps before Vision Pro launches

Enlarge / A promotional image made by Apple to convey what the in-person developer labs for Vision Pro will be like. (credit: Apple)

Apple needs third-party apps for Vision Pro when it launches next year, but most developers don’t have the headset yet. That would seem at first glance to be a conundrum, but on Monday, Apple opened up three different ways app developers can start testing their apps on Vision Pro hardware well before the product launches to the public.

None of them are surprises, of course—Apple previously laid out these plans at WWDC. But now developers can actually start signing up for and using these resources.

It has been possible to get at least some serious work done since Apple made a beta release of Xcode available with support for visionOS. That version of Xcode (Apple’s IDE for Macs that is required to build apps for the company’s various platforms like iOS) includes a visionOS Simulator that presents work-in-progress visionOS apps in a virtual 3D space navigable with keyboard and mouse or trackpad controls.