Apple Vision Pro gets new developer tools; will bring apps to life in ways never seen before

Apple has made visionOS’s software development kit (SDK) available to the developer community. It will enable developers to build spatial experience-focused apps for the Apple Vision Pro.

Apple Vision Pro now gets the support of the software development kit (SDK) for the developers community. (Apple)

On June 5, the annual Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) began, and its keynote session was headlined by the unveiling of the newest Apple product, the Apple Vision Pro. This new headset comes with a unique spatial computing capability that allows users to experience apps and features in an augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) environment. And now, Apple has added a dedicated software development kit (SDK) to help developers build exciting third-party apps for the visionOS platform starting today, June 22.

Apple believes that the global community of developers will be able to create an entirely new class of spatial computing apps that take full advantage of the infinite canvas in Vision Pro and seamlessly blend digital content with the physical world to enable new experiences with the help of these tools. The visionOS SDK will allow developers to build apps across a variety of categories including productivity, design, gaming, and more.

Susan Prescott, Apple's vice president of Worldwide Developer Relations said, “By taking advantage of the space around the user, spatial computing unlocks new opportunities for our developers, and enables them to imagine new ways to help their users connect, be productive, and enjoy new types of entertainment. We can't wait to see what our developer community dreams up.”

Apple Vision Pro gets developer tools

The company has also announced that from the next month onwards, Apple will open developer labs in Cupertino, London, Munich, Shanghai, Singapore, and Tokyo to provide developers with hands-on experience to test their apps on Apple Vision Pro hardware and get support from Apple engineers. Development teams will also be able to apply for developer kits to help them quickly build, iterate, and test right on Apple Vision Pro.

Developers will be able to build new apps using the same foundational frameworks from other Apple platforms, including Xcode, SwiftUI, RealityKit, ARKit, and TestFlight. To help developers optimize 3D content for their visionOS apps and games, an all-new tool available with Xcode called Reality Composer Pro lets them preview and prepare 3D models, animations, images, and sounds.

Further, developers who have been building 3D apps and games with Unity's tools can port their Unity apps to Apple Vision Pro and take full advantage of its powerful capabilities.