TechScape: Why Apple’s Vision Pro headset won’t have Netflix, Spotify or YouTube

This new spatial computing' device is supposedly the most immersive way to watch TV - but major streamers aren't building apps for it. Plus, Facebook's AI god complex

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It's good to have friends. They come to your birthday party, offer a shoulder to cry on when things are hard and spend precious corporate resources developing apps for your nascent virtual reality platform despite little direct return. It can be tempting to believe that a pile of cash worth $30bn, and a single product line that brings in more than $200bn a year, is an acceptable substitute. But Apple is learning that money can't buy you everything.

Last week, pre-orders opened for the company's Vision Pro headset, the $3,500 spatial computing" platform CEO Tim Cook has positioned as the successor to the Mac and iPhone and the launch of the third major era in Apple's history. But in the press, the launch has been overshadowed by the quiet hostility towards the device from those whose support will ultimately be needed to ensure its success.

Rather than designing a Vision Pro app - or even just supporting its existing iPad app on the platform - Netflix is essentially taking a pass. The company, which competes with Apple in streaming, said in a statement that users interested in watching its content on the device can do so from the web.

YouTube ... isn't planning to launch a new app for the Apple Vision Pro, nor will it allow its longstanding iPad application to work on the device - at least, for now [...] Spotify also isn't currently planning a new app for visionOS - the Vision Pro's operating system - and doesn't expect to enable its iPad app to run on the device when it launches, according to a person familiar with matter.

All App Store developers - including those who place buttons or links with calls to action in their apps - benefit from Apple's proprietary technology and tools protected by intellectual property, and access to its user base. [...] Apple's commission will be 27% on proceeds you earn from sales.

The Meta chief executive has said the company will attempt to build an artificial general intelligence (AGI) system and make it open source, meaning it will be accessible to developers outside the company. The system should be made as widely available as we responsibly can", he added.

AGI is not a strictly defined term, but it commonly refers to a theoretical AI system that can carry out an array of tasks at a level of intelligence that matches or exceeds humans. The potential emergence of AGI has alarmed experts and politicians around the world who fear such a system, or a combination of multiple AGI systems, could evade human control and threaten humanity.