Apple CEO Tim Cook (L) takes a selfie with a greets customers on arrival for the release of the Vision Pro headset at the Apple Store in New York City on February 2, 2024.
Angela Weiss | AFP | Getty Images
When Apple revealed the Vision Pro in 2023, it called the $3,500 headset its next “major platform.” Two years later, and a year after going on sale, the device is thin on apps.
Apple doesn’t regularly release stats on the number of Vision Pro apps that are available, and it’s hard to tell how many new apps come out in any given month. According to consultancy AppFigures, which tracks Apple’s platforms, the number of new Vision Pro apps has declined every month since the device hit the market in February 2024.
When Apple unveiled the Vision Pro, executives said that developers would be able to create new experiences that weren’t possible with traditional computers. But so far, top developers remain mostly focused elsewhere, and major tech companies like Google, Meta and Netflix have yet to release their most important apps for the headset.
Many of the new apps and ideas for the Vision Pro are coming from independent developers, hacking on the weekends while holding down day jobs.
One person in the indie camp is Adam Roszyk, a programmer in Poland who has created 17 Vision Pro apps since the headset was first released.
For $4, Roszyk’s Night Vision app lets a Vision Pro user tap the depth-sensing cameras of the device to see objects in the dark. If you spend $5, you can perform a chore in a Luigi’s Mansion-like video game usingthe app Vacuume, which overlays virtual coins on your floor that you can vacuum up, along with any real dirt or dust. And for $6, Roszyk’s app Scan Export lets users create a 3D digital scan of an entire building just by walking around, a useful tool for those in construction or real estate.
“We are still early, and we don’t really know how it can be really useful in your life,” Roszyk said. “There’s so many different ideas that just come to your mind.”
Roszyk continues to work on Vision Pro apps because he said he believes “spatial computing” — Apple’s preferred terminology for headset and glasses technology that can integrate 3D objects with the world around them — will be the next big platform. Roszyk is betting that developing apps now can put him in prime position when more people are walking around with a Vision Pro or, perhaps some day, lightweight glasses.
“This type of computing is the future,” Roszyk said. “I would definitely compare it to the first iPhones.”
Roszyk’s efforts have made him money, but not enough for Vision Pro development to become his full-time job. His 17 apps have cleared about $4,000 on the App Store in the last three months. That number is growing as he releases more apps and more people find out about them, Roszyk said.
Apple updated its most recent Vision Pro app count in August, with CEO Tim Cook telling investors on an earnings call that the platform had 2,500 apps. That number covers fully immersive apps that overlay virtual objects over the real world as well as 2D apps with some spatial components.
By AppFigures’ count, less than 1,900 of these apps remained active at the end of January.
Apple declined to comment.
Rival Meta in 2023 said that it had 500 apps in its Quest store, and the company last year said that number had multiplied by 10.
The Quest 3S, which has many of the same features as the Vision Pro, starts at $300. Meta also sold millions of its predecessors in recent years. While Meta hasn’t revealed how many users it has, its Meta Quest app was downloaded about 6 million times in 2024, according to AppFigures data, a useful proxy because users need to download the app in order to set up the headset.
There are also about 1.5 million Vision Pro apps that are ported versions of iPhone and iPad apps. Apple automatically ports iPhone and iPad apps to the Vision Pro when they’re uploaded, but companies can decline. Those apps can be used inside the headset but appear as 2D flat screens. Meta started to emulate that strategy last year with 2D Android apps for Quest, but the company doesn’t have the same library of millions of existing mobile apps.
Apple doesn’t publish Vision Pro sales, but one estimate from IDC suggests fewer than 1 million devices have been sold.
Some services like Netflix and YouTube, and game streaming services like Nvidia GeForce Now can be accessed through the Apple Vision Pro’s browser. And existing apps often receive updates that introduce a spatial mode, such as the NBA scores app, which recently got an experimental feature that allows users to watch a live basketball game as if the players were miniature figurines on a table.
Apple Arcade, a monthly game subscription from Apple, does require that its titles support the Vision Pro in addition to iPhones and iPads. Apple Arcade developers are paid by Apple and their apps are free to subscribers.
Although many of those games are 2D, some are exclusive to the Vision Pro. In January, Apple released Gears & Goo, a Vision Pro app that enables the player to control an army of goofy frog-like characters on a table in the real world.
Meanwhile, Meta is actively courting VR developers with a promise that they can make money. Meta in January said that its payment volume for Quest headsets rose by 12% last year, although it didn’t cite a total number. Meta has also said it has 200 apps that have made more than $1 million through software sales.
No iPhone-like app gold rush
The Apple Vision Pro headset is displayed at the Fifth Avenue Apple store on Feb. 2, 2024 in New York City.
Michael M. Santiago | Getty Images News | Getty Images
The Vision Pro app gold rush has seen slower uptake than the iPhone’s app boom.
A year after the iPhone App Store was launched in 2008, Apple was crowing about the platform having 50 million customers, 2 billion downloads and 85,000 apps. Apple regularly told investors and developers how much money it had paid from App Store sales — it hasn’t released any similar stat for the Vision Pro.
Many in the VR industry hoped Apple’s entry would kick off a boom like the iPhone did for mobile apps, creating fortunes as millions of users sought to fill their new devices with fresh software.
“My assumption back then was whatever Apple releases might be in that final form, so it’s a good idea to be ready as early as possible,” said Nikhil Jacob, who runs Vision Uni, which publishes content about developing apps for the Vision Pro. “But my assumption there ended up being wrong.”
Jacob said he believes that an app developer ecosystem for the Vision Pro will take a lot longer to build out than it did for the iPhone because key pieces are missing. Jacob hopes Apple improves the Vision Pro app store to help users find new apps.
The slow uptake, due largely to the high price tag, has led some to worry that VR and its related technologies are once again entering a lull.
“Winter has come,” said Jarrett Webb, who develops headset apps for Argodesign, a software consultancy. “Even Apple couldn’t produce a winner.”
Still, some optimism remains among Vision Pro developers.
They say that Apple’s hardware is solid, the company’s developer tools are improving, and that the Vision Pro lays the groundwork for future software and hardware updates. It also helps that Vision Pro owners still seem to be excited to try out new apps.
Apple’s entry into the headset market, combined with Google’s recent announcement of its own Android XR platform, as well as Meta’s billions of dollars of investment signals that there will be a market for VR content, said John Gearty, who worked on the Vision Pro at Apple and is the founder of PulseJet Studios, a VR production house focusing on music. Gearty is hoping for steady growth from the market, but he has tempered his expectations.
“I don’t think it’s ever going to be hockey stick growth,” he said.
Apple has not said if it will update the Vision Pro. According to analysts, the company is working on a successor. Developers want it to be lighter and less expensive. They welcome any improvements that would get it on more faces.
“Over time, everything gets better, and it too will have its course of getting better and better,” Cook told The Wall Street Journal in October. “I think it’s just arguably a success today from an ecosystem-being-built-out point of view.”
— CNBC’s Jonathan Vanian contributed to this report.
Traders work on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City, U.S., Nov. 10, 2025.
Brendan McDermid | Reuters
This is CNBC’s Morning Squawk newsletter. Subscribe here to receive future editions in your inbox.
Here are five key things investors need to know to start the trading day:
1. The reopening trade
Investors yesterday were pleased with the Senate’s approval of an agreement that could end the government shutdown. The three major indexes all surged in Monday’s session, regaining ground after posting sizable losses last week.
Here’s what to know:
The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite saw its biggest one-day rally since May, signaling traders’ shift back into the artificial intelligence trade. Microsoft snapped its longest losing streak since 2011.
Bitcoin climbed back above the $105,000 mark, another sign of the deal boosting animal spirits in the market.
The Senate officially passed the bill in another vote last night, sending it to the House of Representatives.
Earlier in the day, House Speaker Mike Johnson did not commit to holding a December vote on extending enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies — one of the deal’s key guarantees for Democrats. Here’s what Democrats are, and aren’t, getting in the deal.
Johnson said members of his chamber should return to Washington, D.C., to vote on the deal as soon as possible. Members of Congress were told that votes in the House could begin by 4 p.m. ET tomorrow.
When asked if he supports the agreement, President Donald Trump on Monday said “I would say so.”
The logo of Japanese company SoftBank Group is seen outside the company’s headquarters in Tokyo on January 22, 2025.
Kazuhiro Nogi | Afp | Getty Images
Japanese firm SoftBank said Tuesday that it sold all of its stake in Nvidia for $5.83 billion. Nvidia shares slipped nearly 2% in premarket trading this morning.
The sale comes as SoftBank focuses its attention on OpenAI, the buzzy startup behind ChatGPT. But SoftBank is still involved with Nvidia through other artificial intelligence ventures that use the chipmaker’s technology, such as the Stargate project.
SoftBank also dumped some of its T-Mobile position for $9.17 billion.
3. Paramount+, or Paramount-?
The Paramount Studios in Los Angeles, California, US, on Sunday, Nov. 9, 2025.
The CBS parent said it’s aiming to trim an additional $1 billion from its business. As CNBC’s Lillian Rizzo notes, that’s on top of the $2 billion in savings the company outlined when its merger completed in August. Paramount also announced its latest round of layoffs, tied to its divestiture of parts of its South American business, impacting about 1,600 employees.
The entertainment company said it would hike prices for its Paramount+ streaming service in the first quarter of 2026.
4. Air travel headwinds
American Airlines planes sit at gates at Charlotte-Douglas International Airport (CLT) on November 9, 2025 in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Grant Baldwin | Getty Images
Air travel remains under pressure as the government shutdown strains airport infrastructure. Just over 6% of U.S. flights were cancelled yesterday, according to aviation data firm Cirium.
Air traffic controllers, who are required to work during the shutdown, missed their second full paycheck yesterday. Trump said he would recommend a $10,000 bonus for controllers who don’t take off time during the shutdown, while threatening to dock pay for those who don’t go to work.
Flexjet global CEO Andrew Collins told CNBC’s Leslie Josephs that demand for flights on private planes has jumped sharply in recent days. But the Federal Aviation Administration on Monday limited private flights at 12 major U.S. airports amid the staffing challenges.
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5. A holiday tradition
Warren Buffett and Greg Abel walkthrough the Berkshire Hathaway Annual Shareholders Meeting in Omaha, Nebraska on May 3, 2025.
But Buffett said he would hold onto a “significant amount” of Class A shares so investors can build confidence in his successor, Greg Abel. Buffett said it “shouldn’t take long” for shareholders to warm up to Abel, who will take over as chief executive next year.
Buffett said his letter will become a Thanksgiving tradition and that Abel will take over writing Berkshire’s annual shareholder letters. In typical fashion for the investing titan, the Oracle of Omaha used his note on Monday to dole out some life advice, too.
The Daily Dividend
— CNBC’s Lillian Rizzo, Sean Conlon, Dan Mangan, Kevin Breuninger, Leslie Josephs, Kate Rogers, Yun Li, John Melloy, Ryan Ermey and Macklin Fishman contributed to this report. Josephine Rozzelle edited this edition.
Across the tech sector this earnings season, companies told Wall Street to get ready for ramped up spending as the artificial intelligence boom accelerates.
But while investors largely rewarded the megacaps for their boosted capital expenditure forecasts, or just shrugged off their guidance, companies outside the trillion-dollar club are getting punished.
DoorDash, Duolingo and Roblox all saw their stock prices suffer double-digit slumps after the companies said spending is on the incline, raising concerns about future profitability. Unlike the tech giants, which are promising hefty buildouts to meet soaring demand for AI services and workloads, smaller companies are getting viewed more skeptically, with analysts uncertain about whether their bets will pay off and result in substantial new revenue opportunities.
“Investors don’t like investment cycles,” Evercore ISI’s Mark Mahaney told CNBC’s “Closing Bell: Overtime” last week. That’s what happened, he said, with “all those companies that went into and out of this earnings cycle and negatively surprised the market by saying, ‘We really want to lean into investments first.'”
DoorDash’s stock sank 17% on Thursday, its worst drop in the food delivery platform’s five years as a public company. In its third-quarter earnings report, DoorDash said it plans to shell out “several hundred million dollars” on new products and technology next year.
“We wish there was a way to grow a baby into an adult without investment, or to see the baby grow into an adult overnight, but we do not believe this is how life or business works,” the company wrote in its earnings release.
CEO Tony Xu said on the earnings call that the company’s investment track record signals “some success in repeating this playbook, and we’re doing this now for future growth.”
Analysts see it differently.
“Looking ahead, we maintain our Hold rating as we see limited multiple expansion opportunity until there is greater clarity surrounding how long investments could weigh on margins,” wrote analysts at Gordon Haskett.
A DoorDash spokesperson said in a statement that the company is “fortunate to have an increasingly successful core business” and that it takes a “disciplined investment approach” to new projects.
‘Monetization and user growth at odds’
Duolingo also had its worst day as a public company on Thursday, despite beating on revenue and bookings in its third-quarter earnings report.
The stock lost a quarter of its value and is now down 41% for the year, after Duolingo said it’s prioritizing finding new users. The company has been pouring money into AI features, such as an interactive video call option, as it tries to win over paying subscribers.
“There are experiments that put monetization and user growth at odds, and part of my job has been, always, arbitrating between these two,” CEO Luis von Ahn told CNBC after the earnings report. He said the company is shifting the “trade off to be much more towards user growth.”
On the earnings call, von Ahn said that it’s “going to take some time for us to see the results, financial results, over the long-term investments that we’re doing.”
After the report, analysts at KeyBanc Capital Markets downgraded the stock to the equivalent of hold from buy, citing concerns that increased investments will weigh on near-term bookings, earnings and valuation.
“This suggests to us that it might take several quarters to see more meaningful financial benefits,” the firm said.
Duolingo didn’t provide a comment.
Meanwhile, the biggest companies in the tech industry may similarly be years away from seeing if their big AI wagers result in profits. But investors aren’t terribly concerned.
Alphabet and Amazon both rallied after reporting earnings in late October. The companies again raised their forecasts for capital expenditures for the year and suggested that there’s no slowdown coming in 2026.
Amazon Web Services is the leading provider of cloud infrastructure, a market where Google is third, and is racing to build out data centers to meet expected demand for compute capacity tied to AI. AWS and Google are also investing in their own silicon so that they’re less dependent on Nvidia and can offer customers a more complete tech stack.
Microsoft, which is second in the cloud infrastructure market, slipped after its earnings report, which also included a guide to higher capex. But the company, valued at close to $4 trillion, still mostly has the backing of Wall Street as it competes for more AI deals and bigger workloads.
The exception among the megacaps is Meta, which sank 11% following earnings. The company expects to spend as much as $72 billion this year on capex, but doesn’t sell a cloud service that rivals Amazon, Google and Microsoft.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg wears the Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses, as he delivers a speech presenting the new line of smart glasses, during the Meta Connect event at the company’s headquarters in Menlo Park, California, U.S., Sept. 17, 2025.
Carlos Barria | Reuters
While Meta says it’s infusing AI across its product portfolio and improving targeting in its core ad business, the lack of clarity surrounding revenue is giving investors pause. Mahaney grouped Meta in with companies that he said “negatively surprised” the market.
Roblox was also in that category.
Shares of the online gaming platform fell almost 16% on Oct. 30, after the company warned that higher spending on safety and infrastructure could hit margins. CEO David Baszucki told CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” that safety on its platform was a “top priority.”
Finance chief Naveen Chopra said the investments may weigh on near-term engagement and bookings but are “a magnifier of longer-term growth.”
Analysts at Benchmark downgraded shares to hold from buy, expecting investments will hinder profitability. Roth analysts, who recommend holding the stock, also see a potential hit to margins next year.
“The impact from these initiatives may negatively impact platform engagement in the near term,” the analysts at Roth wrote, “but is expected to have a greater long-term benefit for users.”
The chief executive of Finland’s Oura told CNBC on Tuesday that he expects the wearable tech company to generate close to $2 billion in sales next year.
The smart ring maker has upped its forecast as it invests in artificial intelligence and international expansion, hot on the heels of a $900 million funding round in October.
Oura is on track to secure $1 billion in sales in 2025, doubling its 2024 revenue, CEO Tom Hale told CNBC’s Arjun Kharpal from Web Summit in Lisbon, Portugal.
Next year is “certainly going to be a lot more,” Hale said in an exclusive interview. “I don’t know if we know exactly how much but, it’ll be north, maybe close to $2 billion.”
It represents a sharp increase from a previously reported sales forecast of over $1.5 billion, setting Oura up to nearly double sales for a second year running.
“I think a big part of that is just that we’ve really hit the market well with health features for women, we’ve expanded internationally, all these things are driving our growth,” Hale said.
The Finnish company, which is valued at $11 billion, sold over 5.5 million Oura Rings since the product’s launch in 2015 up until September. Oura says it has sold more than 2.5 million rings since June 2024.
Oura has been an “AI-forward company from the get-go,” Hale said, but he is even more bullish on the company’s adoption of AI going forward as the company eyes a range of preventative healthcare features.
“One of the things that Oura does particularly well is it generates insights — basically text — for you that helps you understand your metrics,” he said. The company uses AI to translate those data points into advice and coaching. It has also its own chatbot, the Oura Advisor, which is like a “doctor in your pocket” that can be asked questions, Hale added.
“One the things that we really believe is that we can become like this sort of guardian angel, right, that’s with you all the time and is starting to give you these predictions about your longer-term health,” Hale said.
Despite Oura’s ambitions, there is “no news on an IPO,” he added.