PSA: Developing visionOS apps requires an Apple Silicon Mac

When Apple released the , there was a disclaimer on the Apple Developer website about it requiring an Apple Silicon Mac. It was unclear at the time whether this was a temporary limitation, but now we have the definitive answer. The company has confirmed that developers need an Apple Silicon Mac to develop apps for Apple Vision Pro.

visionOS SDK requires an Apple Silicon Mac , , which lets developers submit visionOS apps to the App Store. Apple has also updated its website with new guidelines for developing Vision Pro apps. Interestingly, that developing visionOS apps “requires a Mac with Apple silicon.” Xcode 15.2, the platform used by developers to create apps for Apple devices, runs on Intel Macs as well as macOS Sonoma – the latest version of the operating system.

However, the visionOS SDK requires a Mac with M1, M2 or M3 chips. Apple didn’t detail the reasons behind this limitation. Perhaps the visionOS simulator, used to run Vision Pro apps on the Mac, didn’t perform well on Intel Macs and Apple chose to limit the SDK to Apple Silicon Macs instead. This may also have been a deliberate limitation as the company has been slowly moving towards phasing out Intel Macs.

As we reported last year, , such as the 12 inch MacBook, the 2017 iMac, and the 2017 MacBook Pro. There are only a few Intel Macs left that still run the current version of macOS, and the next major macOS update could be the last for Intel Macs. With the , Apple no longer sells any Intel Macs. More about Apple Vision Pro The visionOS guidelines also include some intriguing requirements and suggestions.

. Apple Vision Pro launches in the US on February 2, with pre orders beginning on January 19. Prices start at $3,499 for the version with 256GB of storage . Read also.