Developer talks about the process of bringing the djay app to Vision Pro

2024-01-12 13:34:17

Karim MorsyI was Algorid at CEO, recently shared with Apple some of your impressions about the adaptation process of your most popular application, the djayfor the Apple Vision Proincluding the challenges of bringing a 2D interface to a three-dimensional environment.

According to the developer, Maçã’s mixed reality headset made his app — which debuted more than ten years ago, first on the Mac and then on the iPad — look like a “beast that wanted to be released”. The differences between the platforms, however, made all the work done before Vision Pro seem like a “prologue” for djay, he explained.

The first time I tried the device was very exciting. I wanted to be a DJ since I was a child. And suddenly here were these record players and the night sky, and the stars above me, and this light show in the desert. I felt like, ‘This is the culmination of everything. This is the feeling I wanted people to experience.’

visionOS’ infinite workspace, for example, forced Morsy to completely rethink the way people interact with his software. Her team also thought about visualization modes that bring three-dimensional DJ tables to the environment where the user is, as well as scenarios that make the person feel like they are at a real festival.

In summary, there will be three ways to interact with djay in Vision Pro: the first is the way the app comes by default when it is opened for the first time, with a complete window with two decks. The second, as mentioned, adds two three-dimensional tables, while the third also adds a scene full of effects that react with the music being played.

One of these scenarios displays LED, or light-emitting diode. with colors that match the album cover of the song playing, while another transports you to a desert with an arena of lights. There’s even one that takes the DJ to a kind of ship in Earth’s orbit — complete with some dancing robots and everything.

Do you want to enter a loop where the environment influences it and vice versa.

The idea, according to Morsy, is to find a balance between “complexity and ease of use”. According to him, something that made sense in his app ten years ago, when people still interacted with djay with the help of a keyboard and mouse, may not be as useful now.

The Apple Vision Pro, it’s worth remembering, will be launched on the day February 2 nd by from US$3.500 (United States only). Pre-orders for the headset will start in exactly one week (19/1).