My New Year's Resolution for 2025: Going Even Further All-In on visionOS
Some people write New Year's resolutions, and some people do not. I write them every year, then look back at the end of the year to see how things actually went. Repeating that has become a rhythm that makes each year feel more solid, so I am writing again.
I have already written my reflection on last year here.
For the IT industry, 2023 was a turbulent year with major advances around AI, and in 2024, after a full year had passed since the end of the COVID period, it felt like people's movement in the world was returning to its previous activity. From what I have seen in the news, I hear that office attendance habits are also coming back more and more.
Five days have passed since the new year began, but I still do not really feel that weekdays will start from Monday. To regain a sense of reality and accept that the winter holidays are ending, I decided to write down my New Year's resolutions.
Around visionOS
As I wrote in my reflection, in 2024 I bought a Vision Pro, and that became the starting point for a rapid migration into Apple platforms.
The world is still filled with the Windows sphere, and while Apple is strong in smartphones, the Mac does not hold a huge share. Vision Pro has not even been out for a year yet, but considering that, it seems to have reached a fairly notable share. That said, compared with Meta Quest and similar platforms, it still does not hold that large a share.
In other words, if I were aiming for the safest option, it would probably be safer to stay on the Windows platform, and for XR development, to go toward Meta Quest based on Unity. In fact, looking at the exhibitions at XR Kaigi, my impression was that Meta Quest-related projects were overwhelmingly common.
However, I am not a company. I am an individual freelancer. At the scale of an individual, I have some hope that I can still make a living, at least to some extent, within this not-so-large platform sphere. More than anything, judging from past experience, I know that putting energy into something where I genuinely like this produces the biggest results and lasts the longest. Of course, in such uncertain times, there is also the possibility of sinking as-is, but if we start saying that, freelance work itself always has that possibility. As long as there is passion, a path should open up.
So the first area I will focus on this year is the world surrounding visionOS. As a side effect, I may also work on macOS apps, iOS apps, watchOS apps, and so on. After trying various things, I think Vision Pro is currently the best thing out there.
Health
One event I feel I need to write a proper entry about soon is that I bought a folding bicycle at the end of last year. The folding bicycle itself was not especially expensive, but it is reasonably light, and because it folds, I can carry it around. I am looking forward to cycling in places I have not been to before.
During the COVID period, I often went for walks and bike rides, but before long I had gone almost everywhere nearby. Not only had I gone everywhere, but after passing through the same places many times, I even finished finding the occasional new discoveries I had not noticed before, and I no longer felt like walking nearby. In the latter half, I would take a train and get off at nearby stations, but I also exhausted the areas around each station and was at a loss.
By buying a folding bicycle, I feel like I can go to more places outside the range I had been visiting, and I also expect the stimulation and exercise benefits that come from moving around. Precisely because I am a freelancer whose work is basically remote, I want to make sure I go outside at least once a day, and if I am going out, I want to receive new stimulation in a slightly different place.
So in 2025, I have high expectations for the folding bicycle.
Everything Else
Of course, there will be various other things this year as well. I will continue observing web frontend and web design trends as something like a life work. But those are things I have been continuing since last year and before, so rather than getting even more fired up and pushing harder, I will simply continue collecting information, verifying things, and engaging carefully with them as material for thinking about the next era.
Rather than adding new things beyond what I mentioned above and having my attention drift there, I want to survive this year by focusing on getting even deeper into visionOS, continuing to share information on this site, releasing my own apps, getting work, and steadily doing each of those things one by one. (That said, since this is "Yori Hiroi Frontend," I do feel like I will probably try various things.)
- I plan to actively get involved in content planning, design, and development using Vision Pro, as well as experimental proof-of-concept work. Even if something is still before the planning stage, I would be happy to support conversations such as "What kinds of things might be possible?" Please feel free to contact me.