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outcoldman

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Apr 28, 2021
8
5
Boulder, CO
Hello šŸ‘‹ Denis here, author of some of the Mac Apps that you might used before (built by Loshadki LLC)

I am the author of ImmersiShare. There is no dedicated thread for the Vision Pro Apps, so I hope it is ok to drop this here.

I got Vision Pro on the day of the launch, and the idea of seeing shared content by other users, including Spatial Videos and Panoramas, was on my mind from day one. Obviously, many other developers thought about the same thing. I had my prototype in a few days after I got Vision Pro, but only after a few weeks I actually started working hard on this project. And at this point, ImmersiShare already has 3000 users, and 1000 posts from around the world, after being public for a month.

Apple is being really hard on app developers with their limited App Store, when they only decide when your app will be visible for users, not only in search. I am trying to be honest with the users about everything. I'm obviously looking for more users of my app, so it is a promotion of my app. But I am not in any interest making money from this app in the near future. I built it on CloudKit Public Database, so the storage and traffic is free for me, don't need to worry about monetization at this point. With 3000 users, we already have close to 1TB of storage, and we are using only about 3% of it (30GB).

I actually hope you will enjoy watching shared content by other users, and maybe will decide to contribute your own as well. Every day, on average, ImmersiShare gets about 30 new posts. I, personally, watched every single post on my Vision Pro.

The app is available for iOS and visionOS - App Store Link

The idea to have an iOS app as companion, so users without Vision Pro can submit their content easily, and users with Vision Pro can submit it as well without using Vision Pro. And most of the Vision Pro features available on iOS version as well, so you can see what content is available, comment, like it, follow users.

This is a demo of some of the new features in V1.4, where I added Search and Map View (and some other small improvements)



There are some of the watched/liked content:

- Courtside NBA action
- 360 Panorama of Barcelona
- My BASE jump (rendered by using Owl3D from 2D video)
- Disney
- 360 Panorama-ish - Earth at night
- Corgi getting some hose action
- Ski Resort @ Lake Tahoe
- Grand Canyon National Park Panorama

I am constantly working on new features, and adding them to the app. There are some things I want to work on for the next version(s):

- Support for Spatial Photos
- Improving of the Panoramas and Videos playbacks, I would like to make them more close to how Apple renders them in Photos app.
- Possible to support XR Glasses on iPhone with rendering videos in SBS format.

If you want to be ahead of getting updates on App Store, there is also a TestFlight Link.

- App Store Link
- immersishare.app

Hope you will enjoy it!
 

mkruck

macrumors regular
Apr 30, 2008
229
16
San Antonio, TX
One of the better apps available. Some incredible content uploaded by users, easy to use and navigate interface. I'm really enjoying it, enough so that I spend a good amount of time in the app vs other apps so far. It motivated me enough that I uploaded a panorama shot with my iPhone 14 taken last year on a Western Caribbean cruise.

Looking forward to more updates.
 

OnTheeRize

macrumors member
Jun 22, 2015
32
18
Bay Area
Hello šŸ‘‹ Denis here, author of some of the Mac Apps that you might used before (built by Loshadki LLC)

I am the author of ImmersiShare. There is no dedicated thread for the Vision Pro Apps, so I hope it is ok to drop this here.

I got Vision Pro on the day of the launch, and the idea of seeing shared content by other users, including Spatial Videos and Panoramas, was on my mind from day one. Obviously, many other developers thought about the same thing. I had my prototype in a few days after I got Vision Pro, but only after a few weeks I actually started working hard on this project. And at this point, ImmersiShare already has 3000 users, and 1000 posts from around the world, after being public for a month.

Apple is being really hard on app developers with their limited App Store, when they only decide when your app will be visible for users, not only in search. I am trying to be honest with the users about everything. I'm obviously looking for more users of my app, so it is a promotion of my app. But I am not in any interest making money from this app in the near future. I built it on CloudKit Public Database, so the storage and traffic is free for me, don't need to worry about monetization at this point. With 3000 users, we already have close to 1TB of storage, and we are using only about 3% of it (30GB).

I actually hope you will enjoy watching shared content by other users, and maybe will decide to contribute your own as well. Every day, on average, ImmersiShare gets about 30 new posts. I, personally, watched every single post on my Vision Pro.

The app is available for iOS and visionOS - App Store Link

The idea to have an iOS app as companion, so users without Vision Pro can submit their content easily, and users with Vision Pro can submit it as well without using Vision Pro. And most of the Vision Pro features available on iOS version as well, so you can see what content is available, comment, like it, follow users.

This is a demo of some of the new features in V1.4, where I added Search and Map View (and some other small improvements)

View attachment 2365015

There are some of the watched/liked content:

- Courtside NBA action
- 360 Panorama of Barcelona
- My BASE jump (rendered by using Owl3D from 2D video)
- Disney
- 360 Panorama-ish - Earth at night
- Corgi getting some hose action
- Ski Resort @ Lake Tahoe
- Grand Canyon National Park Panorama

I am constantly working on new features, and adding them to the app. There are some things I want to work on for the next version(s):

- Support for Spatial Photos
- Improving of the Panoramas and Videos playbacks, I would like to make them more close to how Apple renders them in Photos app.
- Possible to support XR Glasses on iPhone with rendering videos in SBS format.

If you want to be ahead of getting updates on App Store, there is also a TestFlight Link.

- App Store Link
- immersishare.app

Hope you will enjoy it!

Tried the app out earlier. Is there a reason why the immersive video needs to be downloaded? A similar app that I think is called visionspace or visionshare doesnt require that?
 

outcoldman

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Apr 28, 2021
8
5
Boulder, CO
Tried the app out earlier. Is there a reason why the immersive video needs to be downloaded? A similar app that I think is called visionspace or visionshare doesnt require that?

Hey, thank you for giving ImmersiShare a try! In version 1.4 I have implemented Streaming for the Videos, instead of Pre-Downloading. And increased the limits for the videos to be 5 minutes long or 1GB in size.

And to answer the question, a little technical details. For ImmerisShare I used CloudKit Public Database, this is my first project that relies on Public Database, so it was a lot of research and just guessing how well it is going to work for ImmersiShare. As Apple (as usual) does not provide us much technical details. When you start using Public CloudKit database your app gets only 10GB of asset storage (think of storage for content), and they say that storage will grow more users you get. But that was unknown, how fast is it going to grow? In reality, right now, we always use only about 3% of Asset Storage available. 30Gb of 1TB available. Obviously that usage will grow in time, but if ImmersiShare will get to the point that 80% of Asset Storage is filled - probably it is going to be very succeseful, so I will figure out it later how to deal with that (and I already have some ideas about it).

Back to the point. Officially Apple does not provide APIs for streaming content stored in CloudKit Public Database. You can only call API to download content. That is why v1 to v1.3 were implemented that way. I also used my Developer Support Ticket to ask Apple Engineers if there are any possibiliies to do that, they said no, and suggested to file a feedback. But I have found a way to do it, just required for me to built a very tiny backend (mostly for reason to protect all your data from somebody trying to export all the data from public database). So now 1.4 does have ability to stream videos.

I obviously don't know intentions of other apps, but storing content and streaming it to the users is not cheap. With amount of content ImmersiShare has right now, it could be already $40-300 monthly, depends which cloud provider you are planning to use. So that means any other service will introduce some kind of ways for monetizations. In my case, as long as Public CloudKit Storage supports me well - my expenses are very minimal, maybe it is going to be $1/month for my backend (including hosting immersishare.app website). Sure, maybe in a few years I will add some monetization as well to support development of ImmersiShare (maybe hire designers, engineers), but right now while I can handle it on my own - expenses are just my time building this app, which I am ok with. As I am getting so much from this app by watching content submitted by users.

Hope that answers the question pretty well. And I am happy to answer any other questions! I am here to develop ImmersiShare for users and creators. If you have ideas, suggestions - I am all ears.
 

outcoldman

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Apr 28, 2021
8
5
Boulder, CO
šŸ‘‹ Hello! I know ImmersiShare 1.4 update was just recently, but I had a few productive days and finally nailed the rendering of the Spatial Photos, and improved Panoramas rendering.

Somebody mentioned here that Panoramas rendered in ImmersiShare do not have the same 3D-like effect as in the Photos app. It is because in the Photos app they are rendered via the Portal, so I have introduced that as well in 1.5. I'm curious to know what people think about that!

Another thing about rendering: I actually now anchor panorama rendering to your head, and not to the surrounding space. I am curious to know what people will think about it. The reason is that if you lay down, the interface is still useful.

And yes, you can upload Spatial Photos now. I have shared just one. For which I am really grateful to author of Spatial Media Toolkit for allowing me to render a normal 2D photo in 3D for recently passed away Lexi, who was a very special girl for us.

And and more bug has been fixed: since 1.4.1 it was pretty hard to make a second post, as the control was getting stuck on the previously selected photo.
 

OnTheeRize

macrumors member
Jun 22, 2015
32
18
Bay Area
Hey, thank you for giving ImmersiShare a try! In version 1.4 I have implemented Streaming for the Videos, instead of Pre-Downloading. And increased the limits for the videos to be 5 minutes long or 1GB in size.

And to answer the question, a little technical details. For ImmerisShare I used CloudKit Public Database, this is my first project that relies on Public Database, so it was a lot of research and just guessing how well it is going to work for ImmersiShare. As Apple (as usual) does not provide us much technical details. When you start using Public CloudKit database your app gets only 10GB of asset storage (think of storage for content), and they say that storage will grow more users you get. But that was unknown, how fast is it going to grow? In reality, right now, we always use only about 3% of Asset Storage available. 30Gb of 1TB available. Obviously that usage will grow in time, but if ImmersiShare will get to the point that 80% of Asset Storage is filled - probably it is going to be very succeseful, so I will figure out it later how to deal with that (and I already have some ideas about it).

Back to the point. Officially Apple does not provide APIs for streaming content stored in CloudKit Public Database. You can only call API to download content. That is why v1 to v1.3 were implemented that way. I also used my Developer Support Ticket to ask Apple Engineers if there are any possibiliies to do that, they said no, and suggested to file a feedback. But I have found a way to do it, just required for me to built a very tiny backend (mostly for reason to protect all your data from somebody trying to export all the data from public database). So now 1.4 does have ability to stream videos.

I obviously don't know intentions of other apps, but storing content and streaming it to the users is not cheap. With amount of content ImmersiShare has right now, it could be already $40-300 monthly, depends which cloud provider you are planning to use. So that means any other service will introduce some kind of ways for monetizations. In my case, as long as Public CloudKit Storage supports me well - my expenses are very minimal, maybe it is going to be $1/month for my backend (including hosting immersishare.app website). Sure, maybe in a few years I will add some monetization as well to support development of ImmersiShare (maybe hire designers, engineers), but right now while I can handle it on my own - expenses are just my time building this app, which I am ok with. As I am getting so much from this app by watching content submitted by users.

Hope that answers the question pretty well. And I am happy to answer any other questions! I am here to develop ImmersiShare for users and creators. If you have ideas, suggestions - I am all ears.
Thank you for your thorough response. I downloaded app again and really enjoyed it. Will keep using it and recommend to others
 
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OriginalAppleGuy

Suspended
Sep 25, 2016
971
1,137
Virginia
Man - this is cool! Other sites donā€™t compare to what you have enabled here. If you have a VP and donā€™t have this app - get it - trust me!

Iā€™ve noticed is some ā€œimmersiveā€ videos seem to have limited views. Like the Ohtani (sp?) first home run video as a Dodger. It played as a relatively small box, though was apparent to be in 3D.

Also - for non immersive and panorama content, donā€™t see the drag bar to move it it around once displayed.

Thank you for making this app! For what itā€™s worth, Iā€™d pay for it.
 

HDFan

Contributor
Jun 30, 2007
6,638
2,879
Some comments.

1. What is with the app being in portrait mode? My eyes see things in landscape. Very limiting.

2. 3D videos show in a fixed screen size. Not immersive.
 

OnTheeRize

macrumors member
Jun 22, 2015
32
18
Bay Area
Man - this is cool! Other sites donā€™t compare to what you have enabled here. If you have a VP and donā€™t have this app - get it - trust me!

Iā€™ve noticed is some ā€œimmersiveā€ videos seem to have limited views. Like the Ohtani (sp?) first home run video as a Dodger. It played as a relatively small box, though was apparent to be in 3D.

Also - for non immersive and panorama content, donā€™t see the drag bar to move it it around once displayed.

Thank you for making this app! For what itā€™s worth, Iā€™d pay for it.
Yes i dont see the option to expand window like other apps. It would be my only complaint at the moment.
 

Timo_Existencia

Contributor
Jan 2, 2002
1,226
2,505
Just downloaded the app...nice. I like it.

Here's a suggestion: add info to each photo/video such as resolution and on what device it was recorded.
 
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