visionOS 26: The MacStories Review

As Apple’s newest and most cutting-edge platform, visionOS is also the hardest to nail down. Vision Pro as a product is still so nascent that people don’t quite know what to make of it. Is it a VR headset for gaming and watching movies? Is it a specialized tool for designers and doctors? Or could it be a computer that everyday people might one day be interested in using for both work and play?

The jury is still out. Although the Vision Pro is very much a product you can buy right now and visionOS is an operating system that users run every day, there’s still an intangible element surrounding the whole ordeal. Most people who aren’t enthusiasts or early adopters have no firsthand experience of what the platform is like. The current form factor limits the potential user base for visionOS to those willing to wear a bulky headset regularly. It’s simply not a platform that just anyone can easily pick up and try for themselves.

But for those who do take the plunge, there’s something about visionOS that’s undeniably compelling on a fundamental level. It just feels cool to see windows and objects within your real space and then be able to move them around freely using your eyes and hands. It’s an interaction model that’s long been dreamed about and speculated on, and it’s available in the here and now.

For some, the form factor tradeoffs and software limitations of the Vision Pro are enough to outweigh the novelty and magic of it all. But there are others who can’t get enough of visionOS as it stands today and can see its potential to be even more in the future. For them – well, I guess I should say for us – the Vision Pro feels like the future.

Based on the ways Apple is moving the platform forward this year, it seems that the company is listening to feedback from both parties. visionOS 26 includes flashy new features for Vision Pro superfans who want to get the most out of the platform’s unique immersive experiences, but it also packs in a bunch of quality-of-life improvements to bring it closer in line with Apple’s other platforms and make the system more approachable to everyday users. And at the same time, the platform is pushing further into areas of interest like gaming and collaboration where it can offer something truly unique from anything else in Apple’s lineup.

When I reviewed visionOS 2 last year, I was amazed at the progress that the platform’s development team had made in such a short time. That pace of growth has not let up over the past year, with enhancements like Apple Intelligence and a remade Guest User mode coming in the middle of the visionOS 2 cycle. And visionOS 26 keeps that rapid development going with a ton of new features, improvements, and capabilities that make Vision Pro even more powerful and enjoyable to use.

Let’s get into it.

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Apple Intelligence shortcuts will be released next week.

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[table_of_contents]

Widgets

visionOS 26 brings widgets to spatial computing.

Before the Vision Pro was announced – back when we still thought Apple’s mixed reality software was going to be called xrOS – a lot of the excitement and concept work centered around ways that the technology could be used to surface ambient information in the user’s environment. Basically, the question was, “What will widgets look like in a world where they could appear anywhere?” Ideas ranged from tiles on walls and desktops to realistic-looking 3D objects like clocks and books showing data from their respective apps.

Apple’s answer, at least its initial one, is that widgets on visionOS look a lot like the widgets we’ve come to know and love on our other devices, especially the iPad. They’re boxes of varying shapes and sizes that present information from their apps in simplified UIs that can be viewed even when the app itself is closed. While the company has tweaked the implementation a bit to make widgets fit more nicely into a user’s environment, the basic concept is the same as on Apple’s other platforms.

Widgets on visionOS look a lot like the widgets we’ve come to know and love on our other devices.

That familiarity is a major benefit to visionOS users who already take advantage of widgets on their other devices, like their iPhones, iPads, and Macs. They already know the basics of how these elements work right out of the gate. It’s also helpful for developers, who can take the work they’ve already put into widgets on other platforms and carry it over to visionOS.

In fact, this is actually a strange instance where iPad apps running in compatibility mode have an advantage over native visionOS apps: if an iPad app offers widgets on iPadOS, those widgets are automatically available on visionOS as well. Much of my testing over the summer involved trying widgets from iPad apps while visionOS developers were working on their visionOS 26 updates. But given the way widgets have been embraced by developers across Apple’s other platforms, I have no doubt that visionOS apps will be adopting the technology in no time as well.

Regardless of whether they’re offered by visionOS apps or iPad apps, widgets add a lot to the visionOS experience day to day, allowing users to enhance their real-world spaces with attractive, data-rich portals into their favorite apps.

The Widgets app.

Apple’s implementation of widgets on visionOS starts with the new Widgets app. Because widgets on Vision Pro aren’t limited to particular spaces like they are on other platforms, there isn’t a simple way to surface the Widget Gallery anytime the user might want to access it.1 Instead, the Widgets app lives permanently in the Home View and can also be opened via Siri or Spotlight. It offers a gallery-like view of all available widgets, each with an ‘Add Widget’ button to bring the selected option into your physical space. The Widgets app does a great job of offering an experience users will instantly recognize while solving the unique visionOS problem of making widget creation available everywhere.

In the gallery, Widgets are grouped by app in an alphabetically sorted list. Apple offers a range of first-party widgets for its own apps, including Clock, Music, Notes, and Photos. The company’s iPad widgets are included, too, like those for News and Calendar. Every app that offers widgets – whether it be from Apple or a third-party developer, visionOS-native or in iPad compatibility mode – is included in the list, with a search bar and a Suggested section at the top.

Like they do on Apple’s other platforms, widgets come in a variety of sizes, including small, medium, large, and extra-large. There’s a new vertical extra-large size that’s exclusive to visionOS and meant to give the impression of wall art. Although it wouldn’t work very well on, say, an iPhone screen, it’s a great shape that I hope developers will take advantage of, because the widgets I’ve tried so far in this size look very nice, especially Apple’s Music Poster.

While widgets can be placed throughout a user’s space, they can’t be left just anywhere. Widgets need to snap to a surface, either a vertical one (such as a wall) or a horizontal one (such as a table or desk). When placed on a horizontal surface, widgets are angled slightly toward the user to make them easier to view from above. When placed on a vertical surface, widgets sit flush with the surface they’re attached to, as if they’re being physically hung on a wall.

Widgets can be inset into walls, adding the impression of depth.

Vertically snapped widgets also have a special ability horizontal ones don’t: they can optionally be inset slightly into their surfaces. This creates a window-like depth effect, giving the impression that the widget is nestled within an indentation in the wall. It’s stunning how realistic this inset effect looks even when viewed up-close. I could never afford to have artwork actually inset into my walls at home, but seeing widgets digitally rendered this way makes me wish I could. It’s a really nice look.

It’s remarkable just how persistent these little widgets are.

The only way any of this works, though, is if widgets actually blend into your environment in a way that makes you forget they aren’t real. For that to happen, the snapping has to be perfect, and positioning must remain intact even as you move around the room. I’m happy to report that this is the case under most conditions. Once I place a widget on my wall or desk, it stays there without any sort of wavering or stuttering. This remains true as I walk around the room, if I leave the room and come back, and even after I restart my Vision Pro. It’s remarkable just how persistent these little widgets are.

The only time I’ve ever seen widgets struggle a bit with placement is in low light. My office at work is considered by visionOS to be a dimly lit environment.2 At times, I can see the widgets stutter or move in conjunction with my head movement, but if the system is given enough light, its surface and room detection can keep widgets in place without issue.

Speaking of room detection, widgets are anchored to the room they’re placed in. If you leave the room and look in its direction, widgets will not be visible through walls the way regular visionOS windows are. Once you reenter the room, the widgets will reappear – again, in the exact same place you left them. Widgets are even occluded by objects in the room, which means that if there’s something (such as a piece of furniture) between you and the spot where the widget is placed, its digital appearance will be cut off to give the impression that the object is blocking it. In keeping with the idea that they are a part of the room they’re placed in, widgets are also occluded by immersive environments.

The way that widgets are so anchored to the real-world environment is impressive and lends to their ability to fade into the background when they aren’t needed. After all, a widget isn’t meant to be the center of attention the way a window is; it’s meant to be there to check when you need it.

If you’re placing multiple widgets on the same surface, they will automatically align with one another in an invisible grid that keeps them looking tidy. Without this small addition, I would spend way too much time trying to get my widgets lined up perfectly with one another, so I greatly appreciate this.

Widgets can be resized to a degree.

Once a widget is created, it cannot be transformed to a different size class like on other platforms. However, widgets in visionOS do have a slight bit of resizability. If you long-press on a widget, you can access its editing mode, where you’re able to use a corner grabber to adjust how big it is between 75% and 125% of its original size. It’s a limited range that ensures widgets remain legible while still not taking up too much room or attention in a space. I tend to max out the sizes of my widgets because I like that little bit of extra real estate to keep things readable from a distance.

Long-pressing a widget also reveals its window bar for moving it to another location as well as a customization button. Developers can offer users the same widget customization options on visionOS as on other platforms, such as the ability to disable certain elements. But the system itself adds some universal options as well. Widgets can be tinted with one of seven color options – each available in both light and dark versions – to fit the space’s aesthetic. And the border around each widget, which is added by default, can be made thicker or set to a different color as well. This level of customization makes it easy to fit any widget into any space, and I think users of Apple’s other devices are going to be asking for access to these tinting options themselves before long.

Widgets in visionOS are dynamic and interactive, just like they are on other platforms. They’re updated automatically to reflect the latest information from their apps, and they can be used to perform actions in apps (such as playing or pausing a podcast) and to launch apps into particular views.

Widgets can show more detail as you approach them.

In addition to the new vertical extra-large size and customization options, Apple has added a couple of other unique touches to visionOS widgets that are worth mentioning. Developers can optionally change the density of the information in their widgets based on the user’s proximity. When the user is a couple of meters away or more, a widget can show basic information like an album’s name and artist. But when the user steps closer, the widget can automatically add more information, such as a track list, in response. This dual approach – glanceability from a distance combined with detail when a user is close enough to perceive it – makes for some intriguing possibilities enabled by the way widgets function like actual objects in a room. Additionally, visionOS widgets can adopt a special paper appearance that makes them look less digital and more like real-world artwork, dynamically responding to light around them.

Apple’s solution for bringing widgets to visionOS might seem simple on the surface. It’s basically a replication of the feature from the company’s other platforms, which makes it more approachable for both users and developers. At the same time, the visionOS team has put an incredible amount of effort into making sure that widgets are tailored perfectly for the unique challenges they face in mixed reality: placement, persistence, matching the environment, and more. The construction of these spatial elements on top of the firm foundation of what people love about widgets on their other devices is a genius move, and one that pays off so well for users.

Even an action as simple as checking the time is made so much easier with the help of widgets. When the Vision Pro originally launched, the default way to find out the time was to open Control Center. visionOS 2 brought the time to the status bar, just a quick hand flip away. But with widgets, I can place a clock – digital or analog, in any number of styles, in the shade of my choosing – literally anywhere in my room and check it when I need to without moving my hands at all. That’s a big win for glanceability.

Then there are photos. Who doesn’t love having a picture of loved ones on their wall or desk that they can glance at from time to time? Thanks to widgets, that photo frame can now be a dynamically changing rotation of your most cherished photos, or even a spatial window into some of your favorite memories or locations.

Attaching the Podcasts widget to my wall means I no longer need to launch an app in order to start a new episode. Having my day planner sitting on my desk at all times makes it easier to keep my schedule on track. I can instantly launch my six or seven most-visited websites instantly at any time. The list of examples could go on and on.

I adore widgets on my Vision Pro.

As a fan of widgets on Apple’s other platforms, I was predisposed to like them on visionOS. But even I couldn’t predict how excellent this implementation would be. I adore widgets on my Vision Pro. They give me access to the information I need with a quick glance – not at a device, but simply at a particular location in my space that I can always rely on. Widgets blend the power of instantly available, always up-to-date digital data with the timeless practicality of decorating physical spaces, and they are a smashing success.

Photo and Video

Spatial Scenes

Viewing a spatial scene from different angles.

When visionOS 2 introduced the ability to turn regular photos into spatial ones, I couldn’t say enough good things about the feature. I was obsessed with experiencing my favorite memories in this new way. Spatialized photos were – and continue to be – enchanting, adding a whole new dimension to the photo-viewing experience in a way only the Vision Pro can.

This year, Apple has taken the concept of spatializing photos even further and expanded it beyond visionOS. Across its platforms, the company is introducing what it calls spatial scenes. Like spatialized photos, these enhanced versions of your pictures intelligently separate layers based on depth; what makes them spatial scenes, though, is that the system then uses a new AI algorithm to generatively fill in the gaps between layers, giving you the ability to view your photos from different perspectives.

On iOS, this feature enables 3D lock screen photos that dynamically shift as you move your device around, as well as a similar effect in photo widgets. But of course, spatial scenes are the most impactful on Vision Pro, where you can fully experience the 3D depth effect that’s added to your photos.

Spatial scenes can be viewed in Photos, Spatial Gallery, and Safari, though curiously, not in photo widgets, which display spatial photos instead of spatial scenes. Creating a spatial scene from your own photo follows the exact same process as spatializing a photo did last year: open the picture in the Photos app and select the shape icon – now a hexagon instead of a cube – in the upper-right corner of the preview. Even the animation for creating a spatial scene is the same as the one used for creating spatial photos last year. After a couple of seconds, the app will present you with your new spatial scene.

Viewing a spatial scene gives the impression of looking through a window into the world of your image. Whereas elements in spatial photos can seem like they’re coming towards you out of the photo’s frame, spatial scenes are contained behind the plane of the photo window. Like spatial photos, they have an added layer of depth that makes them feel more immersive than regular photos.

The immersion only deepens when you start to move around while looking at a spatial scene, and it’s this experience that really sets the feature apart from what came before. If you move your head or even walk around while viewing a spatial scene, the image does not shift around in response to your changing perspective. Instead, the image stays in place, allowing you to see different aspects of the scene from different angles while moving around. It’s hard to describe in words, but it’s a truly stunning experience.

Imagine holding a printed photo in your hand. That’s what 2D images are like: flat. Now, imagine cutting the subject and various objects within that image out, separating them from the background, and pasting them on a horizontal surface with space between them to represent depth. That’s what a spatial photo is like: you can see the relationship between different layers, but the details are still the same. Now, imagine taking a photo and recreating its elements as lifelike 3D objects in a diorama, allowing you to not only experience depth but different perspectives on the same image. That’s what spatial scenes are like.

When I look straight on at a picture I’ve converted to a spatial scene, I can see exactly what I’d expect to: the subject separated from the background with a sense of depth added in. But when I start to move around, I can get a different perspective on the image, seeing people and objects from various angles and even catching glimpses of details that are initially hidden from view.

These scenes make you feel more like you’re experiencing a memory than a photo.

These scenes offer even more of what I loved about spatialized photos in visionOS 2. The added depth and perspective go further to make you feel more like you’re experiencing a memory than a photo. When the effect works and you’re immersed in it, the emotional impact of viewing photos in this way is quite powerful. It’s as close to actually revisiting a beloved moment as I’ve ever come.

You will notice that I added the caveat “when the effect works.” Because it doesn’t always. Spatial scenes rely even more heavily on artificial intelligence than spatialized photos do, going so far as to generate content that doesn’t appear in the original photo itself. Done sparingly in the right context, this can work really well. But there are some photos that simply don’t mesh with this approach.

Like spatialized photos, spatial scenes struggle when there isn’t a clear distinction between the subject of a photo and the background, or when there are multiple subjects at varying distances from one another.3 Aspects like lighting conditions, motion, and resolution have a great impact on the final result of spatial scenes, which really need a high-quality original to work from. And there are times when the AI model filling in the gaps in photos gets things wrong, adding in blurry swaths of color that distract from images rather than adding to them.

For some pictures, the old spatial photo approach is still the best one, which is why I’m thankful Apple chose to keep that functionality available in the Photos app, now within a photo’s menu. Spatialized photos also offer a larger viewing area in panoramic mode than spatial scenes, which can make the viewing experience more enjoyable when the added perspective isn’t needed.

That said, I do think spatial scenes are an exciting step forward for immersive photos, and I find myself converting my pictures into spatial scenes more and more. I don’t want AI generating images for me or changing details in my favorite photos, but when it can be used to make the experience of revisiting pictures I love more fun and rewarding, I’m all for it. Consider me a fan of spatial scenes.

New Video Formats

Playing a 360-degree video from Files.

The Vision Pro’s unique video capabilities are some of its most beloved features. Who would have thought that watching 3D films at home would be something people want to do in 2025? And yet, here we are, with new 3D titles coming to the TV app every week. iPhones can shoot spatial videos with nice depth effects, and Apple Immersive Video continues to showcase the best of what video on visionOS can offer, taking viewers on emotional and thrilling immersive journeys across the world.

But these types of videos aren’t the only ones that offer unique experiences in mixed reality, and visionOS is expanding its video capabilities substantially this year. Apple has teamed up with Insta360, GoPro, and Canon to add native support for the companies’ 360-degree, 180-degree, and wide field-of-view videos using a new standard called Apple Projected Media Profile (APMP). These videos can be played from the Files app via Quick Look or streamed in Safari, and developers can add support for the formats to their apps, too.

Watching these videos on Vision Pro feels as natural as watching any other. They can be viewed in a regular video window on visionOS or any other platform, but when opened in fullscreen view on visionOS, they expand around the user along an invisible spherical grid, taking up more of the field of view based on how wide the video’s angle is. 360-degree video fully surrounds you, allowing you to look up and down and even turn around to see more content. 180-degree video fills out in front of you but not behind you, and wide field-of-view takes up less space. Watching videos in any of these formats is impressive, though.

And there’s never been a device more fit for these types of videos than Vision Pro. Other platforms let you look around within these videos using touch or a cursor, but in visionOS, you can just look around with your eyes to experience the scale and detail of the videos naturally. It’s another opportunity to be immersed in the content you’re watching, and it’s quite effective. Apple’s media profile uses metadata from each video to precisely map it out in front of the user and avoid any distortion, giving these videos the massive, awe-inspiring stage they deserve.

There’s never been a device more fit for these types of videos than Vision Pro.

Capturing these types of videos is much more approachable than a standard like Apple Immersive Video. While there are some filmmakers trying their hand at the format now with Blackmagic’s URSA Cine Immersive camera, there are many more people out there with action cameras capable of recording wide field-of-video and beyond. Now, they can watch and share their videos on visionOS, whether they be extreme sports clips, walkthroughs of beautiful places around the world, Dungeons and Dragon campaigns, or home videos captured in a fun, different way.

Insta360 kindly sent me one of their action cameras, the X5, so I could try capturing and playing back my own 360-degree videos. Though my videography skills might leave something to be desired, the process couldn’t have been more simple. I captured a video on the camera, transferred it to my phone via the Insta360 app, and synced it over iCloud to my Vision Pro. From the Files app, I was able to preview the video in a standard player view, and then, when I hit the fullscreen button, it suddenly appeared all around me, encompassing me in my very own home video footage.

Basically, capturing and viewing a 360-degree video was as simple as taking a video from any other camera. But the payoff of watching the video was much more rewarding. These formats offer even further opportunities to step back into moments we love with levels of detail and immersion that were previously impossible. I can watch a video filmed in my living room and literally look all around it, taking in every aspect. How precious is that video going to be in ten years when, at the very least, the room is going to look vastly different than it does now, covered in toys for my toddler and my dog?

I’m not even in Insta360’s core demo because I don’t participate in extreme activities that make for great action shots. But even just for simple home videos, a wide field of view adds a great deal of richness that I know I’ll get value from as I revisit videos over the years. And it’s the way visionOS has implemented these formats that makes them so easily accessible.

360-degree, 180-degree, and wide field-of-view video are great additions to an already impressive lineup of video offerings on visionOS. Teaming up with the camera manufacturers to ensure not only compatibility but the highest quality experience was a smart way to move into this space, and I hope that other providers of this content such as YouTube will adopt APMP as well.

Spatial Web Browsing

Reading an article in spatial browsing mode.

While visionOS offers wildly novel experiences when it comes to photos, videos, 3D objects, and more, one area where the platform has been very traditional up to this point is web browsing. In visionOS 2, Safari looked very similar to its counterparts on Apple’s other platforms and offered a similar experience as well. Apple’s hoping to start to change that this year with the introduction of what the company refers to as the spatial web.

It’s the Internet we know and (mostly) love, but with the added capabilities of mixed reality. It starts with spatial browsing, Apple’s take on Reader mode in an immersive context. Spatial browsing is available on any website that’s compatible with Reader mode, and Safari will remind you of that fact with a blue banner across the URL bar anytime you load a supported webpage. Tapping that banner or the spatial symbol on the right side of the URL bar will take you into the spatial browsing experience.

When viewing a webpage in this mode, Safari will spawn an immersive environment that hides all other windows and centers the content of the webpage in your view. The environment is composed of a colored haze with a hue that’s automatically selected to complement the content you’re viewing. If you’re reading an article, the text of the page is set against this hazy backdrop in a focused reading view, with images automatically converted to spatial scenes as you scroll. (Spatial scenes themselves can also be embedded in websites.) To the right of the content, there’s a small window that displays the page’s title and details, as well as a button to summarize the page if you wish.

Spatial browsing includes a special view for videos.

Spatial browsing also works on video sites, centering the video in the environment free of window chrome with details and suggestions in the accessory window to the right side. And you can load regular, non-supported pages in the spatial browsing view as well. They’ll appear in a simplified version of the regular browser window with the environmental glow behind them, and the window will switch to the more spatial view when you navigate to a supported site.

Personally, I find spatial browsing best when I use it sparingly for specific websites. For the most part, I use my web browser as part of a bigger workflow and don’t want to be siphoned off into a single window. But when I’m catching up on my reading list or checking out a video, it is great to have the option to block out everything else and focus just on the content in front of me. Plus, it does feel cool to experience the sites I visit in a more immersive way. Spatial browsing is Apple’s first attempt at applying Visions Pro’s unique capabilities to the everyday web experience, and it has its benefits. I just wouldn’t leave it on all the time in its current iteration.

Interacting with a 3D model embedded on a webpage.

There’s more to the spatial web than just spatial browsing, though. Safari now supports viewing and interacting with 3D models embedded directly in webpages. Website owners can add these objects using the <model> HTML element, and the implementation has been really well thought out.

Models are rendered behind the surface of the window so they don’t jut out into the user’s view unwelcomed. Model views can be styled with CSS and lit with custom IBL image files to give them a particular look. They can also be animated to show off different angles and attributes of the item being represented. And to make sure webpages are still accessible to users on platforms other than visionOS, web developers can include fallback elements like images and 2D renders for non-spatial browsers to present in lieu of 3D models.

This is another example where Vision Pro takes a concept we’ve been approximating on 2D screens forever and makes it literal. Turning over a 360-degree render of a product I’m shopping for with touch on my iPhone is great, but you know what’s even better? Actually seeing the model rendered in 3D space. Not only can models be interacted with on websites, but they can be dragged out of the browser window and placed within the user’s environment as well. There’s no need to scan your room with your phone’s camera and peer at a tiny AR model of the couch you’re shopping for on the screen when you can just place the model in your space and see it at 1:1 scale instead.

Viewing and interacting with 3D models is one of the most fun and interesting things one can do on Vision Pro. Bringing that capability to the web makes so much sense, and as AR devices become more popular, these elements will become more and more common across the Internet. This capability has the potential to be really powerful for e-commerce sellers, artists showing off their work, and so many more people who publish on the web.

An immersive environment offered by a website in Safari.

Websites can also now offer visitors immersive environments to hang out in while they browse. If a site includes an immersive environment, an option to enable it will appear in the Page menu accessed via the icon on the left side of the URL bar, though Safari doesn’t offer any special indicator to let you know an environment is available. As a fan of immersive environments, I wish I had access to many more options, so Apple lowering the bar for publishing them from the App Store to the web at large is a big win in my book. I guess the question we need to answer now is, “What would a MacStories immersive environment look like?”

The final puzzle piece in the spatial web, at least for now, is video. Apple Immersive Video, spatial video, and 360-degree, 180-degree, and wide field-of-view video can all be streamed within Safari in visionOS 26. Videos appear normally when played in the embedded video player but expand to their full size and immersion level when played in fullscreen.

The basic building blocks for the spatial web are now in place.

It’s great to see all of these elements I appreciate about native experiences on visionOS come to the web. I imagine it will be some time before the spatial web grows to a point that we can see its full potential, but the basic building blocks are now in place, and they’ve been implemented in a way that’s accessible for web developers, inclusive of non-spatial platforms, and a meaningful addition to the experience for Vision Pro users. Spatial web? I say bring it on.

Personas and SharePlay

Persona Improvements

A profile view adds more to Personas than you might think.

I’m not sure that there’s a visionOS feature that’s come as far in the platform’s short history as personas.4 What started as a noble first attempt to climb out of the depths of the uncanny valley has turned into an incredibly impressive representation of human appearance, expression, and presence that I continue to be blown away by.

Apple’s approach to personas has been bold from the start. They’re meant to be realistic avatars that accurately portray the real-world looks and facial expressions of the user. The company could have gone with something more simple like Memoji or even started with facial scans and layered on a bunch of customization options, but that’s not what they did. The Vision Pro takes a few scans of your face at different angles and then, within a minute, generates an entire 3D representation of your likeness to use in video calls and remote spatial experiences. The audacity of such a tactic with zero backup plan is amazing.

Apple thinks spatial personas are ready for primetime, and I can’t help but agree.

And yet, the visionOS team has proven that they are up to the task. Personas have consistently improved, adding detail and depth with each new iteration, and with visionOS 26, spatial persons are officially exiting beta. Apple thinks these they’re ready for primetime, and I can’t help but agree.

When describing these improved personas, the company cites improvements to sharpness, complexion, hair, and eyelashes, and all of those changes are real and impactful – especially sharpness, which helps personas feel more grounded and less otherworldly. But for me, the biggest enhancement to personas this year is the addition of side profiles. Before, the range of movement for personas was quite limited, mostly to a straight-on view. Now, when you turn your head, your persona can mimic that movement while staying in focus, and the side view still looks remarkably realistic.

The first time I set up my new persona,5 I was struck by the portrayal of the side of my head. I literally said out loud, “Those are my ears!” with an excitement like I’d never seen them before. The added detail and range of motion make personas feel much more natural and, well, alive.

The benefit of personas over any other type of digital avatar is that they have the ability to give the impression of presence in a way that no other type of likeness can. Because a person’s persona looks just like them, when you see them, it feels like you’re actually seeing them. Combine that representation with the way visionOS places personas in space for shared experiences, and you’ve got the best method for getting together remotely with friends and family that I’ve ever seen. If you’re looking to spend quality time with people you care about over a long distance by playing, watching, and just chatting together, you’d be hard pressed to find a better solution than what personas offer.

Personas have been adept at mimicking eye and mouth movements from the start, and now, their appearances have caught up with their expressive capabilities. When you put it all together, personas make for incredibly life-like and compelling digital avatars. I’m no longer embarrassed to use mine in video calls with people who aren’t also Vision Pro users. I genuinely like the way my persona represents me in the digital world, and I still find it hard to believe that we’re already to this point so early in the Vision Pro’s development. It was a really hard problem to solve, but the team did it, and they ought to be extremely proud of themselves for what they’ve accomplished with personas.

Shared In-Person Experiences

The new Share menu for sharing windows locally and via FaceTime.

From the start, visionOS has included elements of real-time collaboration and sharing, which makes sense because they are areas where spatial computing can make a huge difference in how we work and interact with others. But up to this point, those features have been focused on remote sharing and collaboration based on the assumption that Vision Pro users are in separate locations and connecting via FaceTime. visionOS 26 removes that assumption and brings in-person shared experiences to the platform for the first time.

Vision Pro users can now watch videos, view presentations, collaborate on projects, explore 3D objects, and more together in the same space. Windows, objects, and even environments appear in the same place for all users involved, allowing them to interact with the objects and each other as if the items are physically in the room with them, and media stays perfectly in sync between devices. Remote users can get in on the action via FaceTime, too, and see each user in the shared experience as well as the content being viewed.

If all of this sounds a lot like SharePlay, that’s because it is. In fact, in-person shared experiences are based on SharePlay technology, so any app that’s already implemented remote sharing gets in-person sharing for free. Apple is also providing developers with APIs to intelligently place windows and objects based on users’ positions and to display personas for remote participants in locations that make sense given the participants involved and what’s being shared.

To make it easy to kick off these shared experiences, Apple has added a Share menu accessible via a new button next to the window bar in supported apps. This menu lists nearby Vision Pro users you can share content with and includes an option to share a window via FaceTime instead. The new Window Sharing toggle in Control Center allows you to choose whether you’d like to be listed as an available participant in the Share menu on nearby users’ Vision Pros. The Share menu’s ‘Find More’ option also gives users the ability to start a shared experience via a private code instead of broadcasting their availability publicly.

It’s interesting that these in-person features are coming to visionOS now. The fact that they didn’t ship in visionOS 1 or 2 could be due to the fact that other areas of development simply took priority, or it could be an indication that the platform needed time to become ubiquitous enough for these features to even be necessary. Vision Pro is still a niche product, so the scenarios in which multiple people who have one would find themselves in the same room aren’t that common. I don’t personally know anyone in my area who owns a Vision Pro, so I’ve not yet even had a chance to try these experiences myself, which I think is indicative of where this feature stands for everyday users. At the same time, for companies and friend groups who are invested in Vision Pro and excited about its potential for enhancing in-person experiences, these capabilities likely feel right on time.

One of the most common criticisms of the Vision Pro is that it can be isolating. While Apple has taken measures to keep users connected to the world around them while they’re wearing the device, many of its best experiences like watching films on a huge screen have been limited to individual and remote sessions. Now, people in the same room can enjoy these experiences together, not just in real time but while actually looking at the same content in the same location. There’s something to be said for our innate desire to share experiences with the people around us – not just seeing the same thing but looking at it together, side by side, with our attention pointed in the same direction. It might seem arbitrary, but that shared focus serves as a baseline for human connection, and visionOS can now facilitate that in whole new ways.

Shared in-person experiences set the stage for a visionOS-powered future.

Right now, the Vision Pro user base is small enough that shared in-person experiences won’t be daily occurrences (or possibly even accessible at all) for many users. But as the hardware gets more diversified, affordable, and appealing to a wider audience of users who aren’t early adopters, the technology will already be prepared to make movies nights, planning sessions, and plenty of other shared experiences even better with the unique capabilities of spatial computing. Like so many other features in this release, shared in-person sessions have been thoroughly considered to make the user experience as simple and enriching as possible and to set the stage for a visionOS-powered future.

Apps

Aside from the new Widgets app and the additions to Safari and Photos previously mentioned, most of the new app features in visionOS 26 are shared with Apple’s other platforms, especially iPadOS and iOS. Here are some of the most notable changes, many of which you can read more about in Federico’s iOS and iPadOS 26 review.

List view in the Files app now includes customizable columns.

Files: List view has been overhauled with the ability to show and hide columns for various metadata as well as resize columns. Folder icons can be customized with color tinting and symbols, including SF Symbols and emoji. And you can set the default app for a particular file type, which is a welcome and long overdue addition. These enhancements bring Files more in line with the Mac’s Finder and improve the experience of managing files on visionOS greatly.

Shortcuts: The new Apple Intelligence ‘Use Model’ action makes Apple’s Foundation models accessible to all users, just as they’re now accessible to third-party developers. AI tools like text summarization and image generation can also be added to automation workflows.

The Info panel in Messages now organizes data into tabs.

Messages: The detail view that appears when you tap on a contact or group photo at the top of a conversation has been redesigned with tabs to separate out photos, links, documents, and more. You can now set photos and other images as backgrounds for your chats in iMessage. These backgrounds sync across devices and include a spatial depth layer on visionOS. And if backgrounds don’t add enough fun to your group chats, you can now create polls for your friends to take part in, too. Speaking of group chats, typing indicators now show which group members are typing at any given time.

Reminders: When you share content to Reminders via the share sheet, Apple Intelligence can now suggest reminders for you to create based on what you share. Task categorization is expanding beyond grocery lists to any list, too, giving you the ability to use AI to organize tasks for work projects, packing, and anything else you use Reminders for.

Notes: Markdown support is finally coming to Notes! Well, partially. The app can now import Markdown files, converting them to rich text, and export notes to Markdown format, though Markdown syntax isn’t supported in the Notes app itself.

Maps: The Maps app can now log locations you visit in case you want to track where you’ve been or look up information on a place you stopped by a few days ago. While your iPhone is probably the primary source for this data, it does sync via iCloud and is available in the Maps app on visionOS.

The TV app now features poster-style artwork for titles.

TV: The TV app has a refreshed look with vertical posters representing films and shows in lieu of widescreen tiles. The Continue Watching row continues to employ the wider tiles but now displays show artwork instead of preview frames from individual episodes, which is a downgrade in my opinion. The Library tab now features a small cell appended to the bottom of posters showing the runtime of films and number of episodes in a series. visionOS 26 also introduces the ability for video apps to dynamically mask videos to perfectly match aspect ratios even when they change mid-video, a technology I haven’t yet seen in action but think will make for some epic viewing experiences.

Music: AutoMix intelligently transitions between songs, using beat matching and time stretching to seamlessly move from one song to the next. This feature is really cool when it works properly, but it can be quite distracting if it ever goes wrong. I have it turned off most of the time, but when I put on a playlist that I think could benefit from it, I enable it on the Now Playing screen. The Music app now offers Lyrics Translations for select songs as well.

Podcasts: Playback speed options have been expanded to allow for listening at 0.8x, 1x, 1.3x, 1.5x, 1.8x, and 2x speeds, though the app doesn’t include the full fine-grained speed control offered on iOS.

It’s worth noting that no first-party apps have been converted from iPad compatibility mode to native visionOS apps this year. Calendar, Reminders, Books, Podcasts, Shortcuts and many more system apps continue to remain non-native to Apple’s newest platform over a year and a half after its release. Last year, one of my hopes for the next visionOS cycle was to see all of Apple’s apps debut visionOS versions, and the fact that none of them have done so is concerning. I appreciate the ability to run iPad apps on my Vision Pro and rely on that capability every day, but I wish Apple would step out and really lead the way in visionOS app development because the native app experience is so much better than running apps meant for a different form factor in compatibility mode.

There are also a number of apps that debuted on other platforms this year but haven’t made their way to visionOS:

Games

Preview (now on iOS and iPadOS)

Phone (now on iPadOS and macOS)

Journal (now on iPadOS and macOS)

Meanwhile, visionOS is also the only Apple platform without the Contacts, FaceTime, Find My, or Calculator apps.6 I don’t know of a compelling reason why all of these apps shouldn’t be available on visionOS. At the very least, they run on the iPad and thus should be capable of running on Vision Pro in compatibility mode. The lack of these apps on the platform puts it out of step with the rest of Apple’s ecosystem, undercutting one of the big themes of this OS release. I would really like to see these apps, especially Journal, come sooner rather than later – and I’d love to see what a visionOS-specific version of each of them could look like.

System-Level Changes

Design

The new Control Center.

The design section of this review is going to be significantly shorter than that of any other OS review this year because despite the fact that visionOS partially inspired this year’s Liquid Glass redesign on iOS, iPadOS, macOS, watchOS, and tvOS, the platform itself didn’t get the Liquid Glass treatment aside from some updated icons on the Home View. Instead, window chrome continues to employ a frosted glass look with navigation and toolbars remaining static rather than shrinking and growing as needed.

Being such a young platform, it makes sense that visionOS isn’t quite due for a redesign, but this decision does leave some elements of the UI out of step with Apple’s other OSes. For example, context menus on visionOS now look outdated with their lower information density and placement of icons on the right side instead of the left. The circular cursor, which was borrowed from iPadOS, hasn’t been updated to the triangular one that’s debuting in iPadOS 26. Wasn’t a more cohesive experience across devices part of the purpose of Liquid Glass?

There are traces of Liquid Glass in iPad apps on visionOS, such as the transparent Now Playing bar in Podcasts. This mishmash of designs is a bit confusing and accentuates the fact that – as was previously mentioned – many of the system apps on visionOS aren’t native to the platform. I’d like to see Liquid Glass come to visionOS in time, but the need for more native system apps on the platform is an even more pressing concern.

One area of the system that has gotten a redesign this year is Control Center. It’s been simultaneously simplified and expanded to make the most commonly used settings and controls easy to access. Gone is the miniature version of Control Center that used to appear when you pinched on the status widget. Instead, you’re immediately presented with the full version of the panel from the get-go, which I think is the right approach. The previous version put Control Center three layers deep, and I could never remember what all the symbols meant along the way to getting there.

The redesigned Control Center includes all the same controls as before, but now in a simple unified layout. Above the box full of controls, you can see the time, date, battery status, network status, and current Focus mode, with shortcuts to Notification Center and Spotlight off to the right. Along the top-left side are controls for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, AirDrop, and AirPlane Mode. Beneath those are the system volume slider and the Now Playing widget, which can be expanded with a pinch. Finally on the left side, you’ve got your immersive environment control, which can also be expanded to show options to adjust the immersion level and volume.

The right side of Control Center is a scrolling list of controls to activate a variety of features, including Mac Virtual Display, screen mirroring, Guest User, Window Sharing, Focus, Travel Mode, and Screen Recording. In the Settings app, you can optionally add other controls to this list like Accessibility Shortcuts, Guided Access, Hearing, Print Center, Sound Recognition, and Text Size.

The new Control Center design is a winner.

I love the look of the new Control Center. It accomplishes everything it needs to in a UI that’s familiar yet unique to visionOS. While there’s been a lot of change to the way Control Center looks and is accessed over the past year and a half, I think the current design is a winner and one that’s worth sticking with for the long haul – unless Apple wants to bring full customizability and third-party controls over from its other platforms, of course.

Quality-of-Life Improvements

After major changes to the way visionOS is controlled via gestures last year, this year’s update includes a smaller collection of quality-of-life improvements, but they are nonetheless impactful.

Apps can now be organized into custom folders in the Home View.

Home View customization continues to expand, this time with the option to create custom folders. Until now, the only folder available was the Compatible Apps folder that iPad apps were stashed away in. Now, every app is added directly to the Home View when downloaded and can be organized any way you like.

The process is very similar to creating folders of apps on the iPhone’s Home Screen. You start by pinching and holding on an app icon and then dragging it on top of another icon to create a new folder containing both apps. Then, you can drag as many apps as you like into the folder. Folders can contain multiple pages of up to seven apps, which appear in a fun hexagonal honeycomb shape. You can mix and match visionOS and iPad apps within folders and rename a folder by opening it, entering jiggle mode, and pinching on its name.

This is a nice development for the Home View after visionOS 2 gave us the ability to rearrange apps last year. It’s helped me reign in the chaos that I had allowed to reign beyond the second page of my Home View and group apps by category, like Games, Video, and Productivity. Creating folders is easy and satisfying, though I do sometimes run into the classic issue where I’m trying to add an app to a folder only for the folder to move out from underneath my app icon at the last second. It takes some precision to get the dropping gesture just right.

As much as I appreciate this new way of organizing apps in the Home View, I can’t help but feel like I’m just manually replicating a solution that’s already available on iOS and iPadOS: the App Library. For years, I haven’t had to worry about where I’m going to place an app icon after downloading it to my phone because the system takes care of organizing it for me unless I explicitly decide to add it to a Home Screen. I’d like that same flexibly on my Vision Pro because I’m happy accessing most of my apps via Siri or Spotlight, but I don’t like the idea of leaving a disorganized mess at the end of my Home View all the time. My fingers are crossed for the Home View to take the next logical step – incorporating the App Library – next year.

Scrolling an article hands-free thanks to Look to Scroll.

Look to Scroll is a new system-wide feature that allows you to scroll the content of apps without lifting your hands. Simply direct your eyes towards the edge of the screen – top, bottom, left or right – and the app will automatically scroll its contents in the corresponding direction. This is meant to eliminate the need for a constant flicking motion, especially when reading longer articles.

I will say that when I’m reading, Look to Scroll feels like magic. It’s so natural that I mostly just forget about it. I can read at whatever pace I like, and when I get close to the bottom of the page, it starts to show new content, but at a gentle enough speed that I never have to stop reading. The experience is smooth and seamless, and my hands definitely appreciate the break.

In a nice touch, Look to Scroll deactivates when you’re editing a document. I appreciate this consideration because as much as I enjoy the feature, I definitely don’t want text moving around without my input when I’m working on show notes for Magic Rays of Light. And if Look to Scroll moves too quickly or slowly for your taste, you can adjust its speed in Settings.

The feature is available for visionOS developers to implement in their own apps, too. So far, I’ve used it the most in Safari (especially when spatial browsing) and Notes, but I look forward to being able to use it across more of my workflows soon. The app where I miss Look to Scroll most is Books, which is a iPad app and thus doesn’t incorporate the feature. Switching back and forth between manual scrolling and Look to Scroll isn’t too jarring, though, because I’m naturally inclined to scroll with my hand if the page doesn’t start to move for me. Maybe someday, scrolling on visionOS will be a thing of the past, but for now, I’ll take Look to Scroll wherever I can access it.

Locking a window to the wall.

Window locking is a new option in visionOS 26 that allows you to pin a window to a vertical surface (or a volume to a horizontal one). You lock a window in place by pushing it up against the surface you’d like it to adhere to and waiting for the lock animation to appear. Locked windows do not display the grabber bar for relocation, and they do not recenter in view alongside other windows when you press and hold the Digital Crown.

Most windows on my Vision Pro are temporary. I open them, do what I need to do with them, and then close them when I’m done so my workplace stays tidy. But there are times when I want a window to stick around out of the way so I can reference it or keep an eye on a particular message thread. This is when window locking comes in handy, and it’s as rock solid as widget placement in my experience.

Like widgets, locked windows are tied to the room they’re placed in, so they disappear when you leave the room and reappear when you return. I’d honestly prefer it if regular windows behaved the same way rather than appearing as outlines through walls, but that’s one of the differentiators between regular and locked windows. When you’re ready to move or close a locked window, you can grab its lock icon and pull it away from its surface to turn it back into a normal window.

Low-light performance continues to improve in visionOS 26. If you’re working under circumstances where you can’t see your hands, the system will now replicate them onscreen faintly with a white, ethereal, semi-transparent glow. It’s a nice way of helping you see where your hands are in space without distracting you from your content. I use this feature nearly every night when I’m in bed writing and need to orient my hands in relation to my keyboard. As someone who’s become a night owl and doesn’t want to disturb his family, I appreciate any improvements to using Vision Pro in dark spaces, and this is a nice addition.

Jupiter Environment

The Jupiter environment is the first to include interactive time controls.

One of the most mesmerizing and impactful applications of the Vision Pro’s technology is its immersive environments. With the push of a button, you can be transported from your office or living room to a beautiful beach, to the top of a mountain, or even to space. Whether you’re looking to focus or relax, immersive environments surround you with realistic, high-resolution visuals, movement, and sound that make you feel like you’re somewhere else entirely.

Third-party apps can and do offer these immersive environments, and of course, they’re coming to the web this year. But Apple offers a set of first-party environments that can be invoked from the Home View and viewed while working in any app or multiple apps, unlike other environments that are limited to particular apps. So when Apple adds an environment, it’s a big deal; it doesn’t happen very often.

visionOS 26 brings the new Jupiter environment, and it’s unique in many ways. Whereas Apple’s other environments mostly leave the space in front of you open to leave room for windows, with elements like water, sand, and clouds that fade as they get further away, Jupiter does the opposite. Right at the center of view is the massive orange planet itself, being viewed from one of its moons, Amalthea. Rather than fade away, this environment draws your attention from the very start.

There’s plenty more to look at in this environment, too. From the ice on the ground around you to the stars and other moons floating around in space as you turn around the 360-degree view, the entire thing is just so expansive and fascinating. It’s a view none of us have ever had a chance to see firsthand before, and it leaves quite an impression.

But that’s not all Jupiter has to offer, because it’s also Apple’s first interactive immersive environment. Other environments come in light and dark versions that you can toggle manually or set to alternate automatically based on the time of day. Jupiter is a constantly shifting environment, with the sun slowly washing the planet in light, revealing swirls of movement as storms migrate across the planet’s surface. Then, the sun fades, and the entire environment goes dark as Jupiter enters night.

You can control the playback of Jupiter’s day by opening Control Center and choosing the new Explore button within the environment’s tile. This will open up a small window that includes a few details about the environment, a slider to manually fast forward and rewind the timeline, and buttons to jump to different points during Jupiter’s day. In the top-left corner of the window, there’s a menu to control the speed of the environment with three options: Pause, Regular, and Faster.

I found the motion of the Jupiter environment soothing and helpful for my focus.

After playing around with the controls for a little bit, I ended up leaving the Jupiter environment running in Faster mode as I was working on this review. The movement behind my windows, along with the shifting light on the moon around me as the day passed, offered the perfect amount of novelty and motion without being too distracting. It felt like having an animated wallpaper running, except it was all around me instead of just on a computer monitor. Even though there was motion on all sides, I actually found it soothing and helpful for my focus.

The Jupiter environment is downright impressive, and I’m happy that I have the chance to work and hang out there as often as I like. Its dynamic nature is so refreshing and fun, and I hope to see Apple bring the concept of customization to more of the built-in environments. Hopefully, Jupiter is a preview of what we can expect from more epic environments to come.

Accessories

visionOS 26 includes support for a couple of new spatial accessories that will give the system added capabilities and open up new categories of apps on the platform.

The first is support for spatial controllers, starting with the PlayStation VR2 Sense controllers. These offer six degrees of freedom, haptic feedback, and more precise position and rotation input than hand tracking for VR gaming. Apple has touted Resolution Games’ upcoming pickleball training app Pickle Pro as an example of what’s possible with spatial controllers in visionOS, and I imagine more spatial and VR games will become available on the platform due to this integration alone. Games even have the ability to require spatial controllers, meaning developers don’t have to use hand tracking as a fallback if they don’t want to. You can navigate the entire visionOS system using spatial controllers in place of hand tracking if you like as well.

The other new accessory supported in visionOS 26 is the Logitech Muse, a spatial stylus that can be used for drawing, annotating, sculpting, and more. It features tracking in six degrees of freedom and button input. Apple Pencil fans have asked for stylus support in visionOS since its launch, and it’s now part of the system.

I have not been able to try either of these accessories myself yet, but I can’t wait to get my hands on them when they’re available for purchase.7 In the meantime, the APIs are available for developers to include in their visionOS 26 apps in anticipation of a wider release. I can’t wait to see what new apps become possible on visionOS because of these integrations.

Another Vision Pro accessory that continues to gain more and more capabilities is the Developer Strap. The $300 contraption adds a USB port to the device to aid developers in connecting to their Macs, testing code, and capturing high-quality screen captures. In visionOS 26, the Developer Strap is learning a couple of new tricks. First up is the ability to connect to wired networks over Ethernet, offering a more stable alternative to Wi-Fi connections that can come in handy for gaming, video production, and more.

The second capability isn’t a new one per se, but it will be new for most users. The Developer Strap has been capable of receiving USB Video over UVC for some time, but the feature was locked behind an enterprise entitlement most developers couldn’t access. Now, that limitation has been removed, paving the way for apps like UVSee and, soon, Portal to accept and display UVC inputs.

I tested this capability by wiring my iPad Pro to my Vision Pro using a USB-C to HDMI cable and a capture card, and it worked seamlessly. While I could always mirror my iPad wirelessly via AirPlay, this enabled me to use my Vision Pro as a secondary display alongside my iPad’s built-in screen. It’s important to note that the implementation only supports video, not audio, but this opens up the Vision Pro to be used to monitor cameras, play games from external devices, and more.

I/O on the Vision Pro can be quite useful when enabled.

My hope for the Developer Strap’s next new upgrade is the ability to transfer data to and from USB drives. It’s not something I do often, but it is a capability I need from time to time, and I think it’s something a spatial computer should be able to do. In the long run, I would love to see all of these features incorporated into the USB port on the battery pack of a future Vision Pro so all users can take advantage of them, not just developers. Regardless, it’s great to see the Developer Strap continue to add new capabilities, proving that I/O on the Vision Pro can be quite useful when enabled.

iPhone Integration

99% of the time when I’m wearing my Vision Pro, I also have my phone close by. There are certain apps on my phone that aren’t available on Vision Pro, and there are some tasks that I just prefer to do on my phone. Apple is making the two devices work more seamlessly together, and it makes for a much smoother experience when I do need to pick up my phone while wearing the Vision Pro.

Unlocking my iPhone while wearing Vision Pro is so much easier now.

Face ID doesn’t work when you’re wearing a headset that blocks part of your face, so you have to unlock your phone another way. In the past, I’ve either unlocked the phone with my Apple Watch or entered my passcode manually, but neither of those solutions is ideal. With visionOS 26 and iOS 26, you can now enable the Vision Pro as a trusted device that can unlock your iPhone for you when it’s nearby and unlocked with Optic ID. This option is available in the Face ID & Passcode settings on the iPhone, and since I enabled it, I’ve been able to simply pick up my phone and unlock it without any extra effort while wearing my Vision Pro.

The iPhone screen is now visible through immersive content.

Viewing the iPhone screen while wearing the Vision Pro can be tricky, too. Until now, visionOS windows and environments would block your iPhone’s screen from view. Now, visionOS will automatically recognize your phone’s screen and allow it to break through UI, similar to the way your hands and physical keyboards do. (This also works with supported game controllers in visionOS 26). This breakthrough is instant and feels natural, making it much easier to see your phone’s screen without needing to hold it in a particular way or close your visionOS windows.

Although the Vision Pro does not have a Phone app, it can now display and accept forwarded calls from your iPhone when nearby. This feature has been available on the iPad, Mac, and Apple Watch for some time now, and it is both convenient and dependable. Apple has spoiled me on the ability to answer (or reject) a phone call from any of my devices, so when my phone rings, I naturally try to address the call on whichever device I’m using. The Vision Pro can handle that task now, too. You can also now choose to record audio calls.

Finally, the iPhone and Vision Pro are working together to make switching between devices even better this year. You can now save your eye and hand data, vision prescription, and accessibility settings from your Vision Pro in iCloud, allowing you to later recall that data from your iPhone when setting up another Vision Pro. Having been through the eye- and hand-tracking setup process many times, I appreciate any opportunity to make sharing or setting up a new Vision Pro speedier.

Taken together, all of these seemingly minor connections between the iPhone and Vision Pro make using both devices in conjunction easier and smoother. They also firmly embed the Vision Pro within the Apple ecosystem, which is a win for those who are invested in and comfortable with the features Apple offers across its platforms. These enhancements have removed a bunch of small annoyances in my daily use of the Vision Pro, something I appreciate greatly as I use my device every day, and I imagine other Vision Pro users who also have iPhones will feel the same way when they see these integrations in action.

Conclusion

Trying to sum up visionOS 26 is difficult because it’s doing a lot of different things at once. It’s elevating the day-to-day experience of using Vision Pro with quality-of-life improvements. It’s adopting features Apple fans already love like widgets and making the system work more seamlessly with the company’s other devices. It’s introducing new ways to enjoy photos and videos with more immersion than ever. And it’s taking big swings and setting the stage for the future with features like spatial browsing, in-person experience sharing, and spatial accessory integration. There’s a lot happening in this release.

Now in its third major version, visionOS still feels like a platform that’s just getting started. It’s growing by leaps and bounds year over year, it has a ton of momentum behind it, and there’s still so much more ground left for it to cover. It’s still very much early days for spatial computing, and it’s an exciting time.

visionOS still feels like a platform that’s just getting started.

This update does offer us some hints about where Apple sees the platform currently and the direction that it’s headed in. visionOS 26 includes several new enterprise APIs that aren’t relevant for everyday users but make Vision Pro even more appealing to companies, many of which are adopting the device to improve how their employees collaborate and get work done. Features like shared in-person experiences and the easy transfer of user setup data from one Vision Pro to another feel custom-made for corporations issuing fleets of Vision Pros to their workforces. There’s a lot of interest in spatial computing coming from the enterprise world, and Apple is working to meet those special needs and grow the platform’s base in that area.

Gaming, obviously, is another realm that the company is trying to push visionOS further into with the addition of spatial controllers. It will be interesting to see how the gaming landscape changes on the platform over the next year. Will developers of popular AR and VR games port their titles over to visionOS now that it has a more standard input mechanism? Will there be a significant audience for those games that depend on an accessory that doesn’t come included with the device? Could gaming on visionOS become a significant source of revenue for developers and Apple alike the way iOS gaming has been for a very long time? We’ll have to wait and see.

The expansion of video formats that can be enjoyed on the device is also telling. Rather than insisting on spatial and immersive video being the only way forward, Apple has chosen to collaborate with existing players in the wide field-of-view market to the benefit of users and creatives alike. There are so many interesting ways to tell stories in emerging video formats now, using equipment that’s more accessible to up-and-coming filmmakers than ever, and the Vision Pro has the potential to be the go-to place to see all of it. I think we’ll see Apple continue to push these unique video experiences as a key part of the visionOS experience, and I hope the company will keep working on partnerships to make these videos even easier to access and create.

And then there’s the computing part of spatial computing. Vision Pro is about more than just entertainment, after all; it’s a tool for learning, expressing creativity, and getting work done. Platform features like widgets and new web standards that push the Internet into the spatial age are important progressions on this front, but there’s still more work to be done. There are a lot of apps missing on Vision Pro, not only first-party apps that need to come over from Apple’s other platforms, but third-party tools that developers have yet to bring over themselves.

For visionOS to thrive, it needs a healthy third-party app ecosystem not just for spatial experiences but also for productivity, utility, and creativity. Apple is always taking steps to introduce new tools that empower developers – this year including enhancements to make volumes more flexible and the ability to project Remote Immersive Spaces from macOS apps – but the company must also continue to do the work of getting developers onboard with and excited for the, well, vision of spatial computing and all it can be.

On the user experience front, the Control Center redesign is an excellent improvement, and there are other areas of the operating system that I’d like to see revisited in the same way. Multitasking is still more difficult than it needs to be, with no way to save groups of windows for future use or quickly access frequently-used apps without invoking the Home View. The notification system needs an overhaul to make notifications more informative and actionable. And where are Focus filters on visionOS? If there’s one device I have that lends itself towards total focus, it’s my Vision Pro (in the Jupiter environment, of course); I should be able to contextually limit interruptions on the device the same way I can on my phone, tablet, and laptop.

There’s plenty of time to solve all of these problems, though. visionOS is by no means finished; in fact, it feels like it’s just beginning. The team behind the platform has done an incredible job of further defining what spatial computing is and moving it forward in so many ways this year, and I fully trust that they have more wonderful things in the works to show us soon. A really interesting change in Apple’s software marketing strategy this year is that everything announced for visionOS at WWDC is shipping in version 26.0. That means we have almost no idea what’s in store for its mid-cycle updates between now and next June, which makes me very excited.

As it starts its third major cycle, visionOS is in a great place. It’s come so far from where it started just a year and a half ago, and it’s still chock full of potential and hope for what spatial computing could be. It’s no secret that I’m a believer, and with every improvement, every additional link to the broader ecosystem, and every new unique experience that’s offered, the platform only expands its appeal further and further. We haven’t reached a point where spatial computing is something everyday users are ready to embrace yet, but we’re moving in that direction. And in the meantime, I’m having a ton of fun seeing this new way of computing take shape before my very eyes.

Special Thanks

This is the second time I’ve had the privilege of writing a visionOS review for MacStories, and it still feels unreal. I am tremendously thankful to share this story with such an enthusiastic, generous audience. I’d like to thank a few people who had a hand in making this project happen:

My wife Katherine, for her endless support of my passions, even when they involve wearing a headset around the house.

My son Noah, who inspires me each and every day.

Federico Viticci, for building something incredible in MacStories and letting me be a part of it.

John Voorhees, for so many things, but especially his patience and guidance.

Sigmund Judge, a true friend and someone I’d chat with about tech for hours a week even if we didn’t make a podcast together.

The entire MacStories team, whom I consider it an honor to work alongside.

The Vision Pro user community at large, for their passion and creativity that’s taking the platform to new heights.

The Vision Pro team at Apple, who are doing groundbreaking work that’s benefitting many people, and will continue to for years to come.

Magic Rays of Light listeners.

Club MacStories members.

And thank you for reading. The MacStories community is an amazing group of people, and I’m so grateful to be a part of it. You are what makes covering these stories so enjoyable.

Can you imagine jiggle mode, but for your physical environment? ↩︎

What can I say? I'm not a fan of overhead fluorescent lighting. ↩︎

When a spatial scene grossly miscalculates the distance between objects, it can create some hilarious results. ↩︎

The only other feature I can think of that comes remotely close is Guest User mode. ↩︎

The only downside to constant persona improvements is the need to go through the setup process again each time. ↩︎

Remember when that was a huge complaint about iPadOS? Simpler times. ↩︎

I need them for my work! ↩︎