visionOS 26: The MacStories Overview

Source: Apple.

As part of this year’s WWDC keynote, Apple today announced visionOS 26, the next major version of visionOS coming this fall. The update features new ways for users to experience spatial content, display information in their environment, and interact with apps and games. It represents the next step forward for Apple’s vision of spatial computing, including what the company refers to as “the spatial web.”

Since Apple’s new Liquid Glass design language borrows heavily from visionOS, design changes won’t be as striking on the platform. The most prominent user-facing feature of the update is likely to be spatial widgets.

Up to this point, native widgets have been completely absent on visionOS, and the company has introduced them in a way that is consistent with its other devices while adding a spatial flair. Widgets can be customized to include a border and a depth effect to blend in with the user’s environment, and they remain fixed persistently in place even after the Vision Pro restarts. Built-in options like the Clock, Calendar, Music, and Photos widgets were featured, though third-party developers will be able to provide their own widget options via the new Widgets app.

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Various ways of experiencing spatial content have been enhanced in visionOS 26 as well. Building on last year’s introduction of spatial photo conversion, Apple this year added a feature called spatial scenes to all of its platforms. Spatial scenes add depth to photos, enabling users to experience their pictures from different perspectives by moving their heads. These scenes can be viewed in Photos, the Spatial Gallery, and Safari, and developers can add them to their own apps. visionOS 26 also adds native support for playing back 180-degree, 360-degree, and wide field-of-view content.

Source: Apple.

Apple’s spatial ambitions on the web extend beyond just spatial scenes. visionOS 26 introduces a new spatial browsing option in Safari, giving users a way to read articles without distractions while unveiling embedded spatial scenes as they scroll. 3D models can now be embedded and manipulated directly in webpages, too. Apple claims that these enhancements introduce the beginning of what the company calls the spatial web.

Shared experiences in visionOS are getting improvements for both remote and in-person uses. Spatial personas have been enhanced to look sharper with a side profile view and more realistic hair, lashes, and complexion. visionOS 26 also includes the ability for users to share experiences in the same room, enabling them to see the same content when watching a show together, competing in a game, or collaborating on work. Sharing a Vision Pro with another person is also easier with the ability to save your hand- and eye-tracking configuration, vision prescription, and accessibility settings to your iPhone and recall that data when enabling Guest User mode or picking up a Vision Pro from an enterprise fleet.

Source: Apple.

Support for a couple of key accessories is coming in visonOS 26. The update will be compatible with Sony’s PlayStation VR2 Sense controllers for motion tracking with six degrees of freedom and haptic feedback when playing VR games. And Logitech’s new Muse accessory, a stylus-like tool built specifically for Apple Vision Pro, will enable spatial drawing and collaboration.

Hand tracking in visionOS 26 will be improved, increasing in speed to 90Hz. Other quality-of-life improvements include the ability to organize apps into folders on the Home View, scroll content with your eyes, answer phone calls, and unlock your iPhone with a glance while wearing a Vision Pro. There’s a new Jupiter environment built in, too. For enterprise users, the update offers new options, including the Protect Content API, which ensures sensitive data can only be accessed by those with permission and can’t be copied.

visionOS 26 will be available to Vision Pro owners this fall, with a public beta coming next month.