More from Vision Pro apps: the good, the bad, and the ridiculous
The NCAA’s March Madness Live app is also getting a new, swipeable vertical video highlights feed.
The “Vision Pro compatibility” means the iPad app, so you won’t get any “spatial” features, but at least it’s there (unlike, say, YouTube). What, did the Samsung Gear VR app not do well or something?
The NCAA also says it’s offering “expanded live game radio” for Apple CarPlay and Android Auto.
[NCAA.com]
It’s essentially the same thing you’d see if you were browsing the store in the Vision Pro itself — a few curated lists of native apps here, some recommended iPad apps there.
But at least there’s a way to casually cruise those sweet spatial apps without popping the headset on now.
[AppStore]
It’s getting four: A Beautiful Planet 3D, Pandas 3D, Super Power Dogs 3D, and Deep Sky. You’ll also see trailers for new releases.
These are part of a wave of new spatial films on the Vision Pro. Apple debuted 150 3D movies at launch through Apple TV Plus and other streamers, including recent releases like Avatar: The Way of Water and Dune.
If you miss the kitchen TV, then this Television app for Apple’s headset has got your back. You’re able to watch videos (even spatial ones, if you like) on a whole bunch of different 3D models of TVs, from a portable CRT to a Samsung Frame lookalike.
I want to watch iCarly on a big bulky silver 2000s console.
In this interview for the Voices of VR podcast, Apollo developer Christian Selig shares his experience creating Juno, an unofficial YouTube player he created for the Vision Pro in only a week’s time.
Despite the small number of people who own the headset, he says he’s earned enough from it to buy “multiple” Vision Pros.
Job Simulator and Vacation Simulator are both making their way to Apple’s headset, developers Owlchemy Labs announced. They don’t say when the games will arrive, but they should offer a welcome stress reliever for whenever you’re not filling out spreadsheets or attending Zoom calls.
XR designer Greg Madison has created this chrome ball as a fun way to visualize how Apple’s headset can reflect lighting in augmented reality based on your real environment.
Reflection mapping is hardly new or unique to the Vision Pro, but Madison’s experiment is commendably easy to play with — just open the file in this Google Drive link while you’re wearing the headset.
Assuming you’re going to keep your Vision Pro headset for a while, Apple has highlighted some of the spatial games already available that are optimized for its headset’s eye, hand, and voice controls.
They include What the Golf, Super Fruit Ninja, Synth Riders, and Lego Builder’s Journey (shown below), as well as some upcoming titles, like Alto’s Odyssey: The Lost City, Gibbon: Beyond the Trees, and Spire Blast.
Call me pessimistic, but I was sure Google would immediately slam the breaks on Christian Selig’s third-party YouTube app (especially now the company plans to make a YouTube app of its own). But Juno is still going strong, and Selig has just released its 1.1 version update. Improvements include a playback quality selector, drag and drop support, bug fixes, and other performance and UI tweaks.
[christianselig.com]
Immersive Wire spoke to Vision Pro developers and found that apps like JigSpace, which was included in Apple’s press materials, got over 14,000 installs in the span of a week. Other apps have struggled to get past a 1,000-download threshold.
It obviously helps to be featured by Apple, but Immersive Wire reports some developers attribute lower download numbers to a lack of discoverability on the App Store. Developers say search capabilities need improvement, and the top 10 app lists should be easier to find.
Apple’s motion sickness support page tells you how to minimize possible nausea and other symptoms while using the Vision Pro. The company even offers a little label to tell you when an app or “Apple Immersive Media” has “larger amounts of motion.”
And this is it. This is how you know.
Of course there are plenty of videos circulating showing people “using” Apple’s headset while driving and walking — it’s an easy bit to snag views with!
As Luke Miani’s video here shows, you’ll only walk through your apps if you try, and Travel mode, which is meant for use on flights, is not a solution. It’s evident in other videos, like Casey Neistat’s, that Vision Pro wearers have to stop moving to use its apps.
Although the unboxing and “what it’s like” videos aren’t really reviews, Brownlee’s latest video — the actual review — is more of a closing chapter of a trilogy chronicling his thoughts on Apple’s very fancy headset.
This moment says a lot about the quality of the passthrough video — not just visual fidelity, but latency also:
I also had a moment where I was using the Vision Pro for a while and I had my Mac and some other monitors around me, and then I took it off and then I went and did something, and then I came back and before I put the headset back on I looked up at the wall to where I thought a window was going to be.
Portrait mode images aren’t 3D — iPhones use depth mapping to determine where everything is in space, then they use machine learning to apply simulated bokeh (that is, the blur that optical lenses give you when focusing on a subject).
iPhone camera app maker Halide explains how the Vision Pro’s “spatial” photos, which use the Vision Pro’s “stereoscopic 3D camera system,” aren’t that.
On the latest Vergecast, Nilay Patel, David Pierce, and Alex Cranz discuss The Verge score for the Vision Pro, which got a 7 for being fun, but perhaps it should’ve been less?
Nilay put it to a vote on Threads yesterday, asking Vision Pro owners, in a “world of no 7s,” is it a six, or an eight? The winner was a third option: “Show me the results.” (Six came in second, though).
Carrot Weather has offered a first look at its Vision Pro app launching today, which features comical weather forecasts optimized for visionOS, along with a new 3D weather globe you can explore in your physical space. You can also play mini-games and interact with Carrot’s AI character via the “ornament” in the main app window.
A mix of 42 popular Disney flicks, including Finding Nemo, Avatar: The Way of Water, and Star Wars: The Force Awakens are headed to the Vision Pro headset in 3D. Disney Plus subscribers will get access to the whole catalog, but non-subscribers can still rent or buy 3D movies from the Apple TV app.
Navi makes use of the headset’s floating app windows by allowing you to transcribe and translate conversations in real time, viewing the subtitles beside whoever you’re speaking to.
The translation feature works with iOS devices that must also be running Navi, and requires both users conversing to have an active subscription to the app which starts from $3.99 per week.
Check out this demo of a Dutch-language translation:
When I saw how the app Shortcut Buttons lets you put virtual buttons around your home to trigger smart home devices using Apple’s Vision Pro, I was (almost) sold.
This is a use case for the $3,500 head computer I can really get behind (you know, once it doesn’t cost $3,500). The lack of new interfaces for the smart home is something I complain about a lot. This might shut me up for a bit.
Check out Matthew Cassinelli’s rundown of how the $8 app works.
