Apple announced a wave of new productivity and collaboration updates to its Vision Pro augmented reality headset during its 2024 Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) keynote speech.
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The release of Apple’s next Vision Pro operating system, VisionOS 2, will unlock new enterprise features, including an ultrawide Mac display and mouse and keyboard support.
As part of Apple’s keynote, Mike Rockwell, VP of Vision Products Group at Apple, reinforced the company’s long-running message of the Apple Vision Pro as an enterprise productivity tool:
Apple Vision Pro and VisionOS unlock completely new possibilities for entertainment, productivity, collaboration, and so much more.”
“Vision Pro has inspired developers to create amazing and unique spatial apps that aren’t possible on any other platform.”
Rockwell continues: “[You can] bring your data to life with SAP, and doctors can even reimagine surgical simulation and planning.”
Coming Soon to Vision Pro
The new ultrawide virtual display feature is arguably the biggest productivity update, giving users a huge space that can fit multiple windows, effectively eliminating the time lost switching between tabs.
Haley Allen, Director of visionOS Program Management at Apple, gave a sense of what to expect: “People love Mac virtual display. Later this year it gets even better with higher resolution and size, and it can be expanded even further into an ultra-wide display that wraps around you, equivalent to two 4K monitors.”
VisionOS 2 will offer mouse support for the Vision Pro, which was bizarrely absent from the initial launch of the Vision Pro.
In addition, a physical keyboard is due to be added, which will naturally be a major productivity boost for AR device users.
VisionOS 2 also brings various updates, including spatial computing advancements, a photos app, the new digital environment ‘Bora Bora’, additional web video players like YouTube, Amazon, and Netflix, plus extra content will be available via “Apple Immersive” videos.
Allen introduced the latest photos capabilities: “VisionOS 2 lets you do something truly amazing with the photos already in your library.
“With just the tap of a button, advanced machine learning derives both a left and right eye view from your beautiful 2D image, creating a spatial photo with natural depth, and now you can experience all your panoramas and spatial photos and videos together with the people you love using SharePlay in the photos app.”
She also commented on the headset’s intuitive control system:
People are amazed at how easy it is to navigate Vision Pro.”
“Now, you can just hold your hand up and tap to open home view or flip your hand over to bring up time and battery life and tap again to open Control Center.”
The visionOS 2 update is ready for Vision Pro users following a series of beta testing stages. Apple is planning to release the update this autumn, free for all users. The tech giant is yet to announce the full feature set of the operating system.
Apple Vision Pro will be launched internationally on June 28 in China, Japan, and Singapore and then on July 12 in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom.
