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Posts tagged with "Vision Pro"

Screens 5.2 Adds Support for the Vision Pro and Other Features

Screens by Edovia is a screen-sharing app that lets you control your computer from another device, and today, version 5.2 is out with an excellent set of updates that improve the app’s performance and usability. However, the biggest change is that Screens now works on the Vision Pro, which is a big deal for anyone managing computers remotely.

I’m a longtime Screens user, but I was initially skeptical about using it with the Vision Pro. How useful or easy-to-use would Screens be when running on the device? The answer is ‘very.’ The Vision Pro version of Screens is a terrific addition to the previously-released iPhone, iPad, and Mac versions, and combined with the other changes in version 5.2, this is a bigger update than the point release might suggest.

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Apple Announces New and Updated Apple Arcade Games Coming in May and June

Source: Apple.

Source: Apple.

Apple announced that four new games are coming to Arcade early next month:

In addition, on May 30th, Where Cards Fall, the excellent indie game by The Games Band that was published by Snowman and is already part of Apple Arcade, will be coming to the Vision Pro for the first time.

Source: Apple.

Source: Apple.

Where Cards Fall is a beautiful game that won an Apple Design Award in 2020. One of the game’s core mechanics is building structures from cards that help you advance from one level to the next, which strikes me as an excellent match for the Vision Pro’s spatial gestures.

Source: Apple.

Source: Apple.

Return to Monkey Island is getting the Apple Arcade ‘+’ treatment too. As Apple describes it:

Return to Monkey Island+ is an unexpected, thrilling return of series creator Ron Gilbert that follows the legendary adventure games The Secret of Monkey Island and Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge. The game continues the story of Guybrush Threepwood, his zombie pirate nemesis LeChuck, and his true love Elaine Marley. Return to Monkey Island+ is playable across iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Players will solve puzzles and explore the islands with a clever evolution of classic point-and-click adventure game controls.

Anyone who grew up in the 90s on The Secret of Monkey Island should enjoy this game a lot. I’m also curious to try Tomb of the Mask+, a retro platformer.

In addition to the new games coming to Arcade and the Vision Pro, Apple announced updates to some fan favorites throughout May and June, including WHAT THE CAR?, Ridiculous Fishing EX, and Crossy Road Castle. For a complete list, be sure to check out Apple’s press release.

Vision Pro App Spotlight: Seasons Weaves Immersive Conditions Into a Comprehensive Weather App

Seasons is the sort of weather app I’d hoped for ever since I ordered my Vision Pro. It’s a unique mix of detailed forecast data combined with an immersive spatial computing experience. There’s a gee-whiz, proof-of-concept aspect to the app, but at its core, Seasons is a serious weather app and a spatial widget that’s a pleasure to incorporate into an everyday Vision Pro workflow.

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Apple Releases Spatial Personas Betas to visionOS 1.1 Users

Apple has added Spatial Personas to the Personas beta for all Vision Pro users running visionOS 1.1, the latest public release of the OS.

Spatial Personas are available in FaceTime where users can collaborate using SharePlay. That means you can work with colleagues on a presentation, watch TV with friends and family, play games, and more. According to Apple, Spatial Personas allow you to move around and interact with digital content, providing a greater sense of presence.

Apple says that each user can reposition content to accommodate their own surroundings without affecting the others participating in a SharePlay session. Spatial Personas are available to developers. The Spatial Personas feature also integrates with Spatial Audio, so audio tracks with the position of the other people participating in your FaceTime call.

If you have visionOS 1.1 installed, you may need to reboot your Vision Pro to see a new Spatial Personas button in the FaceTime app, although we’ve tried and don’t see the feature yet. Tapping on a Persona tile during a FaceTime call will also allow you to switch the Spatial Persona of the person you’re calling. Returning to a Persona from a Spatial Persona can be accomplished from the Vision Pro’s Control Center. There’s also a limit of five Spatial Personas per FaceTime call.

Film Featuring the 2023 MLS Cup Playoffs and Shot in Apple Immersive Video Coming Later Today

When Major League Soccer’s season began last month, Apple announced that it would release a highlights film of the 2023 MLS Cup Playoffs that was captured in Apple Immersive Video. Well, Apple now says that the film, called 2023 MLS Cup Highlights, will be available later today on the Vision Pro. The film should be available at around 9 PM Eastern US time.

I’m excited to watch the film. I’m not an MLS fan, but I haven’t had a chance to see what it’s like to experience sports in an immersive environment yet. Sports and music concerts are areas I expect we’ll see a lot more of on the Vision Pro in the coming months.

Vision Pro Chronicles: My Custom ‘Dual Knit Open’ Setup for Maximum Comfort and Awareness

My custom Vision Pro setup. [This is the stand](https://www.etsy.com/listing/1679187530/dock-for-apple-vision-pro-apple-vision) I'm using.

My custom Vision Pro setup. This is the stand I’m using.

Vision Pro Chronicles is a MacStories series about our journeys with the Vision Pro. In this series, we’ll explore the potential of visionOS as a brand new platform in our workflows and personal lives, share how we’re using the Vision Pro on a daily basis, and cover interesting apps and accessories for the device.

You’ll be shocked to learn that I’m not using the Vision Pro in any of the default Apple configurations.

After two months spent testing a variety of different options for bands, straps, and other “mounting” solutions, I’ve found my ideal setup. It looks somewhat ridiculous at a glance, and it’s not for everyone, but it allows me to use the Vision Pro for longer sessions.

Most importantly, it helps me enjoy the Vision Pro more.

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A MacStories Setups Update→

Last November, we created the MacStories Setups page. It’s a collection of the gear, apps, and services that Federico and I use for work and play. We knew when we created the page that it would change regularly, and it has. Today, we’re introducing our third update in four months, which collects changes related to Federico’s MacPad setup and some smaller adjustments that we’ve both made recently.

The MacPad additions to Federico’s setup include:

However, Federico isn’t living a MacPad-only lifestyle. He uses the Vision Pro daily and has added it along with the following accessories to his setup:

Other additions include:

Our app lineups change constantly, too, and most recently, Federico has added:

As for me, since my big desk setup upgrade, I’ve made a handful of changes to my desk and gaming setups, along with other adjustments.

The Logitech Casa Pop Up Desk.

The Logitech Casa Pop Up Desk.

With summer around the corner, I’ve been refining my portable setup. The Logitech Casa Pop Up Desk that I reviewed recently is perfect for an afternoon at a coffee shop or sitting out on my balcony. I’ve enjoyed the Boox Tab Ultra so much that I added a Boox Palma for ultra-portable e-ink reading on-the-go.

The articles I save to read on the Palma and elsewhere are currently split between GoodLinks and Readwise Reader. I’ve also swapped out NaturalReader for Speechify for text-to-speech workflows, but I’m not completely satisfied with any read-aloud solution I’ve tried yet.

I’m also slowly refining my gaming setup. The ASUS ZenWiFi Pro Wi-Fi 6E mesh router system is a big step up from the Linksys Atlas routers I was using before in terms of both coverage and speed. I’m still floored by the bandwidth I get with my iPhone 15 Pro Max and Ayn Odin 2 Pro. I also picked up a Miyoo Mini+ retro gaming handheld because I’m traveling soon and wanted an ultra-portable handheld to take with me. Also, to track what I’m playing, I’ve been using GameTrack, which I recently reviewed.

Both of us have added a handful of other apps and gear, too, so be sure to browse through the Setups page to find the complete listing of our current setups.

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ALVR Beta Brings SteamVR Games with Joy-Con Support to the Vision Pro→

Ian Hamilton writing for UploadVR about his experience playing Half Life: Alyx with Nintendo Joy-Con and the Apple Vision Pro:

The tracking quality is far from ideal and I couldn’t get the gravity gloves to pull objects. Those limitations make much of Half-Life: Alyx still off-limits at present. The hand tracking is so sluggish, for example, I wouldn’t want to engage in combat like this. Still, I enjoyed exploring a laid back look through the early parts of Half-Life: Alyx on Vision Pro’s untethered system with developer commentary turned on. And that this works at all is a remarkable testament to the ingenuity of open-source developers.

Hamilton, who tested other games like Beat Saber, too, used ALVR, an open-source project that allows SteamVR games to be played on the Vision Pro over Wi-Fi and just released a beta visionOS app.

As with a lot of these cutting-edge experiments, the number of games that are playable using ALVR is limited. However, as a proof of concept, it’s interesting to see Joy-Con, which are supported by visionOS, working in concert with hand tracking. As limited as the experience is now, ALVR points to a potential hybrid solution for gaming on the Vision Pro that combines the natural interactions of hand tracking with the precision of controllers.

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Job Simulator Devs Say They Feel ‘Vindicated’ By Apple Vision Pro’s Approach To VR→

Henry Stockdale, of UploadVR is at the annual Game Developers Conference (GDC) in San Francisco this week and interviewed Andrew Eiche, the CEO of Owlchemy Labs, creators of Job Simulator and other VR games:

Asked about the studio’s hand tracking focus and how Apple Vision Pro uses hand tracking as its primary control method, Eiche believes Apple’s system feels like “huge vindication” for Owlchemy’s strategy.

Eiche told Stockdale:

We had this similar pinch gesture in our previous hand tracking demo without knowing what Apple was going to do at all, so it’s great to see that we’ve all coalesced around this one interaction.

When we first tried the Apple Vision Pro, we were like, ‘yes!’ This is like what we have been hoping for in many cases. Making an app on a headset is difficult right now on every headset because you have to start from scratch. With Apple, you can use Swift UI. You can use all of these different tools to build an app to get the base layer. And then you add everything on top of it and it’s interesting. So yeah, it felt like a huge vindication.

Job Simulator first launched on Sony’s PlayStation VR in 2016, so it’s interesting to hear that its veteran VR development team independently arrived at a similar interaction scheme as Apple’s Vision Pro designers and engineers.

In addition to Job Simulator, Owlchemy Labs announced last month that it is also working on bringing Vacation Simulator to the Vision Pro.

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