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Posts tagged with "visionOS"

Shareshot 1.0: Pixel Perfect Screenshots, Beautifully Presented

I’ve used Federico’s Apple Frames shortcut to add device frames to screenshots for years. It’s a great way to quickly process multiple screenshots and upload them to the MacStories CDN with minimal effort. But as great as Shortcuts is for simplifying this sort of task, there are advantages to using a native app instead.

Editing screenshots on the iPad.

Editing screenshots on the iPad.

Shareshot is an app for iPhone, iPad, and Vision Pro that occupies a lot of the same feature space as Apple Frames, using Apple hardware to frame screenshots. However, the app simultaneously does more and a little less than Federico’s shortcut. That one missing feature means that I won’t be abandoning Apple Frames, but because of the things the app can do that Apple Frames can’t, Shareshot will be joining the shortcut as a utility I expect to use a lot.

Let’s dig into what makes Shareshot shine.

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GoodLinks 2.0: The Automation-Focused Read-Later App I’ve Always Wanted

One of my greatest frustrations with read-later apps is how hard most make it to get your data out on your terms. Few allow you to export links using Shortcuts or some other system, and even fewer offer to do the same with highlights – until now. With version 2.0, GoodLinks adds highlighting and note-taking combined with excellent Shortcuts support, giving users full access and flexibility to incorporate saved URLs, highlights, and notes into their workflows however they want.

Thanks to Obsidian’s deep catalog of plugins from third-party developers, it’s been possible to import highlights from read-later apps like Readwise Reader and Amazon’s Kindle app for some time. Those are good solutions when I’m working in Obsidian, but both I and our readers use lots of different apps. That’s why I was so glad to see GoodLinks (available for the iPhone, iPad, and Mac) get this major 2.0 revision that transforms it from a place to save links and articles to a more well-rounded research tool, thanks to highlighting and notes.

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visionOS 2: The MacStories Overview

Today, Apple revealed visionOS 2, the first major upgrade to the software powering Apple Vision Pro. The update, coming this fall, will include quality-of-life improvements, new ways to create and share spatial content, additional tools for developers, and more.

Interacting with the Home View and Control Center will be easier than before thanks to new system-wide gestures. Holding your hand up and tapping your fingers together will bring up the Home View, while flipping your hand over will bring up a time and battery status popover that also acts as a Control Center launcher. These gestures are simpler than the previous methods of accessing these views, which required pushing the Digital Crown for the Home View and looking upwards to reveal the Control Center launcher. Apps in the Home View can now be rearranged, and compatible iPad and iPhone apps are no longer constrained to a single folder.

The new gestures for accessing the Home View and Control Center in visionOS 2.Replay

Mac Virtual Display is expanding later this year to support a higher resolution and larger size, resulting in a display roughly equivalent to two 4K monitors side by side. The experience of using peripherals with Apple Vision Pro will be improved with Magic Keyboard passthrough in immersive environments and support for mice. Guest User information will be saved for 30 days so users’ friends and family can use Apple Vision Pro without going through the setup process repeatedly, and Travel Mode will be supported on trains in addition to airplanes.

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Sequel 2.3’s Magic Lookup Is a Perfect Example of How Apps Should Integrate AI

If you haven’t tried Sequel to track your media queues, you’re missing out and have some catching up to do. There’s a reason we gave Sequel 2.0 the MacStories Selects Best App Update award last year. The app, which is available on the iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Vision Pro, is one of the very best media trackers in a very crowded field.

One way to get up to speed with Sequel’s core features is my review of version 2.0, which I won’t repeat here. Since that review, developer Romain Lefebvre has released updates that continue to improve the app in meaningful ways. However, today’s version 2.3 release is special because it’s one of the first apps I’ve tried that uses AI in a truly useful, non-gimmicky way. Plus, the update adds Shortcuts integration, allowing users to automate the app in new ways, as well as a Markdown-compatible note-taking feature and new layout and search options.

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What If…? – An Immersive Story Will Debut May 30th

Source: Disney+.

Source: Disney+.

Earlier this month, I linked to What If…? – An Immersive Story, which Marvel Studios and ILM Immersive developed for Disney+. The project is an Apple Vision Pro exclusive for which there were few details originally. Now, however, we have a trailer and a launch date. What If…? – An Immersive Story will be available to Disney+ subscribers in just over one week on May 30th:

The trailer’s description explains the project’s premise:

The Multiverse is in danger and The Watcher needs your help. Dangerous variants are hunting Infinity Stones and altering the fate of not only their realities, but yours as well. To save the fate of the Multiverse, you’ll need to use your own hands to learn mystic spells, defend your allies in epic battles, and more. But, be careful… everything might not be all that it seems.

Source: Disney+.

Source: Disney+.

I can’t wait to try What If…? – An Immersive Story. There hasn’t been a lot of new immersive content since the Vision Pro’s launch. However, along with the appearance of Parkour in the TV app, which is set for release in a couple of days, the pace seems to be picking up.

Apple Marks Global Accessibility Awareness Day with a Preview of OS Features Coming Later This Year

Source: Apple.

Source: Apple.

Thursday is Global Accessibility Awareness Day, and to mark the occasion, Apple has previewed several new accessibility features coming to its OSes later this year. Although this accessibility preview has become an annual affair, this year’s preview is more packed than most years, with a wide variety of features for navigating UIs, automating tasks, interacting with Siri and CarPlay, enabling live captions in visionOS, and more. Apple hasn’t announced when these features will debut, but if past years are any indication, most should be released in the fall as part of the annual OS release cycle.

Eye Tracking

Often, Apple’s work in one area lends itself to new accessibility features in another. With Eye Tracking in iOS and iPadOS, the connection to the company’s work on visionOS is clear. The feature will allow users to look at UI elements on the iPhone and iPad, and the front-facing camera – combined with a machine learning model – will follow their gaze, moving the selection as what they look at changes. No additional hardware is necessary.

Eye Tracking also works with Dwell, meaning that when a user pauses their gaze on an interface element, it will be clicked. The feature, which requires a one-time calibration setup process, will work with Apple’s apps, as well as third-party apps, on iPhones and iPads with an A12 Bionic chip or newer.

Vocal Shortcuts

Source: Apple.

Source: Apple.

Vocal Shortcuts provide a way to define custom utterances that launch shortcuts and other tasks. The phrases are defined on-device for maximum privacy using a process similar to Personal Voice. The feature is like triggering shortcuts with Siri, but it doesn’t require an assistant trigger word or phrase.

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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.

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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