Last Week in AVP #84: Apple's Jupiter Environment Arrives with visionOS 26 RC, Apple’s New Prescription System for visionOS 26 is Fully Software Driven, visionOS Devs Event in Cupertino and more!
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DaVinci Resolve 20.2 Update adds streaming content from Apple Vision Pro in DaVinci Resolve Studio (source)
DaVinci Resolve 20.2 Update! Major update adds support for immersive EXR workflows and streaming content from Fusion to AppleVisionPro in DaVinci Resolve Studio, plus improved track patching and ripple trim controls in both free and Studio versions! Download at http://bmd.link/WNRc7s
Apple's visionOS Jupiter Environment Features Moving Great Red Spot & Dynamic Shadows (source)
Apple Vision Pro developers are digging into a new home space in their headsets out beyond the asteroid belt.
The Release Candidate version of visionOS 26 makes the new Jupiter home environment downloadable to Vision Pro headsets, simulating the view of the solar system's largest planet as seen from the tiny orbiting rock Amalthea. Accessing the environment's settings in the visionOS menu offers new tools to adjust the arrangement for time of day and speed of movement, changing the location of the sun, stars and other moons you can see from the spot in orbit around Jupiter.
visionOS 26 review: a necessary evolution in need of new hardware (source)
Apple may not have been first to mixed reality computing, what Apple calls spatial computing, but it debuted many interaction paradigms and UI styles that have since become commonplace. With each iteration of visionOS, Apple has leaped ahead with new concepts and upgrades that make spatial computing more intuitive and, at times, invigorating.
There's not much app-wise to challenge the Apple Vision Pro and M2 beyond gaming and graphics applications today. However, visionOS 26 makes the operating environment much more complex, so more advanced hardware can only help keep things running smoothly.
Spatial widgets are the star of the show, and absolutely represent the biggest bottleneck for the hardware. Foveated rendering might help here, but then there's the issue of refreshing widgets when the user turns their head
Apple Vision Pro isn't being held back by the M2, but the edge cases are starting to show up. I'm used to reviewing iPadOS, which has never come close to taxing the incredible power of the hardware.
However, spatial computing is a different beast. It isn't confined by a physical piece of glass, so it has to do more work understanding the user's location in 3D space.
The M2 was new when Apple Vision Pro was revealed in June 2023, but was instantly outdated by the time it launched in February 2024. Now, with the M5 on the horizon, a hardware update is increasingly needed.
So, that's the focus of my visionOS 26 review. I'm excited by how visionOS has evolved in two short years, so let's dive into the new features and what they mean for the future of Apple's Vision platform.
Cosmic Orange iPhone 17 Pro viewed in AVP (source)
The Cosmic Orange iPhone 17 Pro really looks sick. Especially when it’s massive, set against a sunset in a virtual AppleVisionPro environment.
Apple’s new prescription system for visionOS 26 is a boon for glasses-wearers (source)
One of the new features that perhaps hasn’t had the attention it deserves in the latest visionOS 16 release (which will be coming out on September 15th) is the inclusion of changeable ‘Prism values’. These essentially tweak the image to appear in focus for visually impaired users who would typically require glasses or contact lenses.
For glasses-wearers, this is particularly great, as it means they don’t need to wear them underneath the Apple Vision Pro headset (which is a bit of a pain – I can attest from personal experience).
If you have your prescription details handy, you can enter these into the settings in order to tweak the focus of the lenses on each eye; otherwise, you can just manually adjust them until the image meets your needs.
Blockworks game - build anything you want (source)
If you’re into Legos, check out this unique looking AppleVisionPro game called Blockworks where you can let your creativity run wild and build anything you want.
This is a feature request (already sent to Apple), but wouldn’t it be fantastic if the wallpaper in macOS could be transparent when using Virtual Display? I’m certain others have mentioned similar requests before, but I genuinely hope Apple will implement this feature!
Björk’s ‘Vulnicura VR’ album gets remastered for Apple Vision Pro (source)
Now the app itself has been remastered and released for Apple’s Vision Pro in 2025. ‘Vulnicura VR – Remastered’ is the work of VR music firm PulseJet Studios, which has ported the original app while remastering its visuals and turning the music into spatial audio.
Porsche posted a video of how they use Apple Vision Pro to demo the internals of their cars (source)
Porsche just posted a video of how they use AppleVisionPro to demo the internals of their cars. A great example of spatial collaboration.
Synthesthesia: a gesture based synthesizer that lets you create music with your hands. You can pinch your fingers to control the filter and move your hands to select chords.
Vision Tunes: a Spotify app for Vision Pro. It gives you access to all your favorite songs an podcasts. You can use this to manage your library and organize your music. It has a mini player that stays out of your way as you get work done.
You can edit immersive 180 inside Vision Pro (source)
Finally! You can edit immersive 180 inside Vision Pro - all thanks to @Blackmagic_News DaVinci Resolve 20.1.Now you can:🥽 Cut, color grade, and mix in-headset at full 8K per eye.
🎧 Monitor Apple Spatial Audio Format (ASAF) with AirPods + head tracking.
🖥️ Use Immersive Mode in Edit, Color, Fusion and Fairlight pages for undistorted previews.
Full Sail University is the First Higher Education Institution in the Nation to be Equipped with the Blackmagic URSA Cine Immersive Camera (source)
Full Sail University is proud to announce the unveiling of its state-of-the-art Spatial Computing Innovation Lab located on the university's Winter Park, FL campus. This cutting-edge lab is the first collegiate environment in the nation to be outfitted with the Blackmagic URSA Cine Immersive camera for use with Apple Vision Pro. The combination of these revolutionary technologies will allow students across Full Sail's entertainment media and emerging technologies degree programs to embark upon real-world research and development projects utilizing the URSA Cine Immersive alongside Apple's industry-leading spatial computer.
Just launched OrbitalGallery on Vision Pro — born from an old Vive project (source)
Years ago I prototyped a Unity/Vive demo where photos orbited around you in space. I recently rebuilt the idea for Vision Pro in SwiftUI and RealityKit called OrbitalGallery. Now available on the AppStore.
What it does:
Orbiting rings that gently rotate around you. I’ve stress-tested with 600+ images (mixed sizes) and ended up with a literal tower of photos around my room. Pretty amazing sight.
Fine-tune everything: number of rings, images per ring, image size, elevation, and rotation speed.
Tap to spotlight a photo at eye level; yaw-aligned, no mirroring. High resolution images look amazing!
Auto-scale mode if you want it to lay things out dynamically based on image dimensions.
Loads from your Photo library, but works best with large folders, SMB,AFP, network shares or local storage.
I built this because I wanted a calmer alternative to scrolling a flat grid. If you try it, I’d love feedback on rough edges, wish-lists, anything. I’ve got a long feature list already, so updates will drop over time (mostly things I want for myself too). I hope you like it as much as I do.
New "Create immersive media experiences for visionOS" event for visionOS developers in Cupertino in October (source)
Create immersive media experiences for visionOS
Learn how to create compelling interactive experiences for visionOS and capture immersive video in this multi-day activity.
On Day 1, we’ll show how visionOS 26 can help you tell impactful immersive and interactive stories. You'll learn how to frame your creative ideas for formats like Apple Immersive Video and explore real-world examples from past productions. You'll discover how to design for spatial interaction and tell stories that make the audience part of your experience. And you'll find out how to use SharePlay and spatial Personas to help people connect over your ideas.
On Day 2, we’ll dive deep into Apple Immersive Video and Apple Spatial Audio. You'll discover how to create entirely new media experiences, get started with Apple Immersive Video, explore new production workflows, and dig into previous Apple Immersive productions.
The occlusion of hands has gotten incredibly good on AVP (source)
The occlusion of hands (and my entire arms!) has gotten incredibly good on AVP. Also the lighting on them makes it really feel im in that virtual environment.
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