Gear VR went through multiple generations before proving
.
Later, the HTC Vive powered by SteamVR on PC promised to pair with your phone to keep you connected while in VR. Gear VR got through multiple generations before proving free wasn’t cheap enough.
Later, the HTC Vive powered over PC by SteamVR promised to pair with your phone to keep you connected while in VR. Most people who owned a Vive didn’t know this feature was there, and there are few accounts of it being used successfully by anyone.
Post-iPhone
Previous phone-in-VR efforts are lost to history because neither unholy matchup of Samsung and Facebook-purchased Oculus nor HTC and Valve had enough platform control to keep you connected to your most personal computer while in VR. In the past, Gear VR, as well as the cardboard box shipped with the
and Nintendo models, allowed users to play games in virtual reality. enjoy a simple head-tracked game like Proton Pulse inside a literal cardboard box – just as you can Google.New York TimesPlaying Call of Duty Warzone in VR via iPhone AirPlay Mirroring.today on a $3500 Apple Vision ProWhat’s changed is that 10 years of progress in software and hardware integrated vertically by Apple makes iPhone a Swiss Army Knife to visionOS. VisionOS 2 allows you to use nearby macOS, iOS and iPadOS devices as parallel computing tools. This feature allows photographers or videographers to time and angle shots without having the iPhone screen directly in front of them. Add visionOS to the mix and you can go one step further, with a pair of buttons to press on your wrist to activate the phone’s camera for photo or video recording.
Taken altogether, Vision Pro with visionOS 2 becomes a more capable director unlocking Apple’s other devices in slightly new ways. One hand can frame the iPhone camera shot, the wrist buttons are there for controls, and a virtual viewfinder floats wherever you look to show you how your shot looks from any angle you choose.
That’s the difference of a decade and tens of billions of dollars in investment to make this shiny face computer. Apple’s initial visionOS 1 operating system launched in February alongside the headset and proved that, with next-generation resolution and OLED contrast as its backdrop, a VR system could actually stand on its own as an infinite canvas for your media.
visionOS 1 started to tell this story by offering the Apple TV and Apple Immersive experiences as its primary showpieces, with classic gaming emulators
shortly after initial Mac support for mirroring your computer into the headset. visionOS 2 makes things even more interesting by bringing your iPhone and other devices in via AirPlay Mirroring.
Starting with visionOS 2, a docked iPhone charging via magnetic connection can mirror its widgets even when locked. When unlocked, can you mirror the widgets? You can view the iPhone on a gigantic screen, or a tiny screen hovering right above your keyboard — it’s your choice.
iPhone mirroring in full VR is far more than a minor improvement here. It works on iPad as well. Mac Virtual Display allowed me to supervise a Quest 3 game from an Apple Vision Pro using a web-browser. In the other direction, Meta is
an AirPlay receiver.suddenly added to Apple storefrontsThe featured image on this post was captured straight from Apple Vision Pro showing five concurrent windows:
Stardew Valley purchased via Steam running locally on a Mac Mini via Mac Virtual Display.
RetroArch running in the headset.
running in the headset.asking Apple to let Questconnecting to a local VR-ready PC.
in background.
- iPhone standby window mirror In the other direction, Meta is
- be an AirPlay receiver.
- Delta emulatorThe featured image on this post was captured straight from Apple Vision Pro showing five concurrent windows:
- ALVRStardew Valley purchased from Steam running locally on a Mac Mini via Mac Virtual Display.
- RetroArch running on the headset.
running on the headset.
connecting in the background to a local VR-ready PC.his definitive hardware reviewiPhone standby window mirroring clock and calendar widgets while locked and charging on a dock.
Every iPhone made for the last four years can be mounted for charging this way using MagSafe. A decade ago, you’d have to give up the juice necessary to keep your constant companion going just to enjoy a few minutes of uncomfortable VR in which you can no longer use the phone as a phone.
Roughly a decade on from those false starts and, rather than requiring a PC or using a phone, Apple chose to ship its first VR headset with a phone-sized battery. David Heaney of
criticized rightly the long cord Vision Pro users are forced to use. After running visionOS 2 on my headset I can understand why Apple didn’t include widgets such as a calendar or clock. That’s because, to visionOS, iPhone is just another window taking you away from Bora Bora.
Clip from Apple showing how the upcoming Ultrawide mode on Mac Virtual Display should work.
visionOS 2 Officially Announced For Apple Vision Pro
visionOS 2 introduces a number of new features and improvements across the operating system.
visionOS recognizes that, in trusting your sense of sight to Apple, everything in your home is of little use to use in VR if you can’t actually use it at least as well as without the headset. This means that, in the future, Mac Virtual Display will provide a high resolution ultrawide screen wherever you may be. Even the iPhone used to build Apple’s headquarters in space is nothing more than a visionOS widget that informs you about the world outside of virtual reality. The visionOS widgets can be set to tell you, for example, the temperature and air quality outside of your controlled environment. You can now keep track of your DoorDash orders on iPhone, just as Wade Watts did in Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One. You can navigate the OS with a Joy-Con attached to a wrist-strap while playing many popular platformer games. You can rearrange apps more quickly, for instance, by using the stick to move through the app pages.much-needed improvements to hand trackingThere’s much more to look at in visionOS 2 including
, and we’ll keep covering Apple’s spatial computing operating system as it continues to evolve.
Source link Ethics Disclosure: Ian is married to an Apple employee.01001010