The Vision Pro headset is impressive, but not perfect out of the box. Apple is known for improving its products over the years with software updates. Vision Pro will not be an exception. What should Apple focus on first, though? What would I like to see? The one-year anniversary will most likely be WWDC 2024. It’s there where we expect the company will reveal details of its first major software update to the headset’s VisionOS operating system.
While we patiently wait for that announcement, here are the changes that really shouldn’t have to wait until Vision Pro 2.
Window Management
Even if Vision Pro did nothing else, it’s pretty great at making virtual windows appear in the world around you. They can be placed anywhere, resized, and used for movies, apps, games and music. You can wrap screens around your home or even yourself to create the ultimate workspace. The edges will fade nicely so that they do not clip into one another. There has to be an easier way to manage multiple windows. This is what I would like to see the most in the first major Vision Pro update. And there’s a few different features that should probably be considered.
Pinning
For one, it would be nice to be able to ‘pin’ a window so it never moves, even if you recenter the device (which recalls all windows in front of you). This would allow users to make permanent arrangements of windows around their home and other frequented locations.
Following
You can pick up windows and literally carry them with you from one room to another, but sometimes you just want the window to be a good boy and follow you on its own. In a ‘follow mode’, windows would hover around you. It might seem like they should be attached directly to your head, but that would be uncomfortable. Having a ‘soft’ follow system that just slides the window closer once you get a certain distance away would be ideal.
Presets and Groups
I find myself commonly setting up similar window arrangements in Vision Pro. I find myself setting up similar window arrangements in Vision Pro. The most common is a large window with two smaller ones flanking it to the left and right. I’d love to be able to save this arrangement as a preset that I could open with one click, instead of opening and placing three different windows.
And window grouping would synergize nicely with this, not only making it easy to define which windows you want to save into a preset, but allowing you to move all of them as a unit, without breaking their existing arrangement.
App Flow
In Vision Pro, every app essentially becomes its own window. If you jump around between an email program, a calendar, a music player, a task list, chatting with your team, and navigating the web, you’ll quickly find yourself surrounded by windows. Not only do you run quickly out of space, too many windows means needing to move your head around to look at them more than is ideal for productivity.
‘App Flow’ could let you put multiple apps into a single window, but let you swipe between them with ease. And yes, I’m calling this ‘App Flow’ as a nod to Apple’s Cover Flow system that could be a great conceptual starting point for this kind of feature by making every album cover and app window.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNUL70XDZg0
Mission Control
And of course there’s Mission Control, the MacOS view that explodes all windows right in front of you, so you can quickly pick one to focus on. A simple gesture to use something like Mission Control on Vision Pro could put a miniaturized view of all windows in front of you, making it easy to pick the one you want to see rat that moment.
Image courtesy Apple
I get it, Apple. Apple, I get it. This is probably the main reason you can only create one user profile. Vision Pro, because it only has one user profile is not very shareable. After all, your emails, texts and browsing history are all stored there. Guest Mode is useful for quick demos, but not a replacement for real multi-user support. Guest Mode is great for quick demos but it’s not the best solution for multi-user support. Magnets make it easy to swap the headset. The magnets make it easy to swap users. OpticID already offers the perfect solution for multi-users. The headset could distinguish between two users by identifying them uniquely and securely using their retina without the need to specify which profile they should use. Not only would this point each person to their own apps and content, but the device could quickly load each user’s stored eye-calibration and IPD values for seamless switching.
This feels like a no-brainer, but considering that iPhones and iPads don’t have readily available multiple user profiles, we’re not sure we’ll ever see it.
The Vision Pro battery has a single LED that I’ve only ever seen turn green or orange. Orange is a low battery indicator, but what does that mean? What does green actually mean? What does green mean? The answer to these questions would be easy if a charging icon was displayed on the front of the headset when it is plugged in, but not fully charged. A tiny icon with a battery would be fine, but they could even do something a little more interesting by slowly filling up the whole display from left to right with that cool cloudy aesthetic they use when you’re in fully immersed mode.
We actually know for a fact that Apple has already thought about
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Multiple Mac Displays (or better yet, virtualized app windows)
Image courtesy Apple
Vision Pro seamlessly connects to a local Mac computer on the same network and presents a sharp virtual display. It allows you to use all the features and power of your computer while wearing the headset. You can even multitask using Vision Pro apps that are floating on top. Professionals often use multiple displays to spread out their work and reduce window management. So it’s clear why someone would want to use more than one virtual desktop.
Better yet, a button to create not virtual desktops… but virtual applications… could be great. What if, instead of just a box showing the Mac desktop, each application could have its own window in your headset? Hand occlusion in Vision Pro allows your hands to appear in front or inside of fully immersive content and windows. This makes the virtual content you see seem more real. It would break the illusion if your hands always appeared ‘behind” windows, regardless of how far away the window was from you. You can see your hands and arms if you are holding a coffee cup or typing on a keyboard, but not the cup. The ‘Desk Mode” could reveal everything on the plane directly in front you, including your desk or table. So your keyboard, coffee mug, notebook, phone, and more could continue to be visible even if you want to be fully immersed.
Gesturesthis kind of usage for the display way back when they first drew up the patentAs the first version of this headset, it’s not surprising to find some parts of the experience that just need to be a little easier to do. For example, to open notifications or Control Center you need to look above and click on the tiny dot. You then need to click on another icon to get to the Control Center. Gestures are hand motions that the headset recognizes. Quest, for instance, has a gesture where turning your palm upward and then pinching your fingers will open a quick-menu, which is very handy.
Something similar on Vision Pro would not only make it much faster to check the time and get to Control Center, but it would also make getting to your notifications way faster.
There’s no telling if or when any of these features might reach the headset, but in the mean time
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