First look – Apple’s Visionos 26 dissolves my biggest personal problem and takes the mixed reality set to unexpected places
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Apple Vision Pro is undoubtedly one of the most powerful pieces of consumer hardware that Apple has ever built, but the expensive gadget is still struggling to make contact with consumers. And that’s a shame because the generation-leaping Visionos 26 Adds even more striking functions to the $ 3,500 headset, which I think you have trouble finding with another mixed reality equipment.
Apple unveiled the newest Vision Pro Platform this week as part of its broad WWDC 2025 Keynote, who also introduced a naming system of the year. For some platforms such as iOS, for example, the leap of 18 to 26 was not huge, but for the Toddler Visionos 2 it was immediately put into adulthood and re -re -re -re -re -re -re -re -re -re -re -re -re -re -re -re -re -re -re -re -re -re -re -re -re -reopened visionos.
This is not a reinvestion of Visionos, and that is probably because the glassness has its glaziness more than spread over all other Apple platforms in the form of Liquid glass. However, it is a deepening of its core attributes, especially around spatial computer use and images.
I had the chance to gain an early practical experience with the platform, which is remarkable because Vision pro-owners will not see Visionos 26 public beta. What does that mean while iPhone, iPad, Apple WatchAnd Apple TV owners are test-riding OS 26 platform updates on their favorite hardware, Vision Pro-owners will wait longer, perhaps these improvements will not see until autumn. In the meantime, developers naturally have access to testing.
Since many of the Vision Pro Visionos 26 interface has not changed from the current public operating system, I will concentrate on the most interesting and impactful updates.
See “me”
During the keynote, Apple showed how Visionos 26 Personas radically moved the position of art by visually comparing a current persona with a new one. A Vision Pro -Persona is a virtual, live, 3D view of your head that follows your movements, facial expressions and voice. It can be used to communicate with other people who wear the headgear, and it is useful for calls and group activities.
Apple has gradually improved the personas, but Visionos 26 is a noticeable jump and in more than one way.
You still record your persona with the front-facing 3D camera system. I removed my glasses and held the headset in front of my face. The system still leads you, but now the process seems more accurate. I followed the Audiocirgance and looked up slowly, down, left and right. I smiled and pulled my eyebrows. I saw a version of my face vaguely on the Vision Pro Front Display. It is still a bit creepy.
I then put on the headset again and waited less than a minute until it generated my new persona. What I saw both sad and blew away.
I was sad because I hate what I look like without my glasses. I was blown away because it looked almost precisely like me, almost completely removed the disturbing “creepy valley” from the previous iterations. If you ever wonder what it would be like to talk to yourself (apart from staring at a mirror and having twins), this is it.
There was a little stiffness and yes, it established my teeth, although part of my installation process contained a big smile.
It was simple enough to repair the glasses. With the Personas interface you can choose glasses, and now the selection is much wider and with more shades. I quickly found something that almost seemed like mine.
With that I had my digital double that followed my expressions and voice. I turned my head from left to right and was impressed to see how far the illusion went.
Focused on the wall
One of the most intriguing moments of the WWDC Keynote was when they demonstrated the new widgeting possibilities of Visionos 26.
Widgets are a well -known function on iPhones, iPads and Macs, and to a certain extent they work in the same way on Vision Pro, but takes the spatial environment or at least in new and unexpected places.
In my Visionos 26 -Demo experience I turned to an empty wall and then used the new widget setup to pin a clock widget on the wall. It looked like a real clock that hung on the wall, and with a flip of one institution I showed it as if it had been set in the wall. It really looked.
On another wall I found a music widget with Lady Gaga on it. When I got closer, a play button appeared in the virtual poster. Of course I played a bit Abracadabra.
Another wall had several widgets, including one that looked like a window to mount Fiji; It was actually a compelling photo. I instinctively moved forward to “look out” the window. While the Vista spread to me, the Vision Pro warned me that I came too close to an object (the wall).
I love widgets, but pace the excitement with the realization that it is unlikely that I will walk from room to room while I wear Vision Pro. On the other hand, it would be nice to almost redesign my home office.
The key to the usefulness of Vision Pro is that make its spatial possibilities useful for all aspects of information and interaction.
Visionos 26 does that for the web with spatial browsing, which in fact can change a floating wall of text and spatially improved photos from each page, spatial scenes.
Visionos 26 treats the last part immediately, and it is bound to what the platform can do for every 2D photo. It uses AI to make computational depth from information that can get it out of your flat image. It works with almost every photo of each source, with the only limitation as the original resolution of the source image. If the resolution is too low, it does not work.
I wondered how, when you stared at one of these converted photos, you could see details behind a topic or, for example, an explanation of rock that was not recorded in the original image but is inexplicably there.
It is such a cool effect and I am sure that Vision Pro owners want to show friends how they can turn almost all their photos into stereoscopic images.
Space time
I love the excellent mixed reality possibilities of Vision Pro, but there is nothing above the completely compelling experience. One of the best examples is the environments that you switch on by rotating the crown until the real world is replaced by a 360-degree environment.
Visionos 26 adds what is perhaps the best environment: a look at Jupiter of one of his mane, Amalthea. It is beautiful, but the best part of the new environment is the control with which you can scroll back and forth over time to view sun upputs and sunsets, the rotation of the planet and the dramatic storms of Jupiter.
This is a place that I would like to hang out.
Of course this is still the beta of a developer and subject to an important change before the final version arrives later this year. It is also a great showcase for a powerful mixed reality headset that many consumers still have to try. Perhaps Visionos 26 is the game changer.
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