Apple Vision Pro News & Reviews

Apple has released initial access to the long-promised panoramic display feature for Vision Pro’s Mac Virtual Display, which now brings three virtual screen sizes via its visionOS 2.2 beta release.

Having initially launched with Vision Pro back in February, Mac Virtual Display only included a single virtual screen size, albeit allowing Vision Pro users to have multiple app windows open at the same time.

Many were hoping Apple would release the new ‘Wide’ and ‘Ultrawide’ display formats for Mac Virtual Display last month during the company’s online Mac product reveal event. Now, as reported by MacRumors, visionOS 2.2 is here in beta, allowing Vision Pro users who opt in to finally take advantage of long-awaited wider screen real estate.

Apple said during the feature’s unveiling in June the update would bring an “ultra-wide display that wraps around you,” allowing for resolutions “equivalent to two 4K monitors, side by side.” Mac-side dynamic foveated rendering also keeps content “sharp wherever you look,” Apple said.

While it’s unclear exactly when Apple plan to push out visionOS 2.2 to the stable branch, it’s likely to come alongside the next ‘X.2’ updates for iOS, iPadOS, macOS Sequoia, watchOS, and tvOS, MacRumors suggests.

In the meantime, to enroll in the visionOS 2.2 beta, simply follow these few steps:

Updating Vision Pro via OTA updates

1. Sign in to the Apple Developer Center with with your Apple ID and accept the ToS.
2. Put on Vision Pro, and go to Settings General > Software Update > Beta Updates and choose the developer beta.
3. When a new developer beta is available, you can install it from Software Update.
4. From there, you should see the new ‘Wide’ and ‘Ultrawide’ options when tethered to your Mac.

Apple may be taking a beat before it releases a cheaper follow-up to Vision Pro, which would more broadly appeal to consumers, instead releasing a hardware refresh next year that includes the new M5 chipset.

According to independent tech analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, Apple has delayed the cheaper version of Vision Pro “beyond 2027”. Kuo, who is a respected figure in Apple supply chain leaks, claims in an X post that “Apple’s only new head-mounted display device in 2025 will be the Vision Pro with an upgraded M5 processor.”

“I think what really drove Apple to delay the cheaper Vision Pro is that simply reducing the price wouldn’t help create successful use cases,” Kuo maintains. “It’s similar to the HomePod situation—even after launching the cheaper HomePod mini, Apple’s smart speakers failed to become mainstream products.”

This comes in sharp contrast to a previous report from The Information in June that alleged Apple was charging ahead with a single, more affordable headset for release in 2025—let’s call it ‘Vision SE’, and leaving a more powerful ‘Vision Pro 2’ for later release.

Granted, there’s no way of knowing exactly what Apple is planning to do, as the Cupertino tech giant is famous for seeding would-be leakers with misleading bits of information in effort to catch them, so reports of the ilk should be taken with a heaping handful of salt.

Still, Kuo’s claim that Apple is pushing forward with what will surely be an equally expensive hardware refresh to the $3,500 Vision Pro may not be so farfetched.

In the midst of recent supply chain rumors claiming Apple has sharply slowed Vision Pro production, Apple CEO Tim Cook was keen to remind doubters in a concurrent Wall Street Journal interview that Vision Pro isn’t “a mass-market product.”

“Right now, it’s an early-adopter product,” Cook told the WSJ. “People who want to have tomorrow’s technology today—that’s who it’s for. Fortunately, there’s enough people who are in that camp that it’s exciting.”

Provided Kuo’s claim is true, it would signal a decisive shift in the company’s release strategy, leaving the next Vision Pro to carry on its legacy, again putting the headset in the odd position of being both too expensive for general consumers, and too niche for a large swath of third-party developers to consider it a viable money-making platform, like Meta’s Quest platform is today.

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Meanwhile, the XR competitive landscape is changing at a pretty fast clip. After the release of Meta’s $300 mixed reality Quest 3S, we’re still waiting to hear more about the company’s next big move to release a fleet of third-party OEMs running Horizon OS, which is ostensibly in service of Meta’s bid to become the “open” XR platform to Apple’s closed garden XR ecosystem.

Meanwhile, Google has signaled its preparing support for XR headsets on Google Play, which could portend the long-awaited Samsung/Google/Qualcomm headset that rumors suggest may try to compete with Vision Pro.

Apple announced in June it was planning to release a wider, higher-resolution version of Mac Virtual Display for Vision Pro. Now, the company says its holding a bevy of Mac announcements starting Monday, October 28th, which many are hoping includes the still unreleased mode.

“We have an exciting week of announcements ahead, starting on Monday morning. Stay tuned,” Apple marketing executive Greg Joswiak recently revealed on X.

The coming week of announcements seems to be a replacement for its annual Mac event, traditionally held in October, which in the past has seen the release of new iPads and Macs. The event is very likely centered around the reveal of the company’s new slate of Macs featuring various flavors of its M4 chipsets.

The Mac event however may present the ideal opportunity to highlight the promised panoramic Mac Virtual Display feature for Vision Pro, which was planned to release sometime after the debut of visionOS 2.0 in June.

At the time, Apple said its new Mac-tethered virtual screens would include an “ultra-wide display that wraps around you,” allowing for resolutions “equivalent to two 4K monitors, side by side.” Thanks to Mac-side dynamic foveated rendering, Apple maintains content will “stay sharp wherever you look.”

Like everyone outside of Apple sphere of influence, we haven’t seen it in action yet beyond the initial WWDC keynote, although on-stage teaser showed a simple UI toggle, letting Mac Virtual Display users choose ‘Normal’, ‘Wide’ and ‘Ultrawide’ modes.

If you’re looking to follow along, you can bet Apple will be livestreaming announcements on its website, and also very likely on its YouTube channel too. There’s no word yet on when to tune in, so check back soon.

Typically, Apple events start at 10 AM PT. You can click here to find your local time, although we’ll be updating this article once we know more.

Cisco updated its Webex networking app to include even more immersive support for meetings on Vision Pro, which now marries the app with its spatial video streaming hardware.

Cisco released Webex on Vision Pro back in February, allowing for mostly everything you’d expect from a Vision Pro version of the cross-platform video chatting app, letting users meet via Webex using their Persona avatars, and do things like place 2D chat windows around their mixed reality environment.

Now the company has gone one step further with the release of Cisco Spatial Meetings for Vision Pro, which now lets users stream stereoscopic video with the help of Cisco’s Room Bar Pro. Essentially, it spatializes non-flatscreen participants for the benefit of Vision Pro users.

Cisco’s new Webex spatial meeting update holds implications beyond the comparatively more simplistic face-to-face chats, including things like product demos, remote training, education—essentially anything enhanced by the added depth perception of viewing objects and environments in three dimensions.

“Think of all the use cases for companies in industries like manufacturing, retail, and healthcare. I believe that this combination of Cisco Spatial Meetings and Apple Vision Pro will drive unprecedented levels of creativity, productivity, and innovation,” says Jeetu Patel, Cisco’s Executive Vice President and Chief Product Officer.

Additionally, Cisco updated Webex for Vision Pro to include its AI Assistant, letting users improve productivity with AI-enhanced capabilities to catch up on meetings, get summaries, writing assistance, and more.

Bringing more immersive support for Vision Pro users is another step in the company’s ‘Distance Zero’ initiative, which the Cisco launched last year in effort to shorten the distance between users by using video and AI to make meetings more immersive.

Apple appears to be scaling back production of Vision Pro, and may even halt manufacturing entirely by the end of the year, The Information reports.

According to the report, Apple started reducing production this summer, with supply chain sources maintaining that the company has built up enough inventory to meet projected demand for the foreseeable future.

Apple hasn’t released overall sales figures for Vision Pro, which launched first in the US in February 2024 before coming to a select number of countries. Independent research firm Counterpoint Research however maintains the company has sold 370,000 units to date and is projected to sell 420,000 by the year’s end, as per The Information report.

Conversely, part suppliers are said to have produced enough components for around 600,000 headsets, with Vision Pro assembler Luxshare halving daily production to 1,000 units.

Owing to its eye-watering $3,500 price tag, the move to tune down production comes amid comparatively tepid Vision Pro adoption. In contrast, competitor-apparent Meta has handily shipped millions of Quest headsets over the years, and is currently pinning its hopes this Holiday season on its latest Quest 3S mixed reality headset, which starts at $300.

Despite Apple stocking its Vision Pro App Store with millions of iOS apps and some very flashy first-party content, like the recently released short VR film Submerged, such an expensive headset has predictably curtailed third-party developer interest.

Apple CEO Tim Cook however tempered expectations in a recent The Wall Street Journal interview, noting that “[a]t $3,500, it’s not a mass-market product. Right now, it’s an early-adopter product. People who want to have tomorrow’s technology today—that’s who it’s for. Fortunately, there’s enough people who are in that camp that it’s exciting.”

This follows a previous report from The Information maintaining that Apple is planning a cheaper follow-up to Vision Pro, reportedly coming sometime in late 2025 instead of Vision Pro 2, which has been postponed for a later release.

Apple announced its new iPhone 16 is getting a little more spatial with the addition of both spatial photos and audio, essentially putting it in line with Vision Pro’s capture capabilities.

The company’s big event on Monday didn’t bring any giant revelations for Vision Pro, although the company announced a host of products, including its AI-infused iPhone 16 line, as well as all-new Apple Watch Series 10 and AirPods 4.

The iPhone 16 introduces a new pill-shaped camera design, enhanced AI features, and a couple of new buttons (Action and Camera Control) compared to the iPhone 15. It retains the same 60Hz display (120Hz on iPhone 16 Pro), with improvements being pretty incremental overall.

The entire iPhone 16 line however also comes with the ability to not only capture spatial video like on iPhone 15 Pro, but now spatial photos and audio. Vision Pro can do all of these things, although you’d have a hard time fitting it in your pocket.

Regardless of what phone you have, if you own a Vision Pro all of your photos can be spatialized thanks to an update earlier this summer which automatically converts 2D photos to 3D—and pretty convincingly so.

Notably, spatial videos can also be viewed on other XR devices that support the MV-HVEC video codec, such as Meta Quest.