Vision Pro apps: the good, the bad, and the ridiculous

One of the big problems with a VR headset is that anything you want to do, you have to do inside it. Apple is looking to tackle that and other Vision Pro pain points with visionOS 2.4, which will offer improvements to the guest user experience and two new apps for finding new things to do and watch, whether you’re wearing the headset or not.

The visionOS 2.4 update rolling out in beta to developers starting today also adds Apple Intelligence features to the headset.

The NBA has introduced a new AR feature for its Vision Pro app this week called Tabletop, which places a floating render of a basketball court in your space during “select” live games, according to an NBA help page describing the feature. On the court, digital avatars mirror the game’s actual players as they move, pass, and shoot — but only for live games that you can watch or listen to with NBA League Pass.

The feature even works for local market games that are otherwise unavailable to stream video of in the app. It was about 45 seconds behind the announcer audio during a local game I tested it with, but Vision Pro owner Justin Ryan reported about a half-second delay after using a toolbar option to sync with the live feed. The feature wasn’t available for any out-of-market games when I tested, so I only had an audio feed to compare with.

Since its release, I’ve mostly used Apple’s Vision Pro like a movie theater. The VR headset is an amazing way to watch Dune — but beyond that, it hasn’t really lived up to its potential as a general-purpose computing device.

Today, that’s finally starting to change. With the update to visionOS 2.2, Apple is seriously upgrading the headset’s ability to work with a Mac. It’s probably the closest thing the Vision Pro has to a killer app.

Lapz, the Apple Vision Pro app that puts Formula One races in mixed reality, is on hold after F1 asked it to stop using its content, as reported by UploadVR. In a message posted to its Discord channel, Lapz says it halted distribution through TestFlight while it explores “licensing opportunities with various racing leagues and tech partners.”

“F1® have respectfully asked us to discontinue the use of their F1®TV broadcast rights in our platform for the time being while we continue to advance our roadmap and enhance the beta experience,” the message says.

Apple just released the trailer for Submerged, the first scripted immersive video for the Vision Pro. The short, written and directed by Edward Berger, is set inside a WWII submarine as its crew deals with “a harrowing torpedo attack.”

The trailer for Submerged consists of behind-the-scenes shots and fisheye-looking clips from the short, along with a voiceover from Berger, who claims that the immersive format will “change the future of filmmaking.”

Juno, the third-party YouTube app created for the Apple Vision Pro, has been removed from the App Store. In a post on Tuesday, developer Christian Selig said the app was taken down months after Google warned that it violates YouTube’s guidelines.

Like Netflix, Google doesn’t make a YouTube app for the Vision Pro. That means you can only watch YouTube in Safari, which breaks out videos into Apple’s native video player. Google said a YouTube app for the Vision Pro is “on the roadmap” in February, but we haven’t heard any updates since.

Apple is launching new “immersive” video content for the Vision Pro over the next few months, including one from The Weeknd, a close-up view of the 2024 NBA All-Star Weekend, and “the first scripted short film captured in Apple Immersive Video.” The new series and film will come exclusively to the Vision Pro, allowing wearers to watch 3D video with a 180-degree field of view.

The immersive performance from The Weeknd will arrive on the Vision Pro later this year, while you can expect a short film featuring events from the NBA All-Star Game this fall, such as the Rising Stars Challenge, the slam dunk contest, and the All-Star Game.

Besides watching movies, there’s not all that much to do with Apple’s Vision Pro once you get over the novelty. That’s why I was eager to try Disney and Marvel’s new What If…? An Immersive Story experience / TV show / video game… thing that’s available on May 30th. The companies promised a mixed reality show that would “push the boundaries of technology.” But what I experienced, while very pretty to look at, ended up feeling like an overlong, no-stakes video game tutorial — with no game to follow it.

You’ll go through the Vision Pro-exclusive app either by standing in one spot in a virtual environment, watching things play out and participating when prompted to, or in passthrough, where you can move around while cell-shaded 3D AR characters talk to you. You play the “Hero of the Multiverse,” a nameless character who is recruited by The Watcher, narrator on the Disney Plus series, to save the multiverse by acquiring the Infinity Stones.

The Vision Pro is about to get what sounds like an honest-to-goodness mixed reality video experience from Marvel Studios and ILM Immersive, something the platform sorely needs. The companies announced What If...? – An Immersive Story, which they say is Disney Plus’ “first-ever” interactive original content. It’ll come exclusively to Apple’s VR headset and use a mixture of augmented and virtual reality.

The hour-long What If...? episode is based on Marvel’s Disney Plus show of the same name. It’s a promising development for starved Vision Pro owners, and not just because it’s far longer than the small library of immersive films Apple has offered to date.

Netflix said last year that it had no plans for a native app for the Apple Vision Pro — a disappointment for owners given how well-suited it is for the task. Now, a new app called Supercut brings Netflix streaming to Apple’s headset without letterboxing bars on the top and bottom of the video; it also supports 4K streaming with Dolby Atmos and Dolby Vision.

Made by developer Christian Privitelli, Supercut offers playback controls — including subtitles, audio output, playback speed, and the ability to skip ahead or back a few seconds — plus the ability to switch between profiles on the fly. It even gives you a visual indicator telling you whether your video is outputting in one or both of the Dolby formats and what resolution you’re streaming at.

Starting today, Vision Pro personas will be able to do more than hover like a ghost in FaceTime calls. Now, you can use them in SharePlay-enabled apps to collaborate, play games, or watch media with other people.

Apple is calling this a “Spatial Persona.” The idea is to make it feel like you’re in the same physical space as another user. It was part of what Apple showed in developer previews last year but hasn’t been available in the actual Persona beta until now. It’s a bit hard to imagine, but you can see what it looks like in the video below.