Apple’s first visionOS beta outlines 13 VR ‘Environments,’ app limitations

Along with the second beta of iOS 17, Apple this week released the very first beta visionOS, giving developers who weren’t lucky enough to try Vision Pro at WWDC their first glimpse of the company’s mixed-reality vision of the future. (Without wishing to repeat the F word too often, Apple describes the software as its “first spatial operating system.”) You don’t need an actual Vision Pro headset to explore the software, which is fortunate since they won’t go on sale until sometime next year. You only need the latest Xcode beta.

It’s still early days, but a few interesting titbits have emerged already. For instance, there are several Environments present in the beta, which can be used to shut out the outside world by turning the headset’s Digital Crown. “Environments let you transform the space around you, so apps can extend beyond the dimensions of your room,” Apple says on its website. “Choose from a selection of beautiful landscapes, or magically replace your ceiling with a clear, open sky.”

There are 13 Environments so far, ranging from the beach to the moon and including several generic locations: the beach, moon, sky, white sands, and winter, fall, summer, and spring light. Additionally, there are several real-world views:

• Haleakala National Park in Maui, Hawaii
• Joshua Tree National Park in Southern California
• Lake Vrangla in Drammen, Buskerud, Norway
• Mt Hood National Forest in Oregon
• Yosemite National Park in California

As noted by Macrumors, there’s also a Visual Search feature that allows the wearer to interact with items and text in the world, and translate text between more than a dozen languages. That’s more of a real-world AR feature than Apple demoed, so it’s possible Vision Pro has more functionality by the time it arrives in customers’ hands next year.

Apple has also outlined a few app categories that don’t fit on visionOS, including movement-based apps that follow location changes or offer turn-by-turn directions or navigation, and photography apps, despite Vision Pro having a dozen cameras on board.

As fascinating as it is, the beta (official name visionOS‌ 1.0 Developer Beta) isn’t intended for the use of members of the public. As the name suggests, it’s for app developers to work on. Devs can download the software development kit, and read about some of visionOS’s features, on Apple’s developer portal. It’s doubtful Apple has a public beta before visionOS 2.0 arrives.