What to expect from visionOS 2: new native Apple apps and more

Apple is expected to have a lot of software announcements to share next week at WWDC, many of which will center around iOS 18 and AI. However, this year’s keynote will also introduce the first major software update for the Vision Pro: visionOS 2.

Here’s what to expect from visionOS 2 when it debuts next Monday.

New native Apple apps

When the Vision Pro launched in February, it included a variety of native visionOS apps from Apple, such as Safari, TV, Music, and Mindfulness.

However, there were a number of included first-party apps that were only available in compatibility mode. This means they were originally built for iPad but can run on Vision Pro in a special mode.

The list of Apple apps that are not yet native to visionOS includes:

• Books
• Calendar
• Home
• Maps
• News
• Podcasts
• Reminders
• Shortcuts
• Stocks
• Voice Memos

Mark Gurman wrote this weekend that Apple plans for at least some of these apps to get upgraded with the fully native visionOS treatment in visionOS 2.

For users of the Vision Pro headset, the new visionOS 2.0 will address missing features from the first iteration. That includes adding dedicated versions of Apple’s own apps, rather than just using the iPad ones.

It would be great to see every Apple app go fully native with visionOS 2, but we should at least see some of the most popular apps from the above list get upgraded this year.

Live captions for all speech

Introduced last month as part of Global Accessibility Awareness Day, Live Captions will be coming to visionOS 2 as a way for users to enable having real-time captions for everything in their lives.

Apple explains:

visionOS will include systemwide Live Captions to help everyone — including users who are deaf or hard of hearing — follow along with spoken dialogue in live conversations and in audio from apps. With Live Captions for FaceTime in visionOS, more users can easily enjoy the unique experience of connecting and collaborating using their Persona. Apple Vision Pro will add the capability to move captions using the window bar during Apple Immersive Video

This is obviously a huge feature for the deaf and hard of hearing, but it may also prove extremely useful for a broader base of users who simply prefer having captions available in their view to complement whatever verbal speech is happening.

Low-hanging fruit: reordering apps?

Though he used very few words, Gurman’s statement that visionOS 2 will “address missing features from the first iteration” implies that this release will take care of a lot of the low-hanging fruit that probably should have been available at launch, but didn’t make the cut.

The biggest example that immediately comes to mind is enabling reordering of apps on the Home screen. It would be very surprising if users had to wait a whole extra release cycle before such a basic task is enabled

Respiration tracking in Mindfulness

Tim Hardwick at MacRumors reports that new lines of code related to the visionOS Mindfulness app have been discovered. They imply that some form of respiration tracking is coming to the Vision Pro with its upcoming software update.

It’s unclear whether this respiration tracking will be a built-in feature with no other hardware required—perhaps based on using the Vision Pro’s existing camera array and sensors. It’s also possible it could require an Apple Watch, which already supports respiration tracking—thus tapping into an existing data set. But we should find out soon.

Wrap-up

visionOS 2 is Apple’s first opportunity since the Vision Pro’s launch to really highlight its future hopes for the new Vision platform. Not to mention do some marketing to stir up excitement ahead of upcoming international launches.

The handful of features above hopefully are just a fraction of what Apple has planned for visionOS 2. In any case, I’m especially keen to see what the Vision Pro story is come June 10.