Vision Pro Spatial Personas are like Apple’s version of the Metaverse without the Meta
While the initial hype about Apple Vision Pro may have died down, Apple is still busy developing and rolling out new updates, including a new one that will allow multiple Personas to work and play together.
Apple briefly demonstrated this capability when it introduced the Vision Pro and gave me my first test drive last year, but now spatial Personas is live on Vision Pro mixed-reality headsets.
To understand “spatial personas,” you need to start with the Personas section. You absorb this somewhat uncanny valley 3D views of yourself using Vision Pro’s spatial (or 3D) cameras. The headset uses that data to create a 3D representation of you that can mimic your face, head, upper body and hand movements and can be used in FaceTime and other video calls (where supported).
Spatial Personas does two important things: it gives you the ability to put two (or more) avatars in one space and have them interact with different screens or the same screen and do this in a spatially aware space. This all still happens within the confines of a FaceTime call, with Vision Pro users seeing a new “spatial Persona” button.
To enable this feature, you will need the visionOS 1.1 update and may need to restart the mixed reality headset. Then, at any time during a FaceTime Persona call, you can tap the spatial icon to enable the feature.
Almost together
Spatial Personas support collaboration and collaborative viewing experiences by combining the feature with Apple’s SharePlay.
This allows you to ‘sit side by side’ (personas don’t have butts, legs or feet, so ‘sitting’ is an assumed experience) to watch the same movie or TV show. In an environment (you turn the Vision Pro’s digital crown until your real world disappears in favor of a selected environment like Yosemite”) you can also play multiplayer games. Most Vision Pro owners may opt for “Game Room “, in which the spatial avatars sit around a gaming table. A spatial Persona call can become a true group activity, with up to five spatial Personas participating at a time.
Vision Pro also supports spatial audio, meaning the audio for the Persona on the right sounds as if it’s coming from the right. Working this way can give the feeling that everyone is there with you, even though that is clearly not the case.
Currently, any app that supports SharePlay can work with spatial Personas, but not every app allows for single-screen collaboration. If you use window sharing or share the app, other personas can see your app window but cannot interact with it.
There are
While your spatial Personas appear in other people’s spaces during the FaceTime call, you maintain control over your viewing experience and can still move your windows and Personas to suit your needs without ruining what people see in the shared experience .
In a video shared by Apple, two spatial Personas can be seen placed on either side of a Freeform app window, which is somewhat remarkable in itself. But things take a surprising turn when they can all use their Persona hands to control the app with gestures. That feels like a game changer to me.
In some ways, this seems like a much more limited form of Meta-CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s metaverse ideal, where we live, work and play together in virtual reality. In this case, we’re collaborating and playing in mixed reality while still using somewhat uncanny valley avatars. To be fair, Apple has already vastly improved the look of these things. They’re still a little jarring, but less so than when I first put mine on in February.
I haven’t had a chance to try out the new feature yet, but it’s impressive to see those two floating Personas reach each other and control an app floating in a single Vision Pro space. It’s also a reminder that it’s still too early for Vision Pro and Apple’s vision for our spatial computing future. When it comes to usability, the expensive hardware clearly still has a long way to go.