Vision Pro Spatial Photos Receive Volumetric Enhancement for Added Immersion

Whew, so I just wrapped my head around something wild from Apple at WWDC. You know how they keep rolling out cool stuff? Well, here’s the latest: visionOS 26. Yeah, it’s like an upgrade for the Vision Pro, and let me tell ya, there’s a revamped spatial photos feature that’s supposed to be even more immersive. I mean, who doesn’t want to dive deeper into photos, right?

Picture this: Vision Pro lets you check out spatial photos that you—or your iPhone 16, 15 Pro, or Pro Max—snap, in this kind of 3D magic. Stereo this, depth map that. Sounds fancy, but the gist? Photos with depth. Kinda like looking into a tiny world. Really trippy.

The kicker, though? Apple’s thrown in some new generative AI juice. It’s like—wait, bear with me—AI is filling in the blanks. It’s as if you can almost peek around corners in these photos. I laughed when thinking about it. Is it really seeing? Maybe. Maybe not. But Apple’s betting their newest tweak will fool your eyes just enough.

So, anyways, these spatial scenes will cozy up to the Photos app, Spatial Gallery, even Safari! Developers can use something called the Spatial Scene API. Imagine that for a sec—developers with shiny new tools. Might be a blessing or a curse.

Oh, oh—Zillow decided they’d jump into the fray. They’re gonna use the API for this Zillow Immersive thing. Homes and apartments with spatial pics? Might be like stepping into a listing. Or just peeking… awkwardly.

Apple teased that this visionOS 26 is dropping later this year. Soon-ish, but who knows with these things, right? Testing’s happening now, they say, but I’ve got my fingers crossed it doesn’t come with those annoying bugs. Anyway, yeah, pretty wild ride Apple’s taking us on. Stay tuned, I guess?