Meta continues to pick low hanging fruit features from Apple Vision Pro for its Quest headsets. The company is also expanding support for playing back videos shot on iPhone in Quest OS.
More iPhone video playback
A few months ago, Meta cleverly enabled spatial video playback for stereoscopic clips captured using the iPhone 15 Pro. Now Meta says any iPhone with iOS 17 can send videos to Quest OS for viewing.
Well, what they actually say is somewhat murky so I’ll quote it in context:
Back in February, we introduced spatial video playback as part of the v62 software update. If you have an iPhone, you can upload spatial (a.k.a. stereoscopic) videos to your Meta Quest headset using the Meta Quest mobile app, enabling you to view your memories and media content like never before.
And yes, we mean any iPhone. While spatial video playback originally launched only for the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max, with v65 we’re now making it accessible to everyone on iOS 17 and later.
Apple only supports spatial video capture with the native Camera app on the iPhone 15 Pro, so I’m not positive what they’re trying to say here.
Low hanging fruit
What is clear, however, is passthrough when viewing system dialog boxes on Quest — starting with Quest OS v65, that is.
Apple Vision Pro certainly has some unpolished corners in visionOS 1, but it doesn’t abruptly transport you from your environment to a black space by design. Prior to Quest OS v65, that’s how Quest headsets worked. System menus like for restarting the hardware would replace your environment in passthrough with an empty void.
That will no longer be the case with the v65 software update.
The other piece of low hanging fruit? A panoramic photo viewing mode. Specifically, Meta is enabling the ability to upload and view iPhone pano shots on Quest headsets. As with spatial video sync, media is uploaded through the Meta Quest app with iOS 17.
So there you have it. Lots of love for iPhone users, and more feature parity with Apple Vision Pro. Still, the biggest difference in visionOS and Quest OS is multitasking. $3500 gives you unlimited windows while $500 gives you up to three.
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Maria Malik is your guide to the immersive world of Virtual Reality (VR). With a passion for VR technology, she explores the latest VR headsets, applications, and experiences, providing readers with in-depth reviews, industry insights, and a glimpse into the future of virtual experiences.
