The Wall Avenue Journal and different retailers have reported that Apple is struggling to promote the Imaginative and prescient Professional, a futuristic augmented actuality wearable with a miserable (for me) $3,500 price ticket. Whereas the rumor mill has taken this as an indication that the headset will quietly journey off into the digital sundown, apparently nobody instructed Apple.
On Monday, Apple hosted its annual Worldwide Builders Convention (WWDC), the place a collection of latest Imaginative and prescient Professional options was introduced.
The headlines from WWDC 2025 included the introduction of Liquid Glass, a brand new visible aesthetic for Apple software program, in addition to a brand new naming conference for its working techniques. So as an alternative of iOS 19, we’ll be getting iOS 26, in addition to macOS Tahoe 26, and tvOS 26. As a result of WWDC launched updates at a breakneck clip, you’ll have missed a few of the information associated to the Imaginative and prescient Professional, together with the upcoming launch of visionOS 26 within the fall.
Imaginative and prescient Professional to get free software program replace with visionOS 26
Whereas the press releases for iOS 26 and macOS Tahoe specify a fall launch date, the Imaginative and prescient Professional press launch from Apple would not specify a launch time. Nonetheless, an Apple consultant confirmed that visionOS 26 will even be obtainable this fall. The developer beta of visionOS 26 is offered now.
The WWDC 2025 keynote coated nearly a dozen updates coming to Imaginative and prescient Professional headsets, from new gaming options to enterprise instruments and help for GoPro wide-field video content material. So, let’s dive in.
A picture shared in the course of the WWDC 2025 keynote.
Credit score: Apple
visionOS 26 introduces new widget experiences. Customers can now place new three-dimensional widgets immediately into their visible panorama, and they are often resized and customised to their liking.
Which means you may place the brand new Clock widget immediately in your lounge wall. Your Images app widget can develop into an additional window in your wall, so it appears to be like such as you’re peering proper into your favourite images. Or, the climate app might seem like a window to the surface world, the place you may see at a look that it’s wet or cloudy. Yow will discover all these new instruments within the new Widgets app.
Mashable Gentle Velocity

That is not a window, it is your Images app.
Credit score: Apple
In Images, it’s also possible to create 3D spatial scenes from 2D images. You are able to do the identical with some web sites and apps with spatial searching. Web sites will be capable to make experiences particularly for Imaginative and prescient Professional customers, which may very well be extremely helpful for procuring specifically. Net builders can now embed 3D objects on their pages, letting the person “pull them” into their area. In a video preview proven at WWDC, a person pulls a chunk of furnishings out of Safari and locations it immediately into their area.

The Imaginative and prescient Professional spatial searching expertise.
Credit score: Apple

Spatial searching with the Imaginative and prescient Professional.
Credit score: Apple
Apple can be introducing new sharing and social options. Customers can already generate a floating 3D avatar, a Persona, for chatting and different options. With visionOS 26, Personas will get extra expressive and detailed. This is not like every other chat characteristic we have seen, even from different augmented actuality tech.

visionOS 26 delivers extra expressive Personas.
Credit score: Apple
When it comes to social options, Apple included an instance of two individuals, every utilizing their very own Imaginative and prescient Professional headset, to look at a film collectively. Whereas cool, that appears a bit optimistic given how a lot of a battle adoption has been. (Sadly, Apple didn’t announce a extra reasonably priced Imaginative and prescient Professional headset at WWDC, not that we anticipated it to.)
Nonetheless, Apple is not simply envisioning a social future. We discovered at WWDC 2025 that Apple will even be bringing new enterprise options to its headset.
Now you can save your Imaginative and prescient Professional eye and hand settings, imaginative and prescient prescription, and accessibility settings to your iPhone, which can make it straightforward to make use of a shared staff headset, for example. There’s additionally a brand new “for your eyes only” safety characteristic, which blocks others from seeing delicate knowledge.

Credit score: Apple
Some customers have complained a few lack of third-party apps, and with visionOS 26, Apple has new enterprise APIs to lure in additional builders. The corporate additionally introduced it now helps wide-field movies from GoPro, Insta360, and Canon.
There are additionally new methods to manage the Imaginative and prescient Professional, as Apple is introducing “Look To Scroll” performance. You may also draw within the air utilizing the Logitech Muse spatial stylus, one other third-party win for Apple.

Gaming with the Imaginative and prescient Professional.
Credit score: Apple
When you’re utilizing your Imaginative and prescient Professional as a VR gaming headset, now you can immerse your self in video games with the PlayStation VR2 Sense controllers. visionOS 26 additionally bumps up hand motion monitoring to 90Hz.
To sum up, if you have already got a Imaginative and prescient Professional, you could have quite a lot of new performance and updates to sit up for later this 12 months. And should you’ve been on the fence concerning the $3,500 headset, I nonetheless consider what I mentioned when this machine first launched: If any firm can get augmented actuality proper, I consider it is Apple. Greater than a 12 months after the machine’s launch, there nonetheless is not something just like the Imaginative and prescient Professional — exterior of science fiction, that’s.
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Apple
Digital Actuality