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

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

New native Apple apps

When Vision Pro launched in February, it included a variety of Apple’s own visionOS apps, such as Safari, TV, Music and Mindfulness.

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

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

• Books
• Calendar
• At home
• Maps
• News
• Podcasts
• Reminders
• Shortcuts
• Stock up
• Voice notes

Mark Gurman wrote this weekend that Apple plans to upgrade at least some of these apps to fully native visionOS processing in visionOS 2.

For Vision Pro headset users, the new visionOS 2.0 will address missing features from the first iteration. This involves adding special versions of Apple’s own apps instead of just using the iPad.

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

Live captions for the entire speech

Introduced last month as part of Global Accessibility Awareness Day, live captions will come to visionOS 2 as a way to let users have real-time captions for everything in their lives.

Apple explains:

visionOS will feature system-wide live captioning to help everyone — including users who are deaf or hard of hearing — follow along with spoken dialogue in live chats and app audio. With Live Captions for FaceTime on visionOS, more users can easily enjoy the unique experience of connecting and collaborating using their Persona. Apple Vision Pro will add the ability 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 could also prove extremely useful for a wider base of users who simply prefer to have captions available to complement whatever verbal speech is being spoken. it happens

Low-hanging fruit: rearranging applications?

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

The biggest example that immediately comes to mind is enabling app reordering on the home screen. It would be very surprising if users had to wait an entire additional release cycle before such a basic task was enabled

Breath Tracking in Mindfulness

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

It’s unclear if this breath tracking will be a built-in feature without any other hardware required — perhaps based on using Vision Pro’s existing set of cameras and sensors. It may also require an Apple Watch, which already supports breath tracking — thus tapping into an existing data set. But we should find out soon.

Summary

visionOS 2 is Apple’s first opportunity since the release of Vision Pro to really highlight its future hopes for the new Vision platform. Not to mention marketing to build excitement ahead of upcoming international releases.

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