PS VR2 Controllers, Photorealistic Personas, Spatial Scenes & More

Apple just released visionOS 26 for Apple Vision Pro.

Announced at WWDC25, and available in beta since then for developers, visionOS 26 brings PlayStation VR2 Sense controllers & Logitech Muse stylus support, much more realistic Personas, spatial Widgets, 90Hz hand tracking, volumetric Spatial Scenes, local SharePlay, and much more to Apple’s headset.

Here’s everything that just arrived in visionOS 26:

PlayStation VR2 Sense Controllers

visionOS 26 adds native support for the PlayStation VR2 Sense controllers. Sony is expected to start selling them separately from the headset soon, though this hasn’t happened yet.

PS VR2 Sense controller support will include 6DoF positional tracking, capacitive finger touch detection, and “vibration support”. It’s unclear whether precision haptics will be supported, nor the unique resistive triggers of the PS VR2 Sense controllers.

Apple promised that PS VR2 controller support will bring “a new class of games” to Vision Pro.

The first major title to support the PS VR2 controllers will be Pickle Pro from Resolution Games.

Significantly Improved Personas

In visionOS 26, Personas, Apple’s face-tracked realistic avatars, have been “transformed to feel more natural and familiar” thanks to “industry-leading volumetric rendering and machine learning technology”.

Apple describes these new more realistic Personas as having “striking expressivity and sharpness, offering a full side profile view, and remarkably accurate hair, lashes, and complexion”. The company has also expanded the eyewear options for your Persona to include over 1000 variations of glasses.

The new Personas are still generated in a matter of seconds via holding the headset up to let it scan your face.

With visionOS 26, you can pin windows and volumes to physical surfaces like your walls, and they persist between restarts.

visionOS 26 also brings Widgets to the platform, leveraging this pinning and persistence capability. You position these widgets in your real space, and they reappear every time you put on the headset.

visionOS Widgets are customizable, with options for frame width, color, and depth. Built-in widgets include Clock, Weather, Music, and Photos, and developers can build their own using WidgetKit.

The persistence and surface-alignment capabilities can also be used in visionOS apps via new APIs.

Truly 90Hz Hand Tracking

At launch, Apple Vision Pro’s hand tracking was limited to 30Hz, and we noted in our review that this made it feel sluggish and unresponsive in games.

With visionOS 2, developers could opt to be provided with hand tracking at up to 90Hz, significantly improving the responsiveness.

Now, with visionOS 26, Apple says the underlying hand tracking algorithm actually samples the sensors at 90Hz.

Volumetric ‘Spatial Scenes’

Since the launch of Apple Vision Pro the headset has been able to capture and display 3D photos, which Apple calls Spatial Photos, and visionOS 2 added the ability to convert any 2D image into a Spatial Photo using machine learning.

visionOS 26 goes much further. It introduces Spatial Scenes, which leverage “a new generative AI algorithm and computational depth to create spatial scenes with multiple perspectives, letting users feel like they can lean in and look around”.

Spatial Scenes can be viewed in the Photos app, which lets you convert any photo into one.

They’re also available in Apple’s Spatial Gallery platform, as well as web pages in Safari, and developers can add them to their visionOS apps using the new Spatial Scene API.

Local SharePlay

Until now, it wasn’t possible to build visionOS apps that let multiple Vision Pro headsets automatically see the same objects and interfaces at the same locations in the same physical space, a feature known as colocation on Quest and Pico.

visionOS 26 brings this capability to Vision Pro, leveraging the existing SharePlay technology and APIs that already let Vision Pro owners share experiences remotely.

Logitech Muse Spatial Stylus

visionOS 26 adds support for the upcoming Logitech Muse accessory, a spatial stylus for Apple Vision Pro.

Apple says Logitech Muse “enables precise input and new ways to interact with collaboration apps like Spatial Analogue”.

It looks to be very similar to the existing Logitech MX Ink spatial stylus for Meta’s Quest headsets.

Spatial Browsing In Safari

visionOS 26 brings major new features to Safari on Vision Pro.

The new Safari allows web developers to embed 3D models in web pages, and users can drag these 3D models into their space.

A new feature called Spatial Browsing builds on the Reader Mode of Safari to deliver an “immersive” feeling of browsing a webpage, where 2D images become Spatial Scenes.

Native 180° & 360° Video Support

visionOS 26 adds native support for traditional 2D 180° and 360° video, not just Apple’s own 3D Apple Immersive Video format.

Apple says this allows you to easily watch content captured on affordable 180° and 360° cameras from companies like Insta360, GoPro, and Canon.

The system automatically presents the footage with the correct perspective to make it feel as much as possible like you’re really there.

Folders In Home View

With visionOS 26, you can create folders of apps in the home screen, just as you can on iOS and iPadOS.

Previously there was just one folder, which held compatible iPad and iPhone apps.

Unlock iPhone & Answer Its Calls

With visionOS 26 and iOS 26, you can unlock your iPhone while wearing Vision Pro.

You can also answer calls being made to your iPhone, which will be redirected to visionOS.

Jupiter Environment

visionOS 26 adds a new Jupiter home environment.

The new environment places you on Amalthea, one of the gas giant’s closest moons, and lets you speed up time to watch enormous storms “swirl across the gas giant as sunlight breaks across its surface”.

A new option in visionOS 26 called Look To Scroll lets Vision Pro owners scroll a page by looking near the bottom.

Game Controller Breakthrough

Apple Vision Pro always segments and shows your real hands and arms, and since visionOS 2 it shows your physical keyboard, a capability called Keyboard Breakthrough.

visionOS 26 brings Game Controller Breakthrough, doing the same for PlayStation and Xbox gamepads, as well as the PS VR2 Sense controllers.

Apple Intelligence In More Countries

visionOS 2.4 brought Apple Intelligence to Vision Pro, but only for US English.

visionOS 26 expands this to English in Australia, Canada, India, Singapore, and the UK, as well as French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, and Spanish.

Foundation Models Framework

With visionOS 26, developers can use the Apple Intelligence on-device LLM (large language model) in their own visionOS apps, via the new Foundation Models framework.

This includes guided generation for structured output, and tool calling to let the model take actions.

The Foundation Models framework enables generative AI even in free apps, in contrast to the current situation where apps need to use paid server-side models.

With visionOS 26, enterprise companies can save eye and hand tracking calibration and accessibility settings to each employee’s iPhone, and this configuration can be used on shared Apple Vision Pro headsets.