Fast Facts
Apple is now rolling out a spatial Persona experience in beta as part of visionOS 1.1.It now lets you Personas break out of the FaceTime tile and move in an environment around apps.
Apple’s (AAPL) Vision Pro has been on the market for a full two months as of April 2, 2024 and still delivers a daily futuristic experience. One of the most eye-catching features, and potentially the most debated, is Persona.
Essentially, the digital avatars are created during Vision Pro setup and appear as you join meetings or take FaceTime calls on the spatial computer. After improving the standard Persona, Apple is rolling out a next-level Persona in beta.
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“Spatial Persona” might ring a bell, as it was teased at launch, but these essentially let your Persona break out of the FaceTime tile and can move around in a space across applications. Essentially, rather than being in a box, your Persona on another Vision Pro is now spatially aware and presents a floating torso and up, including your head and arms in your space.
A look at a spatial Person on Apple Vision Pro.
Apple
The goal is to get closer to someone physically in the space around you, and Apple does that by making these Personas spatially aware of the space they are in, as well as up to five people in total on the call and the apps that are being shared. It also removes Persona from FaceTime and lets you truly interact with other applications on Vision Pro.
Imagine working on a slide deck with teammates, scrolling through final designs, playing a game together, or even taking in a film. It’s a more life-like version of some other collaboration tools on competing headsets like the Meta Quest, but it’s more based in reality on where folks are and how a Persona looks.
Check out this demo video that Apple shared. It gives a better sense of what spatial Persona looks like in use. I’ll be going hands-on with this as soon as possible and reporting back on my experience.
Like standard personas, spatial Personas are still in beta and are being distributed to all Vision Pro owners running visionOS 1.1. You’ll see it as an option when on FaceTime with another Vision Pro user to enable it.
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Apple Vision Pro in use with the Dual Loop Band.
Jacob Krol/TheStreet
