During WWDC at Apple Park in California this week, the company unveiled visionOS 26 updates for its mixed reality Vision Pro headset that will up the ante for both consumer and enterprise users, with new spatial widgets and more realistic avatar Personas among the noteworthy updates. The customizable widgets will appear to blend into a headset wearer’s physical environment, “integrating seamlessly into a user’s space” and reappearing exactly where the user left them each time the Apple Vision Pro is activated. A great deal of effort has gone into improved iPhone integration, including the ability to initiate calls directly from the headset.

Personas now leverage volumetric rendering and AI for “expressivity and sharpness, offering a full side profile view, and remarkably accurate hair, lashes, and complexion” and style choices like “glasses from over 1,000 variations,” Apple notes in a newsroom post. New Apple Intelligence features include Image Playground updates and support for new languages.

“New widgets include a clock that you can decorate, weather that adapts to the weather outside near you, music for quick access to tunes, and photos that can transform into a panorama or a ‘window to another space,’” TechCrunch summarizes, noting that “spatial browsing on Safari can make web browsing a more immersive experience,” with supported articles able to hide distractions and “reveal inline photos that ‘come alive as you scroll.’”

A generative AI algorithm adds the immersive touch, turning flat images into live pictures that evoke the magic of the motion images in the Harry Potter films. The visionOS Photos app has itself been improved, adding depth to 2D images. VisionOS 26 also supports native playback of 180-degree, 360-degree, and wide field-of-view content from Insta360, GoPro and Canon.

Another key feature enabled by visionOS 26 is a hands-free visual scrolling option called “Look to Scroll” that allows “users to explore apps and websites using just their eyes.” “Previous versions of visionOS required users to pinch their thumb and index finger together to grab content and then drag it in either direction to scroll, or perform a pinch and flick gesture to scroll faster,” writes The Verge.

“New iPhone interoperability includes the ability to unlock the phone while wearing the Apple Vision Pro, even during a fully immersive experience, and it will be available for iPhone models running iOS 26.3,” The Verge points out, noting that “visionOS 26 will also support relaying calls from an iPhone, so users can answer phone calls directly from the Vision Pro or start a call from the headset’s People View.”

In addition to Bluetooth accessories the visionOS 26 now supports PlayStation VR2 Sense controllers, says The Verge, noting that controller support will make it possible “to play more sophisticated VR or AR games and offering, in general, a more foolproof control system than Apple’s eye- and finger-based tracking.”