Virtual Mac in Vision Pro & work insights

[8KYUP]

Hi guys, I wanted to share a few early discoveries about Vision Pro. I had heard from one of the youtubers, that resolution was set at a low resolution for the virtual mac monitor. This is incorrect. Vision pro is treated as any other monitor within your Mac. If you go to settings and view displays, you will see that the vision pro is represented with multiple resolutions available all the way up to 4K. By selecting 4K you get a ton of real estate on the virtual monitor. This is particularly useful here, because you can scale the monitor itself to any size. For that reason a 4K resolution is still usable, where, on a studio display for instance, that same resolution may be mostly unusable due to the interface elments being too small to see comofortably on the fixed scale screen.

Also, a small sidenote, you can open multiple Safari windows. I hadn't seen this done in any of the early presentations. These also can be resized to any scale.

I used vision for work all morning. This is gonna be an epic set up for work!

I will try to post a video of this soon.

 

[8KYUP]

Hi guys, still working on a little video. Foveated rendering makes the screen capture videos look very blurry outside of the focus point, when they do not appear that way through Vision Pro. I am working on a better way to capture video that will address that and allow better quality. First day and all . Even so, I hope these images (grabs from video) are useful to some who are interested. Coincidentally, I live at the base of Mount Hood and Mount Hood is one of the stock environments in Vision Pro, so I posted those images for fun .




The other images show Photoshop and Resolve at various resolutions and at full screen in the case of Resolve. I also showed the standard Mac display settings interface showing Vision
Pro as a monitor and with all options expanded there are many more options than I had originally thought. Very cool all around. I'm thoroughly enjoying getting used to this!

 

[iToph]

Is it 4K 90fps without lag?

 

[bias]

Amazing, thank you for sharing! Editing in Davinci Resolve and Photoshop are my primary use cases. Two questions:

1: Do you notice any lag or sync issues when editing video footage or is it frame-accurate?

2: how is the color accuracy? Could you color grade on this thing and get pretty close to final results?

Thank you!!

 

[8KYUP]

Amazing, thank you for sharing! Editing in Davinci Resolve and Photoshop are my primary use cases. Two questions:

1: Do you notice any lag or sync issues when editing video footage or is it frame-accurate?

2: how is the color accuracy? Could you color grade on this thing and get pretty close to final results?

Thank you!!

Those were the first things I wanted to check out as well. For your primary use case, which is also close to mine, I think you will be extremely happy. There is no perceptible latency. I haven't tested a variety of distances yet, but at 10 feet (Mac to VP) there's no noticeable latency at all. I am only one day in, but I haven't had any sync issues at all either. The connection has been rock solid. Color accuracy is wonderful. Because you have your Mac running the apps it is very easy to go back-and-forth and check color performance against your mac monitor(s). I edited a short project on this yesterday and then checked it on my Studio Display and M3 Macbook Pro Max 16 when I was done and no changes needed to be made. Extremely pleased with this so far.

 

[Exile714]

Are you finding that the Mac viewing is less clear than real life, and also less clear than “native” Vision Pro apps?

I’ve tried using mine as a Mac monitor but it feels muddy for some reason, especially smaller text. I can’t put it into words why I think that or what the issue might be, but going back to a real world monitor felt… better?

 

[bias]

Those were the first things I wanted to check out as well. For your primary use case, which is also close to mine, I think you will be extremely happy. There is no perceptible latency. I haven't tested a variety of distances yet, but at 10 feet (Mac to VP) there's no noticeable latency at all. I am only one day in, but I haven't had any sync issues at all either. The connection has been rock solid. Color accuracy is wonderful. Because you have your Mac running the apps it is very easy to go back-and-forth and check color performance against your mac monitor(s). I edited a short project on this yesterday and then checked it on my Studio Display and M3 Macbook Pro Max 16 when I was done and no changes needed to be made. Extremely pleased with this so far.

Amazing. Thank you so much!

 

[poorcody]

I would love an immersive view in Vision Pro that matches your real-world view out your window!

 

[rulymammoth]

Are you finding that the Mac viewing is less clear than real life, and also less clear than “native” Vision Pro apps?

I’ve tried using mine as a Mac monitor but it feels muddy for some reason, especially smaller text. I can’t put it into words why I think that or what the issue might be, but going back to a real world monitor felt… better?

I’m with you. There isn’t the same crispness as on a real monitor. Surprised me because all of the reviews I’d seen suggested that text would be super sharp.

 

[Kristain]

I’m with you. There isn’t the same crispness as on a real monitor. Surprised me because all of the reviews I’d seen suggested that text would be super sharp.

From what I've read the OLEDs in the VP have around UHD resolution across. So if you're viewing a screen that's not filling up the full width of the OLEDs the resolution has to be less that UHD. And that's before you take into account the quality reduction from downsampling etc.

 

[klasma]

By selecting 4K you get a ton of real estate on the virtual monitor. This is particularly useful here, because you can scale the monitor itself to any size. For that reason a 4K resolution is still usable, where, on a studio display for instance, that same resolution may be mostly unusable due to the interface elments being too small to see comofortably on the fixed scale screen.

You get the same screen real estate as on a 5K 27” monitor (1440p logical resolution). Those 5K are downscaled to 4K for output towards the AVP, and then 3D-transformed onto the pixel grid of each of the two AVP panels (generally taking up a lesser number of pixels there than on a 4K monitor). This downscaling and 3D transformation means losing some sharpness compared to an actual 5K or 4K display.

The 4K is for Apple Silicon Macs. Intel Macs downscale to 3K.

 

[turbineseaplane]

Surprised me because all of the reviews I’d seen suggested that text would be super sharp.

If they were being on the level, they should have added the context that the AVP text is "super sharp" relative to other VR headsets.

 

[klasma]

Is it 4K 90fps without lag?

I’ve read a number of users reporting a small but perceptible lag. The lag can grow larger depending on the quality of the wifi connection. I’d assume it’s 60 Hz at most from the Mac side.

 

[cogzero]

Wow. You could sell some pictures of your home to Apple and we could pretend to live at your place . What a view.

 

[klasma]

Wow. You could sell some pictures of your home to Apple and we could pretend to live at your place . What a view.

Yeah, I'd rather spend my time in that house than in AVP VR.

 

[bias]

I’m with you. There isn’t the same crispness as on a real monitor. Surprised me because all of the reviews I’d seen suggested that text would be super sharp.

Would you say it’s a big enough issue that you couldn’t tell if a photo was in focus or not (from an editing perspective)? Or is it just UI elements that aren’t as sharp?

 

[8KYUP]

I’m with you. There isn’t the same crispness as on a real monitor. Surprised me because all of the reviews I’d seen suggested that text would be super sharp.

When the headset is perfectly adjusted, I find that the direct-gaze region of the foviated rendering is extremely sharp. That is a reality of the headset. This part is everything I could've hoped for, and I find it to be a pleasure to use for creative uses. I was very concerned that Apple would get this part right and in my opinion they have exceeded my reasonable expectations.

I do have a short list of things that I think Apple missed on with the VPV1. Most of those will improve with software updates, one will not.

 

[8KYUP]

Would you say it’s a big enough issue that you couldn’t tell if a photo was in focus or not (from an editing perspective)? Or is it just UI elements that aren’t as sharp?

You can definitely determine critical focus. This is going to be great for culling large groups of images, etc. and will likely save the right user a lot of time for that use.

 

[MXBY]

Somewhat related:

What is it like, working on a MacBook or 27"/32" monitor, through the Vision Pro – disregarding the virtual screen view, i.e. looking at physical monitors via passthrough?

Honestly, that is something I would consider, since I have many monitors at my workspace, so I'm curious if I can can augment normal displays + virtual displays.


Btw, is there an Accessibility option to "zoom" the Vision Pro, e.g. like you can zoom on elements in MacOS (with some pixelation) by enabling that and holding control + scroll wheel?

 

[8KYUP]

Somewhat related:

What is it like, working on a MacBook or 27"/32" monitor, through the Vision Pro – disregarding the virtual screen view, i.e. looking at physical monitors via passthrough?

Honestly, that is something I would consider, since I have many monitors at my workspace, so I'm curious if I can can augment normal displays + virtual displays.


Btw, is there an Accessibility option to "zoom" the Vision Pro, e.g. like you can zoom on elements in MacOS (with some pixelation) by enabling that and holding control + scroll wheel?

The primary monitor for your Mac will be blacked out. Your other monitors will be viewable and you will be able to read text on them. That use, however, would not be a satisfying experience. The physical monitors simply don't look good enough and are not clear enough through pass-through for any kind of critical use. No mouses are currently supported, so that wouldn't be an option, although you can zoom as normal on your Mac using trackpad and keyboard shortcuts.

Edit: I just learned that you can have a mouse connected to your Mac that will function inside of the Mac interface. I'm not sure yet if that'll function outside of the Mac interface while the Mac is connected. That would be interesting to know, although I'm a trackpad user so it's not personally relevant.

 

[Graham King]

Mouse, trackpad and keyboard for your Mac work as expected inside the MacOS window inside AVP. What I don’t like is when I turn an immersive environment all the way up that I can’t see my keyboard. I imagine a future hardware and or software update will fix this.

As far as resolution, I changed it to 4K in MacOS display settings while in AVP control mode to get more screen real estate. As others have said, it’s not as crisp as an actual 4K monitor. So I find myself making it larger in space but then it’s so large that I can’t see the whole window without turning my head.

I’ll continue working inside AVP this week but at this point I don’t see myself keeping it past the return period.

 

[Kristain]

The primary monitor for your Mac will be blacked out. Your other monitors will be viewable and you will be able to read text on them. That use, however, would not be a satisfying experience. The physical monitors simply don't look good enough and are not clear enough through pass-through for any kind of critical use. No mouses are currently supported, so that wouldn't be an option, although you can zoom as normal on your Mac using trackpad and keyboard shortcuts.

Edit: I just learned that you can have a mouse connected to your Mac that will function inside of the Mac interface. I'm not sure yet if that'll function outside of the Mac interface while the Mac is connected. That would be interesting to know, although I'm a trackpad user so it's not personally relevant.

Is there any solution (third party software?) to enable the use of more than one virtual screen from a Mac?

 

[8KYUP]

Is there any solution (third party software?) to enable the use of more than one virtual screen from a Mac?

No, not at this time. A company called Immersed did this for Meta and it was a very credible offering in the context of that platform. I'm not sure what kind of restrictions Apple would have there or if that would be allowed in the garden . I would really like to see developers focus on window management tools.

 

[PhilippLA]

When the headset is perfectly adjusted, I find that the direct-gaze region of the foviated rendering is extremely sharp. That is a reality of the headset.

how do you make sure the headset is perfectly adjusted? I also edit in premiere and while it’s not noticeable on the video footage the UI and text elements look like I need glasses. It’s all kinda blurry. On my actual monitor everything is super sharp!

I’m not sure if I’d ever choose those virtual display setup over my real monitor if they’re is such a difference in sharpness. In really bummed out by this since I wanted to use my Vision Pro for Remote Desktop work. :/

 

[PhilippLA]

Is there any solution (third party software?) to enable the use of more than one virtual screen from a Mac?

I’m going to make you a happy fellow (as long as you want to use this for video editing…)

On your Mac install the NDI tools and then set NDI out as your video playback device in Premiere Pro. Then download the native NDI monitor on your Vision Pro and select the adobe premiere stream.

You now have a FULL size video out window in addition to your remote Mac window. Another benefit is that you get audio output directly from your Vision Pro.

Surprised no one else has written about this yet. Killer application for video editing!