visionOS 1.1 prompt to recapture your Persona via Dylan McDonald
After installing visionOS 1.1, Vision Pro users are immediately prompted to recapture their Personas to get the "latest appearance updates" included in the update. Some users shared screenshots of their updated Personas in social media posts today, and the new versions generally appear to be more detailed and lifelike.
Apple still labels Personas as a "beta" feature on visionOS 1.1, and hopefully it will continue to improve the way they look over time.
Quinn Nelson's updated Persona (top) and original Persona (bottom)
As a refresher, Apple says a Persona is an "authentic spatial representation" of a person that shows their facial expressions and hand movements in real time. Personas fill in for you during video calls on the Vision Pro, since the headset covers your actual face. When you set up a Persona, your eyes are also captured for the EyeSight feature, which allows others to see a render of your eyes on the Vision Pro's outward display.
Saturday April 11, 2026 9:14 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
Last year, Apple launched CarPlay Ultra, the long-awaited next-generation version of its CarPlay software system for vehicles. Nearly a year later, CarPlay Ultra is still limited to Aston Martin's latest luxury vehicles, but that should change fairly soon.
In May 2025, Apple said many other vehicle brands planned to offer CarPlay Ultra, including Hyundai, Kia, and Genesis.
CarPlay Ultra...
As we wait for WWDC to kick off next Monday, Apple today announced the winners of its annual Apple Design Awards, recognizing apps and games for their innovation, ingenuity, and technical achievement.
The 2025 Apple Design Award winners are listed below, with one app and one game selected per category:
Delight and Fun - CapWords (App) and Balatro (Game)
Innovation - Play (App) and PBJ -...
Saturday April 11, 2026 9:07 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
While the AirPods Max 2 received more attention, Apple also released a second pair of headphones last month: Nike Powerbeats Pro 2.
Nike Powerbeats Pro 2 are the same as the regular Powerbeats Pro 2, except they have a two-tone design consisting of black and Nike's signature Volt neon green-yellow color. The headphones were released on March 20 in the U.S., Canada, Australia, the U.K., and a ...
Valve's Steam Link app, which is designed to let you stream games from your main gaming computer to another device, is coming to Apple Vision Pro.
The upcoming app for visionOS means users will be able to wirelessly stream games from Steam running on their Mac or PC to their Vision Pro headset, assuming the devices are on the same local network.
Prior to its official release, Valve is...
A new book by New York Times labor reporter Noam Scheiber argues that Apple's decade-long erosion of its retail workforce directly contributed to the disappointing launch of the Apple Vision Pro in early 2024 (via WIRED).
The book, Mutiny: The Rise and Revolt of the College-Educated Working Class, draws on interviews with Apple Store employees to document how staffing cuts, reduced training, ...
Apple today provided developers with the first betas of upcoming watchOS 26.5, tvOS 26.5, and visionOS 26.5 betas for testing purposes. The software comes a week after Apple launched the 26.4 versions of each platform.
The software updates are available through the Settings app on each device, and because these are developer betas, a free developer account is required.
There's no word on...
Meta's latest Codec Avatars are way better than Apple's:
Ah yes. Let's compare something that generates an Avatar on a High-end Researcher's computer vs. something that happens on device in minutes. Call me when the Quest 3 can generate something that looks like that with needing to use a High-end, top of the line PC and graphic cards
They've gone from PlayStation 3 to PS4 quality. Weird that this happened so fast, they could've saved themselves a bunch of negative press by just delaying a few weeks. March would still be early 2024.
I bet it needed training data from real world use.
