visionOS 2 — Every Feature That Matters and a Few That Don't
Apple's visionOS 2 brought a pile of updates to Vision Pro. Some are great. Some are puzzling. Here's the honest rundown of what changed and whether it matters.
visionOS 2 landed in fall 2025, and Apple packed it with updates ranging from genuinely useful to “sure, okay, I guess that’s a feature.” I’ve been running it since the developer beta and here’s what’s worth knowing.
The Big Stuff
Spatial Photo Conversion. This is the headline feature, and it’s impressive. visionOS 2 can take your existing flat 2D photos and convert them into spatial photos with depth. It uses machine learning to estimate depth from a single image and generates a convincing 3D version.
Does it look as good as a natively captured spatial photo? No. The ML-generated depth has soft edges and occasionally guesses wrong — putting a background object in front of a foreground one. But for old photos where spatial capture wasn’t available, it’s magical. I converted photos of my grandmother from 2019 and they have a presence that the flat versions don’t. That’s worth something.
Gestures from the couch. Apple added the ability to control Vision Pro with gestures while your hands are resting at your sides or on your lap. Previously, you had to hold your hands up where the cameras could see them. Now the downward-facing cameras track gestures in your lap. This is a genuine quality-of-life improvement — my arms aren’t sore after a movie anymore.
Train mode. Vision Pro can now work on moving vehicles — trains, planes, buses. It uses the accelerometer to compensate for motion so the virtual windows stay stable. I’ve tested it on Amtrak and it works. Not perfectly — occasional drift during sharp turns — but it works well enough that I used Vision Pro for a 3-hour train ride and got actual work done.
The Good-Not-Great Stuff
SharePlay improvements. Watching movies and TV with remote friends got easier. Shared spatial spaces feel more natural, and you can now share custom environments during SharePlay sessions. It’s nice. Not life-changing.
Home screen redesign. The app grid is reorganized with better spatial depth and customization. You can rearrange apps more easily and there are new wallpapers. It looks better. Does it function differently? Not really.
Mouse and trackpad support. You can now pair a Bluetooth mouse or trackpad alongside the keyboard. For productivity users, this is actually great — sometimes eye tracking isn’t precise enough for design work or spreadsheet cells, and having a cursor option fills that gap.
The Head-Scratchers
Persona updates. Apple improved Personas. They look slightly more natural. Skin tones are better. Mouth movements are smoother. But they’re still clearly synthetic, and the improvement is incremental rather than dramatic. I’m not sure how many more updates Personas need before they cross the uncanny valley. We might need entirely new capture technology.
New environments. Two new immersive environments: a Bora Bora beach and Yosemite. They’re beautiful. They also feel like something Apple should give away every month rather than make a headline feature of a major OS update. I mean, they’re backgrounds.
Mindfulness breathing update. The built-in Mindfulness app got new breathing exercises and visual patterns. Fine. Nice for the people who use it. Feels like a minor feature being included in the “what’s new in visionOS 2” keynote because the feature list needed padding.
What’s Still Missing
No calculator app. I’m going to keep bringing this up until Apple ships one. Vision Pro costs $3,500 and doesn’t have a calculator. There are jokes about this being an Apple tradition, but it’s genuinely annoying when you need to do quick math and have to open Safari.
No weather app beyond the iPhone-style widget. No native Podcasts app. The first-party app selection is still thin for a device that’s been on the market for over a year.
Developer adoption is the real problem visionOS 2 doesn’t solve. Netflix still hasn’t made a native app. YouTube’s web experience is mediocre. Major apps are still not building for the platform, and an OS update can’t force that. Apple needs to convince developers that the install base justifies the investment, and right now… I’m not sure the install base is there.
Does visionOS 2 Move the Needle?
For existing Vision Pro owners: yes, moderately. The gesture improvements and spatial photo conversion are genuinely useful daily. Train mode is great if you commute. The mouse support helps productivity users.
For people on the fence about buying Vision Pro: this doesn’t change the calculus. The same fundamental issues — weight, price, limited app ecosystem — remain. visionOS 2 is a solid iteration, not a reason to buy.