Following the release of visionOS and an accompanying SDK to developers yesterday, we're starting to learn more and more about what the Vision Pro headset will be capable of when it ships in early 2024. And the things that we're learning sound pretty great.
Apple announced Vision Pro during the WWDC 2023 opening keynote earlier this month but it didn't have time to show everything off. Thankfully, developers picking through visionOS have already started to share details about what the headset will do, including support for a new Visual Search feature.
From what we're told, Visual Search will work in a similar way to the already impressive Visual Lookup — a feature that can look at the content of a photo and then provide information and context on it. Like identifying in-car symbols, for example. And that means that Vision Pro will be able to identify objects in the real world and provide information on them right in front of your eyes.
Basically, magic
Visual Search was spotted inside the visionOS software by developer Steve Moser and reported on by MacRumors. Moser later confirmed that Visual Search appears to be part of Spotlight rather than the Vision Pro's camera system which might be the opposite of what some would have expected.
It looks like 'Visual Search' is part of Spotlight instead of the camera. I wish Apple had shown off this feature and ARKit during the keynote. Related accessibility feature: ""Describe Passthrough" requires Image Captions to be enabled in Settings Accessibility > VoiceOver." https://t.co/e0GPqjvECcJune 22, 2023
However it's invoked, Visual Search has the ability to identify items, detect text, and even manipulate that text for use elsewhere. It's also expected that Vision Pro will offer to translate text if it's in a foreign language with as many as 17 supported out of the gate. We can also likely expect the headset to do unit conversions as well.
We might learn more about this feature as we get closer to the release of the Vision Pro headset. That isn't expected to happen until early 2024, unfortunately. The $3,4999 asking price is likely to put a few people off, however.
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