Apple Engineers Allegedly Able to Use Vision Pro With Two Mac Displays

Apple's new Vision Pro headset can serve as an external display for a Mac, letting you view and control your computer's screen in a visionOS window. The feature can currently be used with only a single Mac display, but analyst Ben Thompson today suggested that Apple has internally tested the ability to use multiple displays.

Apple Vision Pro Mac Virtual Display
"I have heard through the grapevine that Vision Pro users at Apple headquarters can project two Mac screens," said Thompson, in his review of the headset.

Apple engineers have access to future visionOS versions, and feature flags that enable extra functionality, so this revelation is certainly believable. However, it's unclear if Apple plans to let the public use the feature with multiple displays.

For now, if your Mac has external displays connected to it, the Vision Pro only shows the main display that you have set in the Mac's System Settings app. While the Vision Pro is showing a Mac's display, the computer's built-in display and any external monitors that are connected to it appear black and cannot be used during that time.

The feature is compatible with any Mac running macOS Sonoma, but the maximum display resolution is limited to 3K for Intel-based Macs.

Related Roundups: Apple Vision Pro, visionOS 2
Buyer's Guide: Vision Pro (Buy Now)
Related Forum: Apple Vision Pro

Popular Stories

iOS 18

Apple Says iOS 18.4 Will Be Released in April With These New Features

Wednesday February 26, 2025 7:15 am PST by
In a recent press release, Apple confirmed that iOS 18.4 will be released in April. From the Apple News+ Food announcement:Coming with iOS 18.4 and iPadOS 18.4 in April, Apple News+ subscribers will have access to Apple News+ Food, a new section that will feature tens of thousands of recipes — as well as stories about restaurants, healthy eating, kitchen essentials, and more — from the...
Generic iPhone 17 Feature With Full Width Dynamic Island

Latest iPhone 17 Series CAD Images in Line With Redesign Rumors

Friday February 28, 2025 2:51 am PST by
Apple is expected to embrace a new camera system design for some models in its upcoming iPhone 17 series, and the latest purported CAD images don't deviate from what we have been hearing lately about Apple's new lineup. If you do not like the sound of an iPhone with a Google Pixel-style camera bar, look away now. Seasoned leaker Sonny Dickson shared the following images in a post on X...
iphone 16e usb c feature

Apple Provides Reason for iPhone 16e's Lack of MagSafe

Friday February 28, 2025 4:39 am PST by
Apple has offered a reason why the iPhone 16e doesn't include MagSafe, one of the more notable omissions from its latest entry-level smartphone. According to Apple representatives who spoke to Daring Fireball's John Gruber, MagSafe is not included in the iPhone 16e because "most people in the iPhone 16e's target audience exclusively charge their phones by plugging them into a charging...
apple intelligence black

These New Apple Intelligence Features Are Coming in iOS 18.4

Friday February 28, 2025 3:17 pm PST by
iOS 18.4 was supposed to bring new Apple Intelligence Siri features, but Apple ended up needing to pull those capabilities from the update to continue testing. There are fewer new Apple Intelligence additions now, but there are still some new features that will make the update worth installing when it comes out in April. Priority Notifications Apple introduced Priority Notifications back at ...
Generic iOS 19 Feature Mock Light

iOS 19 Rumored to Include These New Features for Your iPhone

Saturday March 1, 2025 11:00 am PST by
iOS 19 is still around three months away from being unveiled, but there are plenty of rumors about the upcoming update. Below, we recap iOS 19 rumors so far. Redesigned Camera App A leak earlier this year allegedly revealed a redesigned Camera app coming with iOS 19. On his YouTube channel Front Page Tech in January, Jon Prosser shared a video showing what the new Camera app will...
cook trump

Trump Responds to Apple Keeping Diversity Policies

Wednesday February 26, 2025 6:32 am PST by
In an all-caps post on Truth Social today, U.S. President Donald Trump said Apple should fully end its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies. Tim Cook meeting with President Trump in 2017 "APPLE SHOULD GET RID OF DEI RULES, NOT JUST MAKE ADJUSTMENTS TO THEM," he wrote. Trump's post comes one day after Apple held its annual shareholders meeting, during which a majority of...
apple watch ultra snow

6 Features Coming to the Apple Watch Ultra 3

Tuesday February 25, 2025 9:00 am PST by
The Apple Watch Ultra 3 is expected to launch later this year, arriving two years after the previous model with a series of improvements. While no noticeable design changes are expected for the third generation since the company tends to stick with the same Apple Watch design through three generations before changing it, there are a series of internal upgrades on the way. By the time the ...
airpods pro purple

Here's When AirPods Pro 3 Are Rumored to Launch

Monday February 24, 2025 9:14 am PST by
According to a post on X today from a leaker known as Kosutami, Apple plans to launch AirPods Pro 3 in May or June this year. The leaker also claimed that an AirTag 2 will launch around the same time. Kosutami is best known as a collector of prototype Apple hardware, but they have occasionally shared accurate information about Apple's future product plans. For example, they accurately...
apple c1

How Fast is Apple's First-Ever 5G Modem? The Results Are Surprising

Friday February 28, 2025 10:08 am PST by
iPhone 16e reviews are now out, and Apple's custom-designed C1 modem has been put to the test. The results so far are quite surprising, as the C1's speeds are not as slow compared to Qualcomm modems as originally expected. While the C1 does not support ultra-fast mmWave 5G in the U.S., it appears to offer comparable 5G performance to Qualcomm's Snapdragon X71 modem found in the iPhone 16,...

Top Rated Comments

mrat93 Avatar
14 months ago

How is that news? Even my crappy quest 2 can 3 monitors
It’s news because it’s not available on AVP currently. This article is about AVP, not Quest.

I mean I get your point — but what — should MR not report on any features coming to AVP which exist on other platforms?
Score: 19 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Ashwee Avatar
14 months ago
Windows/apps don't need to be constrained to a boxed display/window at all, especially with spatial computing. Let Mac apps and windows roam free like all other VisionPro apps. Either that or just allow resizable aspect ratios.
Score: 18 Votes (Like | Disagree)
ovrlrd Avatar
14 months ago
Can’t wait for Apple to call this a new feature in the 2nd gen AVP. “Thanks to more powerful m3 processing”
Score: 14 Votes (Like | Disagree)
uecker87 Avatar
14 months ago
The second display is going to be locked behind a $1,000 paywall, duh. I am just kidding - I hope.
Score: 13 Votes (Like | Disagree)
zahuh Avatar
14 months ago
Isn’t this what everyone wants? Separate Mac windows

[MEDIA=twitter]1751251567641346340[/MEDIA]
Score: 11 Votes (Like | Disagree)
tobybrut Avatar
14 months ago

Why not just install a 3rd party app that lets you do just that or is that another restriction for no reason by Apple? I am using „immersed“ on Quest 3
As a retired former software engineer and based on things mentioned in the story, I would guess the reason is that Apple isn’t confident of the multi-monitor feature, whether it’s because of bugs or lack of system resources to allow for good performance. If it’s indeed running in Apple labs, it probably needs a ton of optimization.

Remember it’s still really early in that we can’t even arrange app icons on the “desktop” yet, a feature that will inevitably come to VisionOS. Or mouse support. There are probably a ton of features Apple simply hasn’t finished. Software managers would insist they have to ship something, so right now we have a very limited feature set. Time will tell. This is still very much a 1.0 (well, 1.0.2. Close enough). 1.0’s are rarely feature packed compared to what we get with a 2.0 or even a 1.5. I can mention quite a few bugs I’ve encountered that definitely need fixing before they get to new features.
Score: 10 Votes (Like | Disagree)