Apple Seeds Third Beta of visionOS 2.2 to Developers With Ultrawide Mac Virtual Display

Apple today seeded the third beta of an upcoming visionOS 2.2 update to developers for testing purposes, with the beta coming a week after the second visionOS 2.2 beta.

visionOS 2 Feature 1
visionOS 2.2 can be installed by going to the Software Update section of the Settings app on the Vision Pro and opting into Beta Updates.

The visionOS 2.2 update adds a new feature for the Mac Virtual Display option, allowing it to be set to Wide and Ultrawide. The Ultrawide setting is equivalent to two 4K displays side-by-side, and it is a notable improvement over the current Mac Virtual Display that's available in visionOS 2.1.

The Mac Virtual Display allows the Vision Pro to be connected to a Mac with the Vision Pro serving as the display for the machine. The virtual Mac desktop works just like a standard desktop with an external display, but Vision Pro does not support multiple displays. As a solution, Apple has added the option for a wider display to maximize space.

Related Roundup: visionOS 2
Related Forum: Apple Vision Pro

Popular Stories

New Things Your iPhone Can Do in iOS 18

20 New Things Your iPhone Can Do in iOS 18.2

Monday December 16, 2024 8:55 am PST by
Apple released iOS 18.2 in the second week of December, bringing the second round of Apple Intelligence features to iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 models. This update brings several major advancements to Apple's AI integration, including completely new image generation tools and a range of Visual Intelligence-based enhancements. Apple has added a handful of new non-AI related feature controls as...
iphone 16 apple intelligence

Apple Drops Plans for iPhone Hardware Subscription Service

Wednesday December 18, 2024 11:39 am PST by
Apple is no longer planning to launch a hardware subscription service that would let customers "subscribe" to get a new iPhone each year, reports Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. Gurman first shared rumors about Apple's work on a hardware subscription service back in 2022, and at the time, he said that Apple wanted to develop a simple system that would allow customers to pay a monthly fee to gain...
iPhone 17 Pro Dual Tone Feature 1

iPhone 17 Pro Rumored to Stick With 'Triangular' Camera Design

Wednesday December 18, 2024 2:36 am PST by
Contrary to recent reports, the iPhone 17 Pro will not feature a horizontal camera layout, according to the leaker known as "Instant Digital." In a new post on Weibo, the leaker said that a source has confirmed that while the appearance of the back of the iPhone 17 Pro has indeed changed, the layout of the three cameras is "still triangular," rather than the "horizontal bar spread on the...
elevation lab airtag battery

Your AirTag's Battery Will Last for Up to 10 Years With Elevation Lab's New TimeCapsule Enclosure

Wednesday December 18, 2024 10:05 am PST by
Elevation Lab today announced the launch of TimeCapsule, an innovative and simple solution for increasing the battery life of Apple's AirTag. Priced at $20, TimeCapsule is an AirTag enclosure that houses two AA batteries that offer 14x more battery capacity than the CR2032 battery that the AirTag runs on. It works by attaching the AirTag's upper housing to the built-in custom contact in the...
apple tv 4k yellow bg feature

New Apple TV Rumored to Launch Next Year With These Features

Tuesday December 17, 2024 9:02 am PST by
The current Apple TV 4K was released more than two years ago, so the streaming device is becoming due for a hardware upgrade soon. Fortunately, it was recently rumored that a new Apple TV will launch at some point next year. Below, we recap rumors about the next-generation Apple TV. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman last week reported that Apple has been working on its own combined Wi-Fi and...
blackmagic vision pro

Blackmagic Debuts $30K 3D Camera for Capturing Video for Vision Pro

Monday December 16, 2024 4:17 pm PST by
Blackmagic today announced that its URSA Cine Immersive camera is now available for pre-order, with deliveries set to start late in the first quarter of 2025. Blackmagic says that this is the world's first commercial camera system designed to capture 3D content for the Vision Pro. The URSA Cine Immersive camera was first introduced in June, but it has not been available for purchase until...
iPhone 17 Slim Feature

'iPhone 17 Air' With 'Major' Design Changes and 19-Inch MacBook Detailed in New Report

Sunday December 15, 2024 9:47 am PST by
Apple is planning a series of "major design" and "format changes" for iPhones over the next few years, according to The Wall Street Journal's Aaron Tilley and Yang Jie. The paywalled report published today corroborated the widely-rumored "iPhone 17 Air" with an "ultrathin" design that is thinner than current iPhone models. The report did not mention a specific measurement, but previous...
mac pro creativity

Apple Launched the Controversial 'Trashcan' Mac Pro 11 Years Ago Today

Thursday December 19, 2024 7:00 pm PST by
Apple launched the controversial "trashcan" Mac Pro eleven years ago today, introducing one of its most criticized designs that persisted through a period of widespread discontentment with the Mac lineup. The redesign took the Mac Pro in an entirely new direction, spearheaded by a polished aluminum cylindrical design that became unofficially dubbed the "trashcan" in the Mac community. All of ...

Top Rated Comments

ikiwi84 Avatar
5 weeks ago
Cancelled? This is is now my day to day work setup?
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
iHeading Avatar
5 weeks ago

Wasn’t this product cancelled?
Your birth should’ve been cancelled..
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
taxilian Avatar
5 weeks ago
I've been using this for about a week (so I'm confused about the report that it dropped today – don't know of any reason I would have gotten it early) and it's *fantastic*. As a web software engineer I always have multiple wide displays and this is almost as good.

It's not uncommon for me to have a messaging/chat window, a documentation window, a browser with what I'm working on, and two code windows (frontend, backend) open at the same time – and having a lot of screen real-estate allows that and is much more efficient than swapping between things all the time. I've experimented with the things that try to make individual windows into "native windows" on the vision pro and they just don't work well, the paradigm doesn't work nearly as well.

The only thing I wish is that it could be treated as two displays stitched together instead of one ultra-wide display – things that span the entire width of the screen are awkward to use, like a terminal attached to slide from the top, the dock, or the menu bar. With multiple monitors these things are either only on one monitor or else are on all of them (the dock and menu bar), meaning it's much less moving the mouse around to get to it.
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
AndreDC Avatar
5 weeks ago

Been trying to get a definitive answer this for awhile if anyone can answer—if you have dual monitors with windows open on both monitors, since Mac Virtual Display only shows your main display (according to Apple support doc) but all monitors get turned off when MVD is activated (I believe), what happens to the windows open on your secondary display? Does the secondary display get moved to a different desktop Space on your main Virtual Display? Do all open windows get moved to your main Virtual Display on the same desktop Space?
My standard setup is laptop screen as 'main' and two external monitors on the left & right.
When I connect using the Vision pro it blacks out all three screens - laptop and the two external displays. All windows that I had open are put onto the main display but it isnt in the order I had them. it sort of groups them together in a way which is saved for that one big display (the ultrawide). So it treats it really as though you unplugged the three monitors and plugged in a new big one.

Also out of interest I can close the laptop, once I have connected, and it doesnt affect anything.

I have to say... it's really smooth. My favourite feature.
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Amazing Iceman Avatar
5 weeks ago

That Ultrawide feature is what I've been looking forward to the most. ?

Like yes, please, let me put a truly ridiculous amount of windows next to each other for no good reason... that's peak productivity right there. :cool:
I do like the feature, but my main focus is on using apps that are native to the Vision Pro.
UWD is a nice addition, but not the main reason to have it.
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
diddl14 Avatar
5 weeks ago

only Apple keyboards will show through. A third party keyboard may appear if you also have an Apple keyboard connected, even if it’s not visible. very odd…
Had this with my Apple Magic Keyboard. New MVP beta fixed it. Writing this now from Bora Bora ?️
[Click to view video attachment]
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)