Every new iPhone 16 — from the basic to the iPhone 16 Pro Max, will have the ability to shoot spatial photos and videos. The diagonal configuration of the camera lenses is gone, replaced with two vertically aligned cameras.
This means that when you hold the phone in landscape mode, the cameras can grab stereo imagery, which captures two slightly off-angled photos of the same thing. Your two eyes then combine those images in a VR headset to create the illusion of 3D.
You won’t be able to play them back in 3D on your iPhone, but you will on the Apple Vision Pro headset – one of the first major integrations between Apple’s phone technology and its newest innovation. But does it suggest that a second Apple Vision Pro may be coming soon?
“There’s no question Apple is developing something, but I don’t believe they have the same urgency that rumors would have you believe,” says Rolf Illenberger, founder and CEO of VRdirect, a software company specializing in virtual reality solutions for enterprise businesses, with a user base that includes Nestle, Siemens, Lufthansa and Porsche, just to name a few.
“Even in their initial approach to the Apple Vision Pro, the company did everything but scream to the heavens that this was going to be a developer-friendly entry into the world of spatial computing,” he adds. “They announced at the WWDC. The price point isn’t one for a mass consumer base. The content launches have been impressive, though very limited in scope. What’s impressive is very impressive, but there’s not a lot of scale right now. There will be. Eventually. It might be another two or three years before it happens.”
Illenberger says that Meta, which boasts the far more affordable Quest 3, will continue its consumer device dominance in the meantime. Developers are now approaching VR looking at the immediate short-term, and what Apple could bring to the table when this new device does hit the market, he adds.
