In June 2023, Apple officially announced the Visiojn Pro mixed reality headset at WWDC. During its presentation, it revealed that Microsoft would offer up versions of its Office productivity apps for the Vision Pro. Today, Microsoft offered up some more details on the apps it has made for owners of the Vision Pro.
In a blog post, Microsoft once again confirmed that Word, Excel, and PowerPoint would be available as native apps for the Vision Pro. It also confirmed a native Teams app for the headset. along with Outlook, OneNote, and Loop apps.
However, perhaps the most interesting news is that Microsoft will be adding Copilot support for its Vision Pro productivity apps, either by typing in text prompts or via voice commands.
Microsoft posted a longer blog post concentrating just on the Teams app it has made for the Vision Pro. It stated that owners of the headset who join in a meeting with the Vision Pro will be seen by everyone else as a "Persona". Microsoft says this will be "a digital representation of themselves that reflects their face and hand movements in real time".
Microsoft added:
Teams on Apple Vision Pro uses the infinite canvas - you can open apps like Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, scale them to any size, and place them anywhere to access content seamlessly during your Teams meetings and chats. You can also easily collaborate with 3D content in Teams – effortlessly sharing and previewing 3D content in Teams chats and channels.
Any Teams meetings or calls that you get on the Vision Pro can be quickly switched over to a more conventional device like a PC or a smartphone, and vice versa. Finally, Microsoft says the 3D avatars and virtual environments that use its Mesh technology will be available for Vision Pro users sometime in the near future.
Apple has already taken pre-orders for the Vision Pro, but it officially goes on sale Friday, February 2 for $3,499 in the US. Some major mobile app companies, most notably Netflix, Spotify, and Google"s YouTube, will not have either native apps or conventional mobile apps for the Vision Pro, although all three can still be accessed via Apple"s Safari web browser.