Apple makes no secret about the fact that it wants the new Vision Pro to be a work device alongside its entertainment duties — a kind of virtual replacement of all your screens and desk accessories.
Microsoft just added a whole bunch of new apps that will launch alongside the headset in the form of its 365 productivity suite, making it a true ‘work machine’ for some proper everyday computing.
PowerPoint on a Vision Pro
OK, so we’ve known that these apps would be coming since Apple released a press release containing all the apps that Vision Pro would feature in early January, but now we have official confirmation from Microsoft itself — as well as some snazzy images of what the apps are going to look like.
Surprise, surprise, it’s the Office utility suite in AR! There’s a nice Apple-like smoothness to everything, and they’re all adapted to the eye-based control method of the Vision Pro. At their heart, however, they’re still the same useful apps that users have become accustomed to over the course of some 40-odd years of using Microsoft Word.
One of the less classic apps coming to the Vision Pro from Microsoft as a part of the 365 package is the AI companion Microsoft CoPilot. That works alongside the other apps that you might use, giving you ‘helpful’ writing prompts, or ‘useful’ condensed versions of meetings in Teams. That could make using some of these apps slightly easier — especially if you’re using the… interesting software keyboard built into Vision Pro.
Apple’s Vision for a workplace sidekick
Again, Apple wants Vision Pro to be more than a VR gaming device or an AR spectacle — it sees it as the next generation of computing and that in future generations, we’ll be sitting at our desks wearing an Apple-branded headset for all our display and computing needs. This Microsoft reveal brings all that a little closer, giving you the vital, industry-standard apps that most people use day to day to get work done.
Now, it just needs to succeed.
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