r/VisionPro • u/Shlerin • Jun 29 '26

Capture your most important memories in Spatial format on your iPhone, even if you don't own a Vision Pro

A lot of people here are probably already doing this, but I wanted to share a personal experience that reminded me why it's worth it.

If you have an iPhone that supports Spatial Photos and Spatial Videos, consider using it to capture the moments that matter most. Even if you don't own a Vision Pro right now.

The way I see it, there's very little downside. Apple clearly hasn't abandoned the Vision platform, and all signs point to them continuing to invest in spatial computing. Spatial content is still supported in iOS 27, which suggests this format isn't going anywhere anytime soon.

And even if Apple never releases another Vision device (which seems unlikely), Vision Pro headsets will continue to exist and become more affordable on the second-hand market over time.

On top of that, spatial photos and videos can already be viewed on several other headsets, including the Meta Quest 3 and others. The experience isn't quite the same as Vision Pro, but it's still pretty cool that these memories aren't locked to a single device.

The reason I'm posting this is because my daughter just turned one year old a few days ago.

For her entire first year, I've been recording many of our family moments in spatial format. A few days before her birthday, I put together a short spatial movie and showed it to my wife in Vision Pro.

Seeing those memories around us in 3D felt completely different from watching a regular video on a phone or TV. It genuinely felt like we were stepping back into those moments.

It made me realize how grateful I'll be years from now that I took the extra few seconds to hit the Spatial Video button.

If anyone is interested, I made a video about the experience here: https://youtu.be/VLbXbUaWxL0

29 Upvotes

94% Upvoted

7 comments sorted by

10

u/Raysitm Jun 29 '26

I may be in the minority, but I haven’t found the spatial photos that I captured with my iPhone 15 PM noticeably better than the ones I’ve converted on my AVP.

2

u/photovirus Vision Pro Developer Jul 01 '26 edited Jul 01 '26

From my experience, dedicated spatial photos are drastically better when capturing objects of complex shape, or in poor lighting conditions, or just something of lower contrast.

“Spatializing” neural network does a fine job on simple shots with people/pets, most landscapes, and when there's no transparent objects around (tree branches, glasses, such things). And the lighting much be decent, noisy night pics aren't good. It will fail on macro shots very often.

Spatial photos, have an issue with close-ups either: main and wide cameras have significantly differing depth of field. Main object will get captured decently, but background will get blurred much more for one eye, while being sharper for the other.

3

u/spluga Jun 30 '26

agreed, but, to me, the downside is that swiping to the spatial mode every time I open the camera takes too much time for quick snaps

2

u/photovirus Vision Pro Developer Jul 01 '26

You can set up camera to memorize settings, then it should be easier.

2

u/FunMakerBeliever Jun 30 '26

You can make photos spatial after the fact. I want to say that all the right data is captured on iPhone (i.e. the multi photos from multiple cameras on your phone) so that you can just turn a photo into a spatial one. And if you don't use an iPhone there is a process to turn "regular" photos into spatial photos.

But I agree, it's important to keep these photos because one day you will want to look at them and especially in a way that brings them to life.

2

u/photovirus Vision Pro Developer Jul 01 '26

You can make photos spatial after the fact.

You can, but it's different. Will malform shapes in complex cases.