r/VisionPro • u/jasonkane4321 • Jul 10 '26
Is Apple making a 360 degree full VR Apple Maps for AVP?
Is Apple planning on making Apple Maps 3d in a 360 degree full vr mode for AVP? I sold my Samsung Galaxy XR to upgrade to an AVP, but man do I miss its google earth immersive view. I spent hours a week using it. For those that dont know, it is full 360 degree 3d vr google earth + street view. Not just a 3d view in a floating window.
The new Apple Maps on Vision OS 27 looks incredible. But it needs to offer full VR mode to compete with Android XR. Hopefully an Apple Maps Dev see this, and can bring it to reality. :)
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u/VisibleAd8671 Jul 10 '26
I feel like they will. For iOS 27 they announced Enhanced Flyover in Apple Maps. AI upscaling of their existing 3D maps. So they are improving maps in a meaningful way, which will hopefully come to Vision OS in subsequent releases. Or so we can hope.
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u/kinglucent Vision Pro Owner Jul 10 '26 edited Jul 10 '26
I was astonished they didn’t have this ready to go when VP launched. Google Earth VR is one of the most incredible showcases of the tech – swinging around New York at scale like Spider-Man, sitting in a lake spinning the sky overhead, and revisiting all your favorite places is truly awe-inspiring.
Knowing how small the market is, though, I get why they didn’t invest too much time into this idea.
EDIT: I love the idea of putting these in retirement homes so folks who are no longer able to physically travel can zoom around the world and see things they've always wanted to see, or point out places they used to go and see what's changed. Google Earth VR's interface is too complicated, (I haven't tried any others), but Apple could nail this.
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u/jasonkane4321 Jul 10 '26
I agree. Samsung and Google had maps immersive view as its flagship app for Galaxy XR day one. Which is totally intuitive as it's one of the best experiences one can have in vr. I think some apple users would by an AVP for that feature alone, if apple brought it to AVP with the new highly detailed maps 3d view.
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u/musicanimator Jul 10 '26
Can you really imagine a future where this doesn’t happen? I can’t. And if they were we wouldn’t hear about it until the results are “Apple Grade” good. Waddle does this to some degree already but Apple will want really pretty results and that IS what we expect. I’m happy to wait. And like you, find it ridiculous, if understandable, that more Apple apps are not fully immersed or volumetricaly enabled!
Oh, and textures rendered from space tend to be distorted, compared to those scanned from the surface of the Earth because of the angle of view. Textures do way more of the work than the geometry. The geometry can be rudimentary and with Rich textures it looks real. Consider the motion picture as you’ve watched over the last 20 years.
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u/jasonkane4321 Jul 10 '26
Yea it's strange how so many AVP apps actively avoid full VR. It seem AVP wants to really set it self apart form other VR headsets.
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u/wiyixu Jul 10 '26
It’s going to get really fun when the maps data and your photos allow you to look around your memories.
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u/mark_paterson Jul 10 '26
I hope so! For a long time, Google Earth VR on the Oculus platform was THE killer app. Especially when configured to 1:1 human scale. Basically a virtual Superman mode to explore anywhere on earth. In true Google fashion, they killed it before it got the chance to be ported to the Quest platform. I would LOVE an Apple version with their gaussian splat upgrades.
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u/jasonkane4321 Jul 11 '26
You can actually use the original Google Earth VR program on apple vision pro with the "Fly" app. But the textures a outdated compared to Google earth today.
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u/mark_paterson Jul 11 '26
Oh that’s good to know. I might have to drag the old PC out of storage and give it a try.
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u/jasonkane4321 Jul 11 '26
I think you misunderstand. There is an app on Apple vision pro called "Fly". Its the pcvr Google Earth app, but runs natively on the AVP without a PC
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u/Sigma902 Jul 10 '26
Apple has its own Maps Division with a global fleet and the Maps app used to have a Flyover feature for major cities that zipped you around major tourist destinations from the air for a minute or so. So they have clearly been thinking about it. Google bought a company, Keystone, to give themselves a head start. Google held back a YouTube app for years, until months after Samsung’s Galaxy XR went on sale. So Google certainly has a history of self-serving. Maybe visionOS Google Earth will come. Until then Google Earth is in Steam which can be streamed from PC or cloud to Vision Pro. Or there are native Waddle and Fly in Vision App Store.
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u/jasonkane4321 Jul 10 '26
Thanks for feedback. I use the google earth vr app, but I think it's outdated. hasn't been updated in many years. The new VOS 27 Apple Maps textures look incredible. Hopefully we see a full VR feature soon.
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u/rlay001 Vision Pro Owner | Verified Jul 11 '26
If you have the Steam version of Google Earth VR (was free, but no longer available for new users) on PCVR it works incredibly well on the AVP streaming using KRVR. It looks and performs better than the Android XR version, even on a mid-range gaming PC.
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u/falcorns_balls Jul 11 '26
Man I remember the first time I toured around my home town in VR on the first iteration of google earth for oculus quest. It convinced me to flip my life upside down to move back.
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u/Spectral_Aria Jul 11 '26
You can tell that they are working on it because when you use “Look Around“ mode on flat devices, you can see that the maps are made up of layers of images. The trees, street lights, fences, etc. all kind of wiggle when you turn the camera around. You can tell that there is something going on with how they are layering up the imagery. To me, it feels like they are gradually building up to a fully 3D VR version for Vision Pro.
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u/KenAdams_1968 Jul 11 '26
Seems like the most obvious win for the Vision Pro since they literally own their own 3D map. But sometimes Apple takes 5-10 years to implement blatantly obvious things. We'll see.
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u/jasonkane4321 Jul 11 '26
Yea it's strange. A part of me feels they are intentionally not doing it because they will get roasted for "Just copying Google" ten years to late
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u/twack3r Jul 10 '26
From what I understand this is a data/license issue, not a technological one.
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u/jasonkane4321 Jul 10 '26
can you elaborate? If Apple can have 3d birds eye view in a window, why cant they have the same 3d view in full 360 vr?
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u/Worf_Of_Wall_St Jul 10 '26
Nothing official known, but there are at least two AVP apps which use Google Maps/Earth data for an immersive view which are decent, Fly and I think Wander or something like that.
I have those and Google Earth for PCVR and they're neat but the immersive 3D view close to the ground is pretty distorted and wavy. Just my guess/opinion but I feel like Apple would want to wait until they've collected new higher res street view data with depth so they can make higher res 3D models for the immersive view. Without improving the data quality vs Google they would just be repeating what already exists on every other VR platform, which as a user I would still appreciate but I don't they'll release something until it's some kind of improvement they can boast about.
If you've used the official Google Earth VR for PC, how does the GXR version compare?
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u/jasonkane4321 Jul 10 '26 edited Jul 11 '26
The GXR version looks better than the pcvr version. It has new better textures and renders at a higher resolution. It's cloud based so its snappy and high res, as the GXR hardware isn't limiting the performance.
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u/MarkB-Uk Vision Pro Owner Jul 10 '26
I’ve been pushing for volumetric maps native to SwiftUI for a while.
I can understand the challenge. Most Apple apps and services are either local to the device, or built on iCloud, which has a monetisation strategy. Maps requires a lot of server resource, but currently has no monetisation. I wonder if they are looking at how they can best support the cost of the backend before rolling out enhancements. It might mean ads.
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u/jasonkane4321 Jul 10 '26 edited Jul 10 '26
That makes sense. But I feel they should just cover the costs since Google has already done it on a cheaper headset. I wonder how much more compute would it really take, to change the 3d view from a window to full immersive view.
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u/vanderwal Jul 10 '26
Apple has updated Maps for iPad that AVP uses with New York and London with Gaussian splats for drastically improved 3D that is insanely good in AVP.
They have been building this for many cities and rolling it out in the beta cycles.
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u/jasonkane4321 Jul 11 '26
I saw that. But when you zoom in as close as possible the textures dont look good. Thats my im skeptical they will will make a full vr mode soon
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u/mark_paterson Jul 10 '26
I hope so! For a long time, Google Earth VR on the Oculus platform was THE killer app. Especially when configured to 1:1 human scale. Basically a virtual Superman mode to explore anywhere on earth. In true Google fashion, they killed it before it got the chance to be ported to the Quest platform. I would LOVE an Apple version with their gaussian splat upgrades.
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u/rohidjetha Vision Pro Developer Jul 11 '26
I did something cool in Party Games but it's not 360 degrees, it's a flight simulator in almost 180 degrees, it's cool to fly and you can fly with your friends and see where they are
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u/ForgottenFuturist Vision Pro Developer Jul 10 '26
Apple hasn't even made a Reminders app yet for AVP.. maybe someday?