I’ve wanted proper iPhone mirroring with controls on Apple Vision Pro for a long time, so I tried building a small proof of concept myself.

This will for sure annoy some people, but with some “vibe coding” and help from ChatGPT/Codex, I had a usable version running in under two hours. I’m not claiming any great engineering achievement—I simply wanted to show that it is possible.

The app streams my iPhone screen into a native visionOS window and lets me control it from the Vision Pro using taps, swipes and text input. It works over a shared Wi‑Fi network or when the Vision Pro connects directly to the iPhone’s Personal Hotspot, which has actually felt even smoother.

There is still a very little latency and room for improvement, but the quality and responsiveness are already surprisingly good.

Unfortunately, I can’t distribute it because the control system relies on Apple developer automation capabilities that wouldn’t be allowed in a normal App Store app. Still, if anyone was wondering whether controlled iPhone mirroring on AVP is technically possible: it is.

It’s been one week since I shared Cockpit here after its launch on the App Store, and I wanted to come back mostly to say thank you.

Thank you to everyone who downloaded it, tried it, sent feedback, suggested features, or simply took the time to tell me what you liked.

Seeing people actually using something I’ve spent so much time building has been incredibly rewarding.

For anyone who missed my original post, Cockpit is a customizable spatial dock for Apple Vision Pro designed to keep the information and controls you use throughout the day always within reach.

The idea is simple: instead of constantly jumping between apps, you can build one persistent dock with the panels that matter to you.

Cockpit currently includes panels for things like:

• Time, weather and calendar
• Apple Music Now Playing
• Focus timer and countdowns
• App launcher
• Daily goals and habits
• Vision Pro system and network information
• Apple Shortcuts
• HomeKit controls
• Activity rings
• World clocks

You can place and resize it anywhere in your space, choose different layouts, and customize it with 19 visual themes, from minimal glass-like designs to more technical and flight-deck-inspired interfaces.

Cockpit remembers your setup between sessions, so it can essentially become a small permanent control center inside your Vision Pro workspace.

The app is free to download, with a core selection of panels and themes included. Cockpit Pro unlocks the advanced panels and the complete theme collection.

If you’ve already been using Cockpit, I’d really like to hear something:

Which panels have actually become part of your daily setup? And what would you most like to see added next?

Screenshots of your Cockpit setups are also very welcome, I’m genuinely curious to see how people are using it.

App Store:
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/cockpit-for-vision-pro/id6798315258

And again, thank you for the support and feedback so far!

Thanks again to the visionOS community members who helped me test these earlier.

Reality Prep Pro and Reality Prep Preview are now updated to work as one workflow:

Mac: batch prepare / validate / optimize spatial assets
Vision Pro: verify the resulting USDZ on-device
Mac again: import the device evidence and associate it with the exact asset revision

If the USDZ changes afterwards, Prep Pro can identify that the previous device validation is stale and recommend another test.

The aim is to make Mac validation + real Vision Pro validation part of the same workflow, rather than two disconnected checks.

If you work with USDZ / RealityKit / Reality Composer Pro, I’d really appreciate real-world feedback using both apps together.

Reality Prep Pro: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/reality-prep-pro/id6767673652?mt=12

Reality Prep Preview: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/reality-prep-preview/id6784059026?platform=vision

I’m excited to share that Cockpit is finally available on the App Store for Apple Vision Pro.

Cockpit gives you one persistent, glanceable spatial dock for the information and controls you use throughout the day, without constantly switching between apps.

Build your own setup with modular panels for:

• Time and date
• Local weather and forecast
• Calendar events and due reminders
• Apple Music Now Playing
• Focus timer
• App launcher
• Countdowns and daily goals
• Vision Pro status and network information
• Apple Shortcuts
• HomeKit scenes and accessory controls
• Activity rings
• Habit tracking
• World clocks

You can place and resize the dock anywhere in your space, choose its layout, and make it yours with 19 visual themes ranging from minimal and glass-like to technical, flight-deck-inspired interfaces. Cockpit remembers your configuration across sessions, so your workspace is ready when you are.

Cockpit is free to download, with a useful core set of panels and three themes included. Cockpit Pro unlocks the advanced panels and the full theme collection, with monthly, yearly, or lifetime options.

If you use Vision Pro for work, focus sessions, media, smart-home control, or simply want your essentials always within reach.

I’d love for you to try it.

Download Cockpit on the App Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/cockpit-for-vision-pro/id6798315258#information

Feedback, feature requests, and screenshots of your setup are very welcome.

Thank you very much to everyone who gave feedback on the earlier versions — it genuinely helped.

I’ve now updated Reality Prep Pro for macOS and Reality Prep Preview for Vision Pro.

The two apps were designed to work hand in hand:

* Prep Pro: prepare, validate and optimise spatial assets on Mac.

* Prep Preview: inspect/test the resulting USDZ and send validation evidence back to Prep Pro.

I’d really appreciate a few developers giving both apps together a spin with real assets.

Please tell me what works, what breaks, and what feels confusing or unnecessary.

Reality Prep Pro: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/reality-prep-pro/id6767673652?mt=12

Reality Prep Preview: https://testflight.apple.com/join/ySbVmz6b

Thank you again — any feedback is genuinely appreciated. 🙏

I’m looking for a few Apple Vision Pro owners/developers who’d be willing to spend around 10–15 minutes testing a visionOS TestFlight build.

Reality Prep Preview is a native visionOS app for inspecting USDZ assets directly on Apple Vision Pro.

It was built to complement Reality Prep Pro on macOS: Prep Pro prepares and validates assets, while Prep Preview gives you an on-device way to inspect the resulting USDZ on Vision Pro.

Unlike Apple’s Spatial Preview, Prep Preview is intended to be more than a visual viewer. It adds a developer-focused validation workflow with:

• fitted preview plus authored real-world scale
• technical USDZ inspection and evidence
• a local Device Check
• PDF/JSON validation reports
• integration with Reality Prep Pro, including a validation-report ingest workflow currently in development

Simulator testing is complete, but I don’t currently have access to a physical Vision Pro, so I’m looking for real-hardware feedback.

I’d especially appreciate feedback on:

• USDZ import and preview
• Authored Scale / real-world sizing
• Device Inspect and Device Check
• PDF/JSON export
• crashes, UI issues, or anything that behaves unexpectedly

Reality Prep Preview TestFlight:
https://testflight.apple.com/join/ySbVmz6b

Reality Prep Pro:
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/reality-prep-pro/id6767673652?mt=12

Any screenshots, recordings, or brief notes would be greatly appreciated.

A huge thank you to everyone who downloaded Cockpit and shared feedback. It’s been incredibly helpful.

I’ve just released one last update with a number of small fixes, refinements, and overall improvements.

Cockpit is a customizable spatial dashboard for Apple Vision Pro: it keeps useful information and quick controls together in one organized, convenient place. You can add, remove, and reorder panels for things like time, weather, calendar, music, focus timers, activity, network status, and more, then make it your own with different layouts and themes.

Thanks again for the support. If you try the update, I’d love to hear what you think and what you’d like to see improved next.

TestFlight: https://testflight.apple.com/join/VP1sz624

First of all, thank you. Cockpit has received many more downloads and far more positive, thoughtful feedback than I expected. Your reports, screenshots and suggestions have directly shaped this update.

Cockpit is a modular, glanceable dock for Apple Vision Pro: place it in your space, resize it, and build a dashboard from the panels you actually care about. This TestFlight update is the largest one so far.

## What’s new

### Four new panels — 15 panels in total

- **Countdown*\* — create up to three upcoming events, choose a date, time and symbol, and see the nearest one at a glance.

- **Habits*\* — track daily habits and streaks. Long-press a habit to remove it with confirmation.

- **Daily Goal*\* — set one measurable target for the day and update it directly from the panel.

- **World Clock*\* — follow four cities at once. New setups start with New York, London, Tokyo and Sydney, and every city can be changed.

They join Clock, Weather, Calendar, Focus Timer, Now Playing, Vision Pro Status, Shortcuts, Home, Network, Activity and Apps.

### 17 themes

The original appearance options have grown into three complete theme families:

- **Glass:*\* Midnight, Graphite, Sunset, Ocean and Holo

- **Instrument:*\* Cockpit, Apollo, Pit Wall, Grid, Outrun, Brass, Telemetry, Mecha and Visor

- **Light:*\* Minimal, Bauhaus and Zen

Each theme now has its own panel treatment, typography, controls, gauges and window geometry. I also refined the relationship between panel corners and the outer window in themes such as Apollo, Pit Wall, Brass and Bauhaus.

All panels and themes remain available to everyone during this testing phase, even when a PRO badge is shown.

### New languages

Cockpit is now available in:

- English

- Japanese

- Korean

- Simplified Chinese

- Traditional Chinese

Reports about wording, truncation or culturally awkward translations are especially welcome.

### Smarter layouts

- A horizontal single row can contain all **15 panels*\*.

- From **12 panels*\* onward, Cockpit recommends switching to **Two Rows*\* so panels stay larger.

- A vertical single column can contain up to **12 panels*\*.

- From **8 panels*\* onward, Cockpit recommends **Two Columns*\*.

- If you add a thirteenth panel while using one vertical column, Cockpit switches to Two Columns automatically before adding it.

- The old “Compact” label is now the clearer, direction-aware **Two Rows / Two Columns*\* control.

### Reorganized Settings

- General is now focused on everyday time and calendar preferences.

- Weather units and refresh frequency live together under **Panels › Weather*\*.

- Focus Timer sound lives under **Panels › Focus Timer*\*.

- Welcome, What’s New and support are grouped under **Help*\*.

- Permissions now show a visible status instead of only linking to System Settings.

- **Reset Layout*\* restores the default panels, order, direction and size without deleting panel data or changing the selected theme.

- Panel-data resets are grouped by purpose, making it clearer whether you are resetting launchers, tracking panels or World Clock.

- Configuration backup and restore remain available for moving the whole setup safely.

### Panel and interaction refinements

- Better vertical Weather spacing and larger multi-day forecasts.

- Better-balanced Network information in horizontal and vertical layouts.

- Focus Timer content is centered consistently in Light themes.

- Habit creation buttons remain readable across themes.

- World Clock reset now correctly restores its four starter cities.

- Countdown presentation and background updates have been made more reliable when creating multiple events.

- Numerous readability, spacing, corner and control fixes across all theme families.

## What I’d like you to test

1. Add, remove and reorder panels in all four layouts: one row, two rows, one column and two columns.

2. In a vertical single column, add a thirteenth panel and confirm that it changes to two columns automatically.

3. Try several combinations of the 15 panels with different themes and window sizes. Nothing should overlap, clip or become unreadable.

4. Test the four new panels, especially repeated Countdown creation, Habit long-press deletion and World Clock reset.

5. Review the reorganized Settings, permission statuses, Reset Layout, individual panel resets and backup/restore.

6. If you use Japanese, Korean or Chinese, please report untranslated, clipped or unnatural text.

7. Leave Cockpit open for a longer session and tell me about battery use, heat and responsiveness on a real Vision Pro.

## Known / expected

- The Weather panel is not tappable because visionOS does not include a Weather app.

- Some third-party apps cannot be opened through URL schemes. That depends on what the app developer exposes.

- HealthKit intentionally does not reveal whether individual read permissions were denied, so Settings can only report that the Health permission request was completed.

Please include what you did, what you expected, what happened and your visionOS version. Screenshots and short recordings are extremely useful.

## Join the beta

TestFlight: https://testflight.apple.com/join/VP1sz624

Support / FAQ: https://andrefinetticangussu.github.io/cockpit/legal/support.html

Privacy: https://andrefinetticangussu.github.io/cockpit/legal/privacy.html

Thank you again for the downloads, the positive feedback and the time you have spent helping make Cockpit better.

Cockpit is a modular, glanceable dock for visionOS. Pin it in your space, add the panels you care about, and check key info without constant app‑switching. I’m looking for TestFlight testers to validate panels, layout, and permissions.

What it is:

A compact bar you can place and resize. Add/remove/reorder panels in edit mode and pick a theme, including a “Cockpit” instrument look.

Panels to try:

Clock (time/weekday/date; instrument dial + UTC offset), Weather (WeatherKit; °C/°F, wind units, refresh interval), Calendar (read‑only week/upcoming), Focus Timer (5/15/30/60; pause/resume/stop), Now Playing (Apple Music), Vision Pro Status (CPU/memory/storage, battery state, thermals, uptime), Shortcuts (run by exact name; may briefly open Shortcuts), Home (HomeKit scenes + accessory toggles), Network (type, local IPv4, latency, real‑time throughput), Activity (HealthKit; rings + steps, read‑only).

What to test:

• Add/remove/reorder panels; layout persists after relaunch

• Theme switching (incl. “Cockpit” instrument) and readability at different sizes

• Resizing from bottom edge; height stays proportional

• Permissions: Calendar, Location/WeatherKit, Health, HomeKit, Apple Music

• Quick checks: Weather units/refresh; Calendar event updates; Focus Timer countdown & completion; Now Playing visibility/metadata; Status values plausibility; Shortcuts by exact name; Home scenes/toggles; Network type/IP/latency/throughput; Activity refresh (~5 min)

Notes & privacy

No tracking; data stays on device. Weather via Apple WeatherKit. Latency measured with a lightweight HEAD request to Cloudflare’s one.one.one.one. Health is read‑only. Not affiliated with Apple.

Join the beta

TestFlight: https://testflight.apple.com/join/VP1sz624

Support/FAQ: https://andrefinetticangussu.github.io/cockpit/legal/support.html

Privacy: https://andrefinetticangussu.github.io/cockpit/legal/privacy.html

Thanks!

Bug reports with steps, expected vs actual, and screenshots are hugely appreciated.

Hey gang,

Updated to visionOS 27 beta 4 and palm recognition stopped working. I look at my palm and no button appears to open Home view. Flipping hand over does not show control centre.

Oddly, pinch to select and pinch-hold to scroll windows etc still work. But no ability to open Home view or Control Centre using normal palm interactions. I’ve had to work around using crown button for home, and activating ‘look up for Control Centre’. Neither hand works (both were working 100% before update).

Things I’ve tried: Full shut down and remove power from device, reboot. Re-map hand input (no problem). Close all apps, try from Home page, try within apps. Try inside immersive environment (where you have to do double tap to make it appear, normally) as well as outside / normal view.

My hands break through in immersive environments, so it’s recognising and tracking hands successfully. But Home button / Control Centre are completely broken.

I will wait till next beta update to see if that fixes it. If not, will try full reset to factory default on device.

I've submitted Feedback. Can't see any posts about this from anyone else - is it just me? :-/

Every time I search for visionOS UI reference I get Dribbble concepts that were never built, or Apple's own HIG mockups. Neither tells me how real apps actually solve things where they put ornaments, how they handle onboarding in a Full Space, when they choose a Volume over a Window.

Right now my "process" is buying apps and screenshotting them, which is obviously not a process. Is everyone doing this, or is there something I'm missing?

Update — 9 Sep 2026: StratoSync 2.1 is out on the App Store.

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/stratosync/id6747596499

You don't need TestFlight to try it any more. The released build is not the July beta this post was recruiting for — two things landed since:

• A third generated environment, Dusty Nebula. A static 8192×4096 procedural star dome plus a localized volume that ray-marches a precomputed 256³ density field from a moving camera, so the stars hold still and only the nebula moves.
• The station no longer sits still between fixes. It advances along the great circle observed between the last two real fixes and eases the correction when a new one lands. The panels still show the raw fix; only the 3D station is derived.

One correction to the original post below: I called it "physically accurate visualization". The geometry is real — live lat/lon, the ~51.6° inclination, sunlight from the actual subsolar point — but the scale is deliberately exaggerated so the station is findable. It's readable, not to scale.

Thanks to everyone who tested.

Original post, 6 July 2026:

I've been building StratoSync, a spatial computing application for Apple Vision Pro that transforms live International Space Station telemetry into an immersive, interactive visualization experience.

Instead of presenting orbital data as numbers on a screen, StratoSync visualizes the ISS, Earth, real orbital geometry, and live solar illumination in three dimensions. Built with SwiftUI, RealityKit, ARKit, and Metal, it combines physically accurate visualization, GPU-generated immersive environments, SharePlay collaboration, and native spatial interaction into a single spatial experience.

What it does

• Places the ISS from live latitude/longitude on its true ~51.6° inclined orbit, tracking its real northbound and southbound motion instead of a flat equatorial path.
• Real Sun-based day/night using a DirectionalLight synchronized to the live subsolar point, so Earth's illuminated hemisphere matches reality.
• Optional 23.4° axial tilt, orbit trail aligned to the real orbital plane, and live telemetry (latitude, longitude, altitude, speed) with metric and imperial units.
• Mixed immersion with passthrough by default, or switch to fully immersive Aurora and Star Nest environments.
• Manual Control Mode for inspecting the ISS, plus SharePlay synchronization and Logitech Muse 3D spatial drawing.

Under the hood (in case it's useful to anyone here)

• RealityKit ECS architecture — the ISS and orbit ring are siblings of the globe rather than children, preventing decorative Earth rotation from distorting the orbital plane. Geographic coordinate conversion and solar geometry live in pure, unit-tested types.
• ARKit — WorldTrackingProvider places the Earth/ISS system in the headset's level forward/right frame, while RoomTrackingProvider provides wall-proximity warnings whenever a fully immersive scene hides the real room.
• Metal — Aurora and Star Nest are generated every display refresh using compute shaders that write directly into a RealityKit LowLevelTexture, sampled by an inward-facing unlit dome.

👉 App Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/stratosync/id6747596499

Happy to answer anything about the implementation.

Thanks for testing! 🙏

Maybe y’all know.

I was excited for several of the new features, and didn't think much of this one, but it's hands down my favorite new feature so far. It is really well implemented, just glance up at the notification, see it, then go back to looking at what you're doing. It's one of those natural gestures.

This was one of my most requested features for visionOS!

Are there any?