- Apple on Tuesday released a beta visionOS 1.1 update for Vision Pro developers.
- Vision Pro’s Persona Avatar feature has been revamped as part of the update, users shared.
- Previous versions of Persona were described as unpleasant by reviewers.
The latest Apple Vision Pro avatar, which hasn’t been released yet, is already closer to a real human.
The tech giant released a beta update of visionOS 1.1 to developers on Tuesday, offering an early look at improved avatars, or what Apple calls “personas,” for Vision Pro users.
Apple’s Persona feature itself is labeled as a beta feature for now. This means that the company is still refining that particular feature. Separately, Apple releases beta versions of a wide range of software for a variety of devices, including iOS on the iPhone and visionOS on the Vision Pro, to developers ahead of wider release (this will ultimately This is a notification that appears under Settings on your device (Updates).
Someone testing the Vision Pro update ahead of its expected public release posted on X about Persona’s transformation. Although her face reportedly had to be rescanned, the results are more realistic than avatars created with previous versions of her Vision Pro software.
YouTuber Quinn Nelson shared before and after photos after creating a new persona with the visionOS 1.1 update.
“Is it still creepy and creepy? Yes, but I don’t look like Stalin anymore,” Nelson said. I wrote to X.
The updated version of Nelson’s persona has more human-like features and more realistic skin compared to his previous avatar. The “Stalin” figure in Nelson’s earlier photographs was flatter and less detailed.
Early reviewers of Vision Pro shared similar concerns about Persona’s appearance before the developer’s update. Nilay Patel of The Verge called Persona activated using the headset “very strange and very creepy.”
The Wall Street Journal’s Joanna Stern shared a raunchy avatar of herself with X.
And my Vision Pro avatar certainly didn’t look like an accurate model of my 24-year-old face.
Vision Pro owners can use Persona on FaceTime calls while wearing the headset, but if you want early access to updates, you’ll need a developer Apple profile.
If not, your friends will have to talk to a slightly creepier animated version of you, at least until Apple releases a broader update.