Apple Vision Pro receives major improvement to its primary mode of input
Now that Apple has announced visionOS 2 and all the new best features for Vision Pro, the company is focusing on the technical side of things. In a recent developer session, the company pointed out improvements coming to its headset that weren’t shared with average consumers.
One of these improvements has to do with the “HandTrackingProvider”. In technical terms, this is a class within Apple’s ARkit for developers. For the average Joe, this is something that developers can integrate into their apps to track a person’s hands and fingers.
The update rate of this functionality has, until now, only been 30 Hz. Which means it provided updated coordinates of a hand or finger 30 times a second. Now that may seem fast, but it really isn’t.
VR and AR headsets like the Vision Pro should at the very least have a display refresh rate of 90 Hz to prevent motion sickness and look good. And that’s how fast HandTrackingProvider will be now.
One of these improvements has to do with the “HandTrackingProvider”. In technical terms, this is a class within Apple’s ARkit for developers. For the average Joe, this is something that developers can integrate into their apps to track a person’s hands and fingers.
VR and AR headsets like the Vision Pro should at the very least have a display refresh rate of 90 Hz to prevent motion sickness and look good. And that’s how fast HandTrackingProvider will be now.
Apple Vision Pro’s displays can go up to 100 Hz, but generally don’t.
Now, the Apple Vision Pro usually operates its fantastic micro-OLED displays at 90 Hz for most applications. So the HandTrackingProvider being capped at 30 Hz would often lead to less than optimal hand tracking. Especially noticeable to the trained eye and developers.
Being allowed to now sync to the display refresh rate will greatly improve accuracy in hand tracking and also look better. But Apple has announced another cool feature as well. With visionOS 2, the hand tracking software can predict gestures before they happen and take action accordingly.
This isn’t something new in the XR (Extended Reality) industry, but it will help make apps function better on Vision Pro. With predictive hand tracking, the Vision Pro will be able to make hand tracking seem much smoother than it actually might be.
Of course, this is still Apple’s first ever XR headset. Our Apple Vision Pro review praised it, but Apple has a long way to go, and a lot of zeroes to drop off the price tag, before they can go mainstream with the Vision Pro.
Being allowed to now sync to the display refresh rate will greatly improve accuracy in hand tracking and also look better. But Apple has announced another cool feature as well. With visionOS 2, the hand tracking software can predict gestures before they happen and take action accordingly.
This isn’t something new in the XR (Extended Reality) industry, but it will help make apps function better on Vision Pro. With predictive hand tracking, the Vision Pro will be able to make hand tracking seem much smoother than it actually might be.
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