macOS 26 will let apps render and stream immersive experiences to Apple Vision Pro, essentially Apple's take on PC VR.
"With macOS spatial rendering, use the power of your Mac to render and stream immersive content directly to Vision Pro."
The open-source tool ALVR already lets Apple Vision Pro owners use it as a SteamVR headset, but SteamVR doesn't support macOS, having dropped support for the platform in 2020.
As well as supporting the company's own desktop operating system, Apple's macOS spatial rendering is deeply integrated into macOS 26 and visionOS 26.
When a user launches an immersive space on a macOS app that uses the new feature, they'll see a prompt appear in their Vision Pro. If they accept, the system will automatically initiate remote rendering. This can be initiated from Mac Virtual Display inside visionOS.
Apple Vision Pro's M2 chip is more powerful than what's available in any other standalone headset, but that chip is only the base of Apple's offering, with the M2 Pro, M2 Max, and M2 Ultra offering progressively greater performance. And of course, the M2 series has since been superseded by M3 and M4, with Apple's M3 Ultra offering 3x the multithreaded CPU performance, almost 6x the GPU performance, and up to 512GB of unified memory compared to M2.
Thus, macOS spatial rendering could allow for rendering significantly higher fidelity virtual experiences with deeper simulation and interactivity, leveraging this extra power.
We expect enterprise companies will have particular interest in macOS spatial rendering, allowing them to for example render photorealistic 1:1 recreations of products and components they're developing. Thus, macOS spatial rendering could be significant competition for companies like Varjo.
Developers can implement macOS spatial rendering by using the RemoteImmersiveSpace structure of SwiftUI.
For more about visionOS 26, read our article covering the many changes set to arrive in Apple's biggest Vision Pro software update yet:
David Heaney
