One of the key selling points of the Apple Vision Pro is how easy it is to connect it to a Mac and use it as a large external monitor. Now, Microsoft is teaming up with Meta to play catchup for Windows.
As part of its Microsoft Ignite press conference today, the company promised to bring the “full capabilities of Windows 11 to mixed reality headsets, starting with Meta Quest 3 and Quest 3S.”
Now, that doesn’t suddenly mean you can suddenly replace your PC with a VR headset—like with the Apple Vision Pro, the keyword here is streaming. While the headset will enable a virtual multi-monitor workstation (which is actually an improvement on the Vision Pro’s single monitor setup), it’ll need to connect to either your own Windows 11 PC or a cloud-based Windows 365 instance first.
Microsoft says it’ll only take “seconds to connect,” which should be an improvement over current third-party solutions like Virtual Desktop, or even Meta’s own Horizon Workrooms. While Microsoft hasn’t said exactly how this seamless connection will work, Mark Zuckerberg previously said during this year’s Meta Connect conference that Quest users will soon only need to “look at their keyboard” to connect to a PC, without needing to install any software on the device. A video posted by Microsoft today seems to back up that assertion.
Specific details about just how many monitors you can have or what type of resolution sacrifices you might have to make are still unclear, although with public preview coming sometime in December, it shouldn’t take long to find out.
Microsoft also didn’t mention Volumetric Apps, a trick announced in May during this year’s Build conference that will allow users streaming Windows to a Quest headset to view certain assets in 3D, presuming that the app they’re running allows it. For example, Microsoft showed a demo of a user pulling a 3D model of an Xbox controller out of their virtual Windows monitor and inspecting it in full 3D space, even being able to take it apart and look at an exploded view of the controller’s insides. Given that Microsoft didn’t bring it up again today, it’s unlikely Volumetric Apps will be available at launch.
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