Game Controller Input Limitations in visionOS Volumetric Windows Hello Apple Developer Community, I'm developing a game for visionOS and have encountered significant limitations with game controller input when using volumetric windows (WindowGroup with .volumetric style). I'd appreciate clarification on whether this is expected behavior and any guidance on best practices. 🧩 Issue Summary When using a DualSense controller with a volumetric window in visionOS, only a subset of controller inputs are available to the app. The remaining inputs appear to be reserved by the system for UI navigation. ✅ Working Inputs (Volumetric Window) D-Pad (all directions) L3 (left thumbstick button click) R3 (right thumbstick button click) Menu button Options button ❌ Not Working Inputs (Volumetric Window) Left thumbstick analog movement (used for UI scrolling instead) Right thumbstick analog movement (used for UI scrolling instead) Face buttons (Cross, Circle, Square, Triangle / A, B, X, Y) Shoulder buttons (L1, R1) Triggers (L2, R2) Key observation: When moving the left thumbstick in a volumetric window, the window's UI scrolls vertically instead of sending input to my app's GameController handlers. Similarly, face buttons seem to be reserved for system UI interactions. ⚙️ Implementation Details I'm using the standard GameController framework: Connect to controller via GCController.controllers() Access extendedGamepad profile Set up valueChangedHandler and pressedChangedHandler for all inputs Handlers confirmed registered via logging Working inputs (D-Pad, L3, R3) trigger immediately and consistently Non-working inputs (thumbsticks, face buttons) never trigger 🧠 Critical Finding: ImmersiveSpace Works Perfectly When testing the exact same code in an ImmersiveSpace (.mixed immersion style), all controller inputs work perfectly: ✅ Both thumbsticks provide full analog input ✅ All face buttons trigger their handlers ✅ All shoulder buttons and triggers work correctly ✅ 100% success rate with no intermittent issues This suggests the issue isn't with my code, but rather how visionOS handles controller input differently between Volumetric Windows and ImmersiveSpace. 🧪 Test Environment I created a minimal test project (Controller-Playground) to isolate the issue: A simple ControllerTester class that registers all GameController handlers A visual UI showing real-time input state No game logic, RealityKit physics, or other complexity Results In volumetric window: Only D-Pad, L3, R3, Menu, Options work In ImmersiveSpace: All inputs work perfectly This confirms the limitation exists at the visionOS platform level, not in app code. 🧰 Attempted Workarounds I tried the following without success: Setting GCSupportsControllerUserInteraction = false in Info.plist Setting UIRequiresFullScreen = true Changing window styles (.plain, .volumetric) Polling vs. handler-based input approaches Various threading models (MainActor, separate thread) Result: The only way to enable full controller support is to switch to ImmersiveSpace. ❓ Questions for Apple Is this input reservation behavior in volumetric windows intended and documented? Are game controllers expected to have limited functionality in volumetric windows while full functionality is reserved for ImmersiveSpace? Is there a way to request full controller input access in a volumetric window, or is ImmersiveSpace the only option for complete controller support? Where can I find official documentation about controller input differences between window types? Are there any APIs or configuration options to disable system controller shortcuts in volumetric windows? 🎯 Impact This limitation has a significant effect on game design and architecture: Volumetric windows offer a multitasking-friendly, less immersive experience ImmersiveSpace provides full controller support but may be more immersive than some games require Games that only need basic D-Pad and button input can work fine in volumetric windows Games requiring analog sticks or face buttons must currently use ImmersiveSpace It would be very helpful if Apple could clarify or reference existing documentation regarding controller input handling in different visionOS window types. If such documentation doesn't exist yet, it might be valuable to include this information in future developer guides or best-practice documents. 🕹 Current Workaround For now, I'm using: D-Pad for character movement (digital 8-direction) R3 (right stick click) as a substitute for the "X" button This setup allows the game to function within a volumetric window, though full controller support still requires ImmersiveSpace. 📄 Request If this is expected behavior, I may have simply missed the relevant documentation — could you please point me to any existing resources that explain this design? If there isn't one yet, it would be great if future visionOS documentation could: Clearly outline controller input behavior across window types Provide guidance on when to use Volumetric Windows vs. ImmersiveSpace for games Consider adding an API option to request full controller access when appropriate If this is not expected behavior, I'm happy to file a detailed bug report with sample code. 💻 System Information visionOS: Latest Simulator Xcode: Latest version Controller: Sony DualSense Framework: GameController (standard extendedGamepad profile) Test project: Minimal reproducible example available Thank you for any clarification or guidance you can provide. This information would be valuable for many developers working on visionOS games.

Hi, I am trying to load files from the Apple Vision Pro's storage into a Unity App (using Apple visionOS XR Plugin and not PolySpatial package). So far, I've tried using UnitySimpleFileBrowser and UnityStandaloneFileBrowser (both aren't made for the Vision Pro and don't work there), and then implemented my own naive file browser that at least allows me to view directories (that I can see from the App Sandbox). This is of course very limited: Gray folders can't be accessed, the only 3 available ones don't contain anything where a user would put files through the "Files" app. I know that an app can request access to these "Files & Folders": So my question is: Is there a way to request this access for a Unity-built app at the moment? If yes, what do I need to do? I've looked into the generated Xcode project's "Capabilities", but did not find anything related to file access. Any help is appreciated!

We've recently discovered that our app crashes on startup on the latest visionOS 2.0 beta 5 (22N5297g) build. In fact, the entire field of view would dim down and visionOS would then restart, showing the Apple logo. Interestingly, no app crash is reported by Xcode during debug. After investigation, we have isolated the issue to a specific USDZ asset in our app. Loading it in a sample, blank project also causes visionOS to reliably crash, or become extremely unresponsive with rendering artifacts everywhere. This looks like a potentially serious issue. Even if the asset is problematic, loading it should not crash the entire OS. We have filed feedback FB14756285, along with a demo project. Hopefully someone can take a look. Thanks!

Platform: visionOS 2.6 Framework: RealityKit, SwiftUIComponent: ImagePresentationComponent I’m working with the new ImagePresentationComponent from visionOS 26 and hitting a rendering limitation when switching to .spatialStereoImmersive viewing mode within a WindowGroup context. This is what I’m seeing: Pure immersive space: ImagePresentationComponent with .spatialStereoImmersive mode works perfectly in a standalone ImmersiveSpace Mode switching API: All mode transitions work correctly (logs confirm the component updates) Spatial content: .spatialStereo mode renders correctly in both window and immersive contexts. This is where it’s breaking for me: Window context: When the same RealityView + ImagePresentationComponent is placed inside a WindowGroup (even when that window is floating in a mixed immersive space), switching to .spatialStereoImmersive mode shows no visual change The API calls succeed, state updates correctly, but the immersive content doesn’t render. Apple’s Spatial Gallery demonstrates exactly what I’m trying to achieve: Spatial photos displayed in a window with what feels like horizontal scroll view using system window control bar, etc. Tapping a spatial photo smoothly transitions it to immersive mode in-place. The immersive content appears to “grow” from the original window position by just changing IPC viewing modes. This proves the functionality should be possible, but I can’t determine the correct configuration. So, my question to is: Is there a specific RealityView or WindowGroup configuration required to enable immersive content rendering from window contexts that you know of? Are there bounds/clipping settings that need to be configured to allow immersive content to “break out” of window constraints? Does .spatialStereoImmersive require a specific rendering context that’s not available in windowed RealityView instances? How do you think Apple’s SG app achieves this functionality? For a little more context: All viewing modes are available: [.mono, .spatialStereo, .spatialStereoImmersive] The spatial photos are valid and work correctly in pure immersive space Mixed immersive space is active when testing window context No errors or warnings in console beyond the successful mode switching logs I’m getting Any insights into the proper configuration for window-hosted immersive content

I would like to translate info in a three.js based web app as a 3D model in a volumetric window. Is it possible to do this in a similar manner as loading a web page in a WKWebView?

We're trying to switch from using main camera access on Arkit to screen-capture with passthrough however we're facing some issues and it seems a bit complicated to debug. We have set up a broadcast Extension, set up some logs on the sample Handler but we get nothing in the console nor that the recording starts, we set up the picker as well and we can see our extension in the control center as one of the choices but clicking start, results in it stopping in less than one second after. The only message that is rather contradictory we see in the console.app is the following [INFO] -[RPRecordingManager getSystemBroadcastExtensionInfo:]_block_invoke:1333 Extension has passthrough license and just right after [INFO] -[RPRecordingManager getSystemBroadcastExtensionInfo:]_block_invoke:1336 Extension does not have passthrough license

Is there any interest in this forum for those developing for the spatial web and safari. I can't seem to find any posts that are relevant here.

Hello experts, and question seekers, I have been trying to get Gaussian splats working with RealityKit, however it seems not to work out for me. The library I use for Gaussian splatting: https://github.com/scier/MetalSplatter My idea was to use the renderers provided by RealityKit (aka RealityRenderer) https://developer.apple.com/documentation/realitykit/realityrenderer and the renderer provided by MetalSplatter (aka. SplatRenderer) https://github.com/scier/MetalSplatter/blob/main/MetalSplatter/Sources/SplatRenderer.swift Then with a custom render pipeline, I would be able to compose the outputs of the renderers, enabling the possibility, for example to build immersive scenery with realistic environment scans, as Gaussian splats, and RealityKit to provide the necessary features to build extra scenery around Gaussian splats, eg. dynamic 3D models inside Gaussian splats. However the problem is, as of now I am not able to do that with the current implementation of RealityRenderer. It seems to be, that first RealityRenderer is supposed to be an API, just to render colour information onto a texture, which in first glance might be useful, but misses important information, such as for example depth, and stencil information. Second issue is, even with that in mind, currently I am not able to execute RealityRenderer.updateAndRender, due to the following error messages: Could not resolve material name 'engine:BuiltinRenderGraphResources/Common/realityRendererBackground.rematerial' in bundle at '/Users//Library/Developer/CoreSimulator/Devices//data/Containers/Bundle/Application//.app'. Loading via asset path. exiting spatial tracking service update thread because wait returned 37” I was able to build a custom Metal view with UIViewRepresentable, MTKView, and MTKViewDelegate, enabling me to build a custom rendering pipeline, by utilising some of the Metal developer workflows. Reference: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/xcode/metal-developer-workflows/ Inside draw(in view: MTKView), in a class derived by MTKViewDelegate: guard let currentDrawable = view.currentDrawable else { return } let realityRenderer = try! RealityRenderer() try! realityRenderer.updateAndRender(deltaTime: 0.0, cameraOutput: .init(.singleProjection(colorTexture: currentDrawable.texture)), whenScheduled: { realityRenderer in print("Rendering scheduled") }, onComplete: { RealityRenderer in print("Rendering completed") }) Can you please tell me, what I am doing wrong? Is there any solution, that enables me to use RealityKit with for example Gaussian splats? Any help is greatly appreciated. All the best, Ethem Kurt

How do you force quit apps on the Vision Pro simulator? I've read online you can double press the digital crown on a real Vision Pro device but there is no such button on the simulator. So far I've tried Pressing the home button twice (⇧⌘H) Pressing the Siri button twice (⌥⇧⌘H) None of them works I'm on Xcode 15.0 beta 5 (15A5209g) & visionOS 1.0 beta 2 (21N5207e)

Hello, There are odd artifacts (one looks like an image placeholder) appearing when dismissing an immersive space which is displaying an ImagePresentationComponent. Both artifacts look like widgets.. See below our simple code displaying the ImagePresentationComponent and the images of the odd artifacts that appear briefly when dismissing the immersive space. import OSLog import RealityKit import SwiftUI struct ImmersiveImageView: View { let logger = Logger(subsystem: AppConstant.SUBSYSTEM, category: "ImmersiveImageView") @Environment(AppModel.self) private var appModel var body: some View { RealityView { content in if let currentMedia = appModel.currentMedia, var imagePresentationComponent = currentMedia.imagePresentationComponent { let imagePresentationComponentEntity = Entity() switch currentMedia.type { case .iphoneSpatialMovie: logger.info("\(#function) \(#line) spatial3DImmersive display for \(String(describing: currentMedia))") imagePresentationComponent.desiredViewingMode = .spatial3DImmersive case .twoD: logger.info("\(#function) \(#line) spatial3DImmersive display for \(String(describing: currentMedia))") imagePresentationComponent.desiredViewingMode = .spatial3DImmersive case .visionProConvertedSpatialPhoto: logger.info("\(#function) \(#line) spatialStereoImmersive display for \(String(describing: currentMedia))") imagePresentationComponent.desiredViewingMode = .spatialStereoImmersive default : logger.error("\(#function) \(#line) Unsupported media type \(currentMedia.type)") assertionFailure("Unsupported media type \(currentMedia.type)") } imagePresentationComponentEntity.components.set(imagePresentationComponent) imagePresentationComponentEntity.position = AppConstant.Position.spacialImagePosition content.add(imagePresentationComponentEntity) } let toggleViewAttachmentComponent = ViewAttachmentComponent(rootView: ToggleImmersiveSpaceButton()) let toggleViewAttachmentComponentEntity = Entity(components: toggleViewAttachmentComponent) toggleViewAttachmentComponentEntity.position = SIMD3<Float>( AppConstant.Position.spacialImagePosition.x + 1, AppConstant.Position.spacialImagePosition.y, AppConstant.Position.spacialImagePosition.z ) toggleViewAttachmentComponentEntity.scale = AppConstant.Scale.attachments content.add(toggleViewAttachmentComponentEntity) } } }

For the M2 Apple Vision Pro, there's "a general guideline, we recommend no more than 500 thousand triangles for an immersive scene, with 250 thousand for applications in the shared space." --https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2024/10186/?time=147 Is there a revised recommendation for the M5 Apple Vision Pro?

Hello, Let me ask you a question about Apple Immersive Video. https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2024/07/new-apple-immersive-video-series-and-films-premiere-on-vision-pro/ I am currently considering implementing a feature to play Apple Immersive Video as a background scene in the app I developed, using 3DCG-created content converted into Apple Immersive Video format. First, I would like to know if it is possible to integrate Apple Immersive Video into an app. Could you provide information about the required software and the integration process for incorporating Apple Immersive Video into an app? It would be great if you could also share any helpful website resources. I am considering creating Apple Immersive Video content and would like to know about the necessary equipment and software for producing both live-action footage and 3DCG animation videos. As I mentioned earlier, I’m planning to play Apple Immersive Video as a background in the app. In doing so, I would also like to place some 3D models as RealityKit entities and spatial audio elements. I’m also planning to develop the visionOS app as a Full Space Mixed experience. Is it possible to have an immersive viewing experience with Apple Immersive Video in Full Space Mixed mode? Does Apple Immersive Video support Full Space Mixed? I’ve asked several questions, and that’s all for now. Thank you in advance!

Hi I have a monitoring app, that will take input video from uvc and process it using Metal, and eventually get a MTLTexture. The problem I'm facing is I have to convert MTLTexture to CGImage then call TextureResource.replace, which is super slow. Metal processing speed is same as input frame rate(50pfs), but MTLTexture -> CGImage -> TextureResource only got 7fps... Is there any way I can make it faster?

Hi, I was wondering if the Enterprise API for visionOS 2 includes access to the raw Lidar data from the Apple Vision Pro, or any intermediate data representation (like the depthMap as shown in this post)? Or if there would be any way to get access to this data? Thanks in advance!

When assigning a ManipulationComponent to an Entity SceneEvents.WillRemoveEntity will be called for that Entity. Expected Behavior: the Entity is not (even if temporarily) removed from the Scene and no SceneEvents will be triggered as a result of assigning a ManipulationComponent. FB20872220

let component = GestureComponent(DragGesture()) iOS: ☑️ visionOS: ❌ This bug from beta to public, please fix it.

Dear all, I´m using Unity 6.2 beta and Xcode 16.2. I´m creating a simple framework to use the text to speech functionality in VisionOS from unity. The framework is created in Swift. I create an objective-c wrapper with the following declarations: ... void _initTTS(int); ... I create the framework, import it in Unity and call the functions in a c# wrapper class. The code is as follows: public static class TTSPluginManager { [DllImport("TTS_Vision"] private static extern void _initTTS(int val); ... public static void Initialize() { #if UNITY_VISIONOS _initTTS(0); #else Debug.LogWarning("NativeTTS.Initialize called on a non-iOS platform. Ignoring."); #endif } } I have managed to compile and run the program in the Apple Vision Pro, but I keep on getting the following error: DllNotFoundException: TTS_Vision assembly: type: member:(null) TTSPluginManager.Initialize () (at Assets/Plugins/TTSPluginManager.cs:33) LecturePortalManager.OnCreateStory (Ink.Runtime.Story story) (at Assets/AVRLecture/LecturePortalManager.cs:17) InkLoader.StartStory () (at Assets/AVRLecture/InkLoader.cs:24) InkLoader.Start () (at Assets/AVRLecture/InkLoader.cs:18) If I run the generated code from Xcode, I can see the app in the AVP, but I keep getting a loading error: DllNotFoundException: Unable to load DLL 'TTS_Vision'. Tried the load the following dynamic libraries: Unable to load dynamic library '/TTS_Vision' because of 'Failed to open the requested dynamic library (0x06000000) dlerror() = dlopen(/TTS_Vision, 0x0005): tried: '/TTS_Vision' (no such file) at TTSPluginManager.Initialize () [0x00000] in <00000000000000000000000000000000>:0 at LecturePortalManager.OnCreateStory (Ink.Runtime.Story story) [0x00000] in <00000000000000000000000000000000>:0 I can see in the generated code that the framework (TTS_Vision) is there, but the path seems wrong. I've tried to add more options to the searched paths, with no success... Any hints or suggestions are much more appreciated.

Posting this here in case this information is helpful to other developers: As of visionOS 26.3 beta 1, onWorldRecenter has two significant issues: (FB21557639) Memory Leak: When onWorldRecenter is assigned to a RealityView within an ImmersiveSpace, it appears to retain a strong reference to the view's internal SwiftUI context. When the immersive space is dismissed, the view's @State objects will not be deallocated. Also, each time the immersive space view's body is executed, additional state storage will be allocated and leaked. Multiple Callbacks: When the user long-presses the Digital Crown, the onWorldRecenter closure will be called multiple times, once for each past view body execution, including those of immersive space views that have been previously dismissed. Although these issues seem to be most prevalent when onWorldRecenter is used with an ImmersiveSpace, they may also occur in the context of a WindowGroup under certain circumstances. It's possible to work around this problem by moving onWorldRecenter to an empty overlay view within the app's primary WindowGroup and forwarding the world recenter events to ImmersiveSpace views through a notification system, coupled with a debouncer as an extra precaution.

Hi guys, I noticed that Apple created a really engaging visual effect for browsing spatial videos in the app. The video appears embedded in glass panel with glowing edges and even shows a parallax effect as you move around. When I tried to display the stereo video using RealityView, however, the video entity always floats above the panel. May I ask how does VisionOS implement this effect? Is there any approach to achieve this effect or example code I can use in my own code. Thanks!

Hello, I am trying to build an AVP app for real-time "zero-latency" spatial video streaming. I am trying to figure out, on a high level, the best way to do this. Currently this is my method: Server sends stereo images via a WebRTC service (ie, livekit) The WebRTC stream is converted to a CVPixelBuffer, writes them to file, plays via AVPlayer, and applies a VideoMaterial to a plane entity. However, this is a bit hacky and it seems like this won't be compatible with Apple's spatial experinces. To my understanding, Apple supports HLS streaming for spatial experiences and APMP content. However, HLS (and even Low Latency HLS) introduces a second or more of latency, likely do to the segmentation nature of HLS. Thus, HLS will not work for us. Some other alternatives I've thought of are streaming the live stream video via webrtc from the server to a local computer in the AVP's network, and then using LL-HLS to stream from the local computer to the vision pro. Still, it seems like this would introduce latency on the order of seconds. Is my current approach the best way to implement this? Or could anyone suggest a better way, perhaps something compatible with AVP's spatial experiences