By Tom Warren, a senior editor covering Microsoft, PC gaming, console, and tech. He founded WinRumors, a site dedicated to Microsoft news, before joining The Verge in 2012.
Apple has just announced its new $3,499 Vision Pro augmented reality headset, and Microsoft is ready to bring its Word, Excel, and Microsoft Teams apps to Apple’s new platform.
Apple briefly demonstrated Excel, Word, and Teams running inside the Vision Pro headset, with a user interface that can be controlled with your eyes. Microsoft appears to be using a similar simplified ribbon interface that’s available on its existing web versions of Excel and Word.
While Apple didn’t demonstrate too much of the Teams interface, it did reveal that Microsoft will be supporting its 3D personas. These digital personas are built using machine learning techniques to recreate your face virtually. Zoom and Webex will also support these 3D personas on the Apple Vision Pro headset.
Alongside Microsoft’s support for the Apple Vision Pro, Unity apps will also run natively on the headset. That should mean we’ll see plenty of games on Apple’s new AR headset once it’s available early next year. Adobe is also bringing Lightroom to the Apple Vision Pro so you can control the photo editing app with just your eyes and hands.
It’s not surprising to see Microsoft quick to support Apple’s AR efforts, even after it has tried to make AR a thing for years with HoloLens. The software giant has a history of bringing Office to Apple’s latest hardware, including being part of Apple’s announcement for its M1 silicon and quickly launching Office on M1 Macs. Microsoft has also partnered closely with Meta to bring Teams, Office, Windows, and Xbox to Quest VR headsets.
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