Apple Unveils VisionOS 26’s New Persistent Widget System for Vision Pro

Oh man, where to start? So, WWDC happened—Apple dropped this new widget system for Vision Pro. It’s like, you can pin these widgets on your walls or tables or wherever. They’re glued there, even if you reboot the thing. Imagine it like sticking a Post-it note that never falls off. Magic? Maybe.

There’s this whole session where Apple geeks out about it. They showed how you can mess with these widgets, like making them part of your room. You know, not just floating in space like lost balloons, but anchored like they’re meant to be there. Say bye to floating chaos!

Now, they’ve made these widgets from other Apple stuff, like iOS widgets, play nice with Vision Pro. Which is cool but they took it up a notch with new fancy widgets exclusive to Vision Pro users. Think different shapes, sizes—real artist vibes here.

Ah, the overlays! There’s ‘paper’ and ‘glass’. For the static stuff, paper’s your friend. It just dims with room light. Kinda cozy. But for dynamic info? Glass all the way, my friend. It’s like having essential tik-tok memes—always visible, beckoning you when you’re lost.

And proximity-aware widgets? What even. They shift info based on how close you get. Imagine checking the weather and then diving deep into next week’s forecast as you move closer. It’s almost like magic. Like, how does it know?

Oh, and there’s this album poster widget. Shows the album art, click and boom, music. Also, they’ve got this ‘photo window’ thing where it’s like you’re peeking out into a scene. But don’t get too excited, it’s still flat, no 3D jazz yet.

The Clock widget got a makeover too. Looks fancy when you stick your nose in it. They’re really trying to make these widgets feel like they belong in your space. They’ve gotta touch on flat surfaces or walls, not floating all willy-nilly.

And the shadows! Widgets have shadows now. Apparently, that makes them look real. Who knew? It’s always the shadows, man.

But wait, there’s customization galore! You can resize them, make them pop out like a photo frame, or sink into the wall like, I dunno, a picture trapped in there? And colors, you want colors? Light, dark, whatever shades you fancy.

Oh, when you line them up on a wall, they snap into place like those magnetic blocks that just satisfyingly go together. Snap, done.

If widgets have dance moves—or, rather, interactions—you can do the look-and-pinch thing or poke it to do stuff like check off your to-do list. No moves? It’ll just kick you to the parent app like, “Here, go there.”

And that’s it, they’re already out for developers, hitting public later. So much to play with! Widgets are the new craze. Calling it now.