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Second Life Running in Apple Vision Pro! Here’s How to Enter the Longest-Running Metaverse Platform Through the Newest Computing Device.

Second Life app Vision Pro

Here's the world's newest VR/AR headset accessing the longest-running metaverse platform: That's right, a playable version of Second Life in Apple Vision Pro! 

This comes courtesy of Brian Aviator, who's in the closed Alpha testing group for Second Life's upcoming iOS app, and got it to run in his new Vision Pro. (Direction on doing that yourself below.)

And yes, it's playable:

"Using the iPad virtual controls through touch/eye controls were not as smooth as on the iPad itself," Brian Aviator allows, "but it worked well enough to get around and look around without issue."

Brian tells me he'd like a version of Second Life optimized for Vision Pro:

"I would certainly use it, particularly if it offered a full immersion mode as an option to take advantage of the spatial aspects of the device. Otherwise as a windowed application I see the use case to be similar to my use case on my iPad or iPhone — checking in to IM someone, or to respond to people or issues in one of my museums/educational spaces in Second Life." (Brian owns and manages three history museums in the virtual world.)

Expect to see more like this in the future: While Rec Room is expected to launch an official, optimized Vision Pro app, there are several existing virtual world iPad apps that can also run in Vision Pro. (Including Rec Room for iOS, as reader Trilo Byte notes.)  

More screenshots courtesy Brian after the break. As you'll notice, the Second Life images have a unique look due to the Vision Pro:

Vision Pro Second Life computer history Brian in Second Life inside his — appropriately enough — history of computers museum!

"There is an interesting bokeh effect when taking screenshots that focuses the image at the spot where I was looking (still trying to find out if there is a way to control the depth of field/bokeh in screenshots)."

Here's a tutorial from Brian on running the Second Life alpha app on Vision Pro:

  • Install TestFlight from the App Store on the Vision Pro Device and launch it.
  • Be sure to log on to TestFlight with the same Apple ID that was registered for the Mobile Viewer Alpha test.
  • The Mobile Viewer will appear within TestFlight. Select to Install it (the same as you would on iPhone/iPad).
  • After installation, the Mobile Alpha Viewer will be located in the "Compatible Apps" on the main screen of Home View (it is an iPad app running on the Vision Pro). Launch it from there, log on with the enrolled Premium Plus Second Life avatar and test.
  • Tips: To walk around gaze at the lower left corner of the Viewer window and tap your fingers together and move them around to walk. To pan the camera just tap your fingers anywhere else in the window and move them around.  Looking at the menu items and tapping your fingers will select them.   

And here's Brian's overall impression of the Vision Pro so far:

I have one and have been using it since launch day (Friday February 2).

My thoughts on the device are that it works much better than I expected.

I suffer from some vision issues that Apple told me before launch would likely require the use of some accessibility features to mitigate. I was quite surprised to find that the Vision Pro just worked for me without enabling any accessibility features.

My impressions so far are that the displays (with the Zeiss attached prescription lenses in my case) are truly amazing and provide an experience that far exceeded my experience with the Meta Quest 2 (also with some 3rd party prescription lenses). I have yet to try a Meta Quest 3.

It is quite the experience to watch video content on this. The Disney+, Apple TV, and Max Vision Pro native apps are pretty slick and the ability to place the screen anywhere spatially (and have it stay there within the real space) is pretty cool. The fact that no controllers are necessary is a huge plus.

The eye tracking works really well and the use of hand gestures to control the UI took all of about 3-4 minutes to get completely comfortable with.

The immersive spatial audio was also striking (and I didn't notice a huge improvement when switching to the new Airpods Pro within my quiet office environment — the speakers in the headset are that good).

I totally agree with Philip's comments about weight. This thing is heavy on your face.

Both my spouse and I have Vision Pro units and both agree that switching to the Dual Loop Band was better for both of us in terms of weight distribution and pressure on the face.

I have been able to use it for 90 minutes plus in a session without a huge issue but I always knew it was there.

The Vision Pro isn't for everyone. Particularly at $3,500 ($4,500 if you add storage, prescription lenses, and AppleCare) and considering some of the current tradeoffs (weight, external battery, etc).

I do think it is a first gen product that Apple generally got right for what it is. I do suspect there will be follow-on products that address weight issues, focus more on AR, don't look as foolish to wear etc. in due time. Will that make it appeal to more people? Maybe.

But I will definitely be keeping mine. This thing is almost magical to use.

Vision Pro Second Life New World Notes

Brian visiting the official Snow Crash shrine in New World Notes' office in Second Life… while also reading New World Notes on the web

As for Brian's Second Life museums, consider stopping by: There's the Museum of Computing History (direct teleport here) which includes "a CatGPT exhibit to access ChatGPT using a 3D Replica of my RL cat", the LGBT History Museum and Cultural Center in Dalton (direct teleport here), and a full region devoted to cats (direct teleport here).

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6 responses to “Second Life Running in Apple Vision Pro! Here’s How to Enter the Longest-Running Metaverse Platform Through the Newest Computing Device.”

  1. Trilo Byte Avatar
    Trilo Byte

    Point of note.. Rec Room’s iPad app has been running on Vision Pro from the start.

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  2. Wagner James Au Avatar
    Wagner James Au

    Good point, thanks, I amended that line!

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  3. Brian Aviator Avatar
    Brian Aviator

    The “bokeh effect” I referred to seems to be due to the foveated rendering (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foveated_imaging#:~:text=Foveated%20rendering%20is%20an%20upcoming,zone%20gazed%20by%20the%20fovea) in the Apple Vision Pro. The screenshot is an accurate representation of what the device is rendering but this is not noticeable when using the device because the eye/brain are focused on where I am gazing within the rendered scene.

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  4. Gwyneth Llewelyn Avatar
    Gwyneth Llewelyn

    I knew that someone was due to do this, sooner or later 🙂
    But I didn’t expect it to be that soon!
    The desktop version of the SL Viewer already has had 360º snapshots for quite a while. I wonder if the mobile version will have it, too. If so, well, I can expect that, one day, you won’t be merely seeing a large (huge?) rectangular screen floating in front of you. Instead, you’ll be in mouselook — inside your avatar, inside the 360º environment generated by Second Life. That’s not really that far-fetched, and I have no doubt that it should be within the abilities of the LL developers working on the mobile app.
    Now, how cool would that be? 🙂
    Granted, one cannot expect the same level of quality as a specially-developed VR environment for the Apple Vision Pro. SL, after all, lags — and that will be very confusing, or probably even worse than that: inducing motion sickness, for instance. SL doesn’t behave like the real world when you abruptly turn your head; all those textures coming in sight will need to be downloaded first. This is not going to change. Also, there is a question of resolution: will the CPUs of the Vision Pro be able to render a full 360º environment at an acceptable FPS to be ‘usable’? I have certainly seen videos of people (some of them my students, streaming live) who had at least 4K screens, rendering SL at sub-Ultra quality at 45 FPS. Will that be enough? Will the Apple Vision Pro manage that as well as a top-of-the-line beefed-up PC, carefully built from scratch by a professional eSports athlete? (BTW, that’s what my students were.)
    Maybe. The whole point is that it’s not that far-fetched as it seems.
    And think about puppetry. No need to deal with the whole complexity of the LEAP feature built-in the SL desktop viewer, requiring building an external plugin which connects to a webcam and tries to recognise your arm motions and facial expressions, and impress them on your avatar. Apple has done all of that for the Vision Pro, and offer it as part of their SDK. And LL has done the necessary hooks. They just need to connect the two bits.
    It’s easier said than done, of course, but I’d venture a guess that SL will not be far behind all others — with possibly a difference: it’s hardly a surprise that the Big Players are boycotting Apple’s Vision Pro. I can imagine Epic saying “no” to Fortnite as a VR game inside the Vision Pro (because they also have their own hardware to sell), and possibly Roblox will do the same, as will Microsoft’s Minecraft. Meta/Facebook, obviously, will steer clear of the combination of Apple Vision Pro + Second Life, since that’s precisely what they wish to sell and have been intensely developing for almost a decade now, with little to show (except, well, heavilly post-processed video for their ads…).
    LL with SL-on-Vision-Pro will have an edge, at least for short a while, but that might give SL a small advantage in this market, before the competition swallows their pride and catches up…
    And why should they? Well, SL works due to a specific niche of users. They tend not only to be older (on average), but, more importantly, they have more expendable cash, which they’re happy to put into acquiring content in SL — the metaverse which makes considerably more money per capita, even if its scale is several orders of magnitude smaller than the competition…
    Here’s an example: Roblox has an estimated 600-million-strong base of monthly active users. Second Life has one thousandth of that user base; nevertheless, it sells more (user-generated) content per capita than Roblox — which, BTW, has a tiny marketplace (compared to LL’s own — or even to the Kitely Marketplace!
    And I’m not even considering that the amount of user-generated content for Roblox is just a tiny fraction of what you can expect to see for sale on SL — and that content is way more expensive!
    Now consider those that are wealthy enough to afford to buy a Vision Pro are actually active residents of SL as well. They can certainly afford the handful
    But I completely digress. I’m excited that the initial response

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  5. Gwyneth Llewelyn Avatar
    Gwyneth Llewelyn

    to the Apple Vision Pro has been so positive, in spite of all the shortcomings it still has!

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  6. FlipperPA Avatar
    FlipperPA

    How cool! But it isn’t a real platform until someone gets Skyrim running in there. 🙂 It can’t be far off with SteamVR already hacked in!

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