Tinderbox on Vision Pro works in its own window (like a spatial app window) in a limited way...with Universal Desktop app for Vision Pro (early in testing)

Hi

For those of you that have edged into Vision Pro spatial computing, there is a Vision Pro app called Universal Desktop for Vision Pro that was recently released that essentially allows you to place native Mac Osx apps in their own spatial window. I was intrigued to see if Tinderbox could be used.

Success. Tinderbox works out of the box (at least on my system using an M1 laptop and Vision Pro)
I have Tinderbox in its own spatial window controlled by my MacBook keyboard floating in its own spatial window.

Still early in testing but so far so good. Limitations: I have not tested for stability yet. Interested to know how stable this configuration is. Cannot resize windows according to Universal Desktop…yet

Overall, so far a pretty nice experience to have a large Tinderbox window in a spatial computing environment.

Update: Outline works better than Map view because of slight lag in map view. In addition, there are no visible menus in the Tinderbox spatial window… just the tabs and views itself.
How would I use it with these limitations… for me… its still useful because it a NEW way to explore the map. For instance, playing around and exploring my map sitting on top of my coffee table for a new topic I am exploring …is… pretty memorable. Probably not all the time… but useful nonetheless.

Overall, I would rather use the native, all in one Mac - Vision Pro full feature connect view.

Tom

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FWIW, I’m part of a group (drawn from Future of Text folk) who are working on a Sloan Foundation grant looking at using academic documents (‘papers’) in XR. Mainly using Oculus 2 & 3 and AVPro (sadly I’ve not got one of the latter!).

The biggest issue I see at present in the interactions, how we interact with the material in front of us is not yet defined stable. So I can likely show a Tinderbox map, for instance, in XR, but working in that map would likely be hard work. Not due to Tinderbox but simply the immaturity of the new medium. For instance, in XR you generally have to stand where the test is in focus, you can’t use your eyes in the same way.

The medium is really cool, but a bit of a thrill-seekers and explorers place for now. Still, I’m quite happy to be wrong about all this (I’m speaking from c.2 years of slow burn study of this aspect of XR, I don’t do VR games, etc.). I do think this tech is likely coming for us all, but perhaps not quite at the pace the boosters would assume. Why? Because there is so much necessary stuff yet to be invented to make it all ‘just’ work in general use. Also, I think personal use will come faster than collaboration. Phew, no ‘MS Office 3D’ meetings … yet!

†. XE eXtended Reality, a portmanteau for VR, AR, etc. Give it a few months and doubtless there will be a new cover term. But for now, XR.

The killer app for me right now is the VP virtual monitor for my M1 laptop. Screen is terrific, no noticable latency in Tinderbox Map view when used inside its native virtual monitor. Univeral Desktop solves one problem for me… allows for continuity of keyboard and mouse across both native mac osx and VP native apps.

I just installed Universal Desktop…but so far, its pretty nice.

Tom

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