Apple silently buffs the Vision Pro with the new iPhone 15 Pro and AirPods Pro 2

The Apple Vision Pro may not have been in attendance during the recent iPhone 15 launch event hosted at Apple Park, but it got a shout-out and a couple of upgrades that you might have missed.

Unfortunately, these improvements aren’t coming to the headset directly, instead they're buffs exclusive for people who own multiple premium Apple products – specifically the new iPhone 15 Pro (or the iPhone 15 Pro Max) and the updated AirPods Pro 2 with USB-C port.

Starting with the iPhone 15, the Pro model’s cameras now have the ability to record Spatial Video. This immersive format allows you to use the Vision Pro to relive 3D recreations of memories you film and was first shown off in the Vision Pro reveal trailer at WWDC 2023.

While kinda cool – it feels like a step towards hologram recordings from sci-fi – the feature also felt rather dystopian when unveiled on the Vision Pro. Specifically, to be able to record Spatial Video of a special moment actually on the Vision Pro, you’d need to separate yourself from it; you’d cover your eyes with the VR headset to boot up the camera and start recording. It also wouldn’t let you relive any memories that happened while you didn’t have the $ 3,499 (around £2,800 / AU$ 5,300) headset on hand to record – and given the price of the Vision Pro it doesn’t strike us as something you want to carry with you everywhere.

Man using Apple Vision Pro to record a Spatial Video, his hand is on the headset holding down a button.

We don’t want to record Spatial Video memories like this… (Image credit: Apple)

The iPhone 15 Pro solves both of these issues. While recording spatial video on your iPhone you can still be present in the moment and experience it for real as it happens – not just through a recording – and you’ll almost always have your phone on you to be able to capture memories as they happen.

The feature won’t be live when the new iPhones launch, but Apple noted that Spatial Video recording would be coming in the near future (we expect it will arrive before or just as the Vision Pro releases).

More than USB-C charging changes

Another announcement from the iPhone 15 event is that Apple is launching an updated AirPods Pro 2 with a USB-C charging case – to match the USB-C charging port now used by the iPhone 15 models. Interestingly, this charging change isn’t the only upgrade coming in the refresh of Apple's noise-cancelling earbuds.

For a start, the revamped buds have a new IP54 dustproof and water-resistant label (the previous iteration just had an IPX4 rating, suggesting its dust resistance wasn’t tested). More importantly, just for Vision Pro users, these earbuds will support a “groundbreaking wireless audio protocol” that unlocks 20-bit, 48 kHz Lossless Audio for the Apple headset. This means you can enjoy your Apple Vision Pro experiences in private and with high-end audio (higher quality than you can get from your AirPods Pro connected to even the latest iPhones) by slipping in a pair of USB-C AirPods Pro 2.

AirPods Pro 2 in their case which is open in front of a white box with an Apple logo on it

(Image credit: unsplash)

Weirdly, this upgrade seems to be exclusive to the new AirPods. Older AirPods Pro 2 charged via a Lightning cable don’t seem to offer this high-end audio quality with the Vision Pro. So if you only recently bought a pair of AirPods Pro 2 you might want to return them and pick up the USB-C model instead when the new model releases on September 22, if the Vision Pro is something you're remotely interested in.

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You might soon be able to sneak into a Microsoft Teams call silently

Some Microsoft Teams users will soon be able to join calls without other attendees knowing as part of a system-wide security update.

The video conferencing platform is set to receive a new feature that allows select Teams users to access meetings in higher-level cloud tiers, such as those used by government agencies, without needing to go through repeated checks.

An entry on the official Microsoft 365 roadmap, entitled “anonymous meeting join across clouds”, notes how commercial Teams users will be able to smoothly enter meetings in a number of different workspaces and groups, all the way up to Department of Defense (DOD) level in the US.

Anonymous Microsoft Teams

Currently, anyone without a Microsoft Teams account is able to click on a Teams invite link to dial into a call and be shown as an anonymous participant, but this upgrade will now mean more high-level users will also now be able to utilize the function too. 

The roadmap entry goes on to describe how the feature will allow users to, “join meetings in other clouds anonymously from your Teams desktop app”, mentioning not just DOD meetings, but also Government Community Cloud (GCC) calls.

The change will allow Commercial Microsoft Teams users to join GCC and DoD meetings with just a normal meeting link, with the same being true the other way around. Following the update, meeting hosts will be able to control who can enter the actual meeting.

Microsoft says the feature is rolling out now, and it will be enabling the feature in three phases, with Commercial and GCC customers the first to be able to join meetings in “GCC-High” and DOD clouds. 

Next, GCC-High customers will be able to join Commercial, GCC and DOD meetings – and finally, DOD customers will be able to join Commercial, GCC, and GCC-High meetings.

The news comes as Microsoft continue to improve and refine Teams as more and more workers return to the office or embrace hybrid working.

Recently, Microsoft revealed that users will soon be able to add apps built for Microsoft Teams across Office.com and the Office app for Windows, meaning there's now no need to switch between platforms in order to use specific apps.

The company is also working on a new feature that will let users run apps built for Microsoft Teams within its Outlook email service.

Microsoft Teams continues to go from strength to strength, with the latest figures from the company showing that the service now boasts over 270 million monthly active users.

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