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6 new things we’ve learned about the Apple Vision Pro as its first video ad lands
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We've had quite the wait for the Apple Vision Pro, considering it was unveiled back in June at Apple's annual WWDC event. Yesterday we finally got the news that the Vision Pro will be going on sale on Friday, February 2, with preorders open on Friday, January 19 – and some other new bits of information have now emerged, alongside its first video ad (below).

As Apple goes into full sales mode for this pricey mixed reality headset, it's answering some of the remaining questions we had about the device, and giving us a better idea of what it's capable of. Considering one of these will cost you $ 3,499 (about £2,750 / AU$ 5,225) and up, you're no doubt going to want all of the details you can get.

Here at TechRadar we've already had some hands-on time with the Vision Pro, and checked out how 3D spatial videos will look on it (which got a firm thumbs up). Here's what else we've found out about the Vision Pro over the last 24 hours.

1. Apple thinks it deserves to be in a sci-fi movie

Take a look at this brand new advert for the Apple Vision Pro and see how many famous movies you can name. There's a definite sci-fi angle here, with films like Back to the Future and Star Wars included, and Apple clearly wants to emphasize the futuristic nature of the device (and make strapping something to your face seem cool rather than nerdy).

If you've got a good memory then you might remember that one of the first adverts for the iPhone also made use of short clips cut from a multitude of films, featuring stars such as Marilyn Monroe, Michael Douglas, and Steve McQueen. Some 16 years on, Apple is once again using the power of the movies to push a next-gen piece of hardware.

2. The battery won't last for the whole of Oppenheimer

Apple Vision Pro

(Image credit: Apple)

Speaking of movies, you're going to need a recharge if you want to watch all of Oppenheimer on the Apple Vision Pro. Christopher Nolan's epic film runs for three hours and one minute, whereas the Vision Pro product page (via MacRumors) puts battery life at 2.5 hours for watching 2D videos.

That's when you're watching a video in the Apple TV app, and in one of the virtual environments that the Vision Pro is able to conjure up. Interestingly, the product page text saying that the device could run indefinitely as long as it was plugged into a power source has now been quietly removed.

3. The software is still a work in progress

Apple Vision Pro on a person's head

Preorders for the Vision Pro open this month (Image credit: Apple)

Considering the high price of the Apple Vision Pro, and talk of limited availability, this doesn't really feel like a mainstream device that Apple is expecting everyone to go out and buy. It's certainly no iPhone or Apple Watch – though a cheaper Vision Pro, rumored to be in the pipeline, could certainly change that dynamic somewhat.

With that in mind, the software still seems to be a work in progress. As 9to5Mac spotted in the official Vision Pro press release, the Persona feature is going to have a beta label attached for the time being – that's where you're represented in video calls by a 3D digital avatar that doesn't have a bulky mixed reality headset strapped on.

4. Here's what you'll be getting in the box

Apple Vision Pro

(Image credit: Apple)

As per the official press release from Apple, if you put down the money for a Vision Pro then you'll get two different bands to choose from and wrap around your head: they are the Solo Knit Band and the Dual Loop Band, though it's not immediately clear what the differences are between them.

Also in the box we've got a light seal, two light seal cushions, what's described as an “Apple Vision Pro Cover” for the front of the headset, an external battery back, a USB-C charging cable, a USB-C power adapter, and the accessory that we've all been wanting to see included – an official Apple polishing cloth.

5. Apple could release an app to help you fit the headset

Two hands holding the Apple Vision Pro headset

(Image credit: Apple)

When it comes to fitting the Apple Vision Pro snugly to your head, we think that Apple might encourage buyers to head to a physical store so that they can be helped out by an expert. However, it would seem that Apple also has plans for making sure you get the best possible fit at home.

As spotted by Patently Apple, a new patent filed by Apple mentions a “fit guidance” system inside an iPhone app. It will apparently work with “head-mountable devices” – very much like the Vision Pro – and looks designed to ensure that the user experience isn't spoiled by having the headset badly fitted.

6. There'll be plenty of content to watch

A person views an image on a virtual screen while wearing an Apple Vision Pro headset.

(Image credit: Apple)

Another little nugget from the Apple Vision Pro press release is that users will be able to access “more than 150 3D titles with incredible depth”, all through the Apple TV app. Apple is also introducing a new Immersive Video format, which promises 180-degree, three-dimensional videos in 8K quality.

This 3D video could end up being one of the most compelling reasons to buy an Apple Vision Pro – we were certainly impressed when we got to try it out for ourselves, and you can even record your own spatial video for playing back on the headset if you've got an iPhone 15 Pro or an iPhone 15 Pro Max.

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The Discord mobile app has 4 new upgrades we’ve all been waiting for
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Today Discord is rolling out some much-needed updates to its mobile app which might finally make it feel like a proper alternative to the desktop version.

While I’ve had Discord installed on my phone for years I only ever turn to it as a last resort. It has been sluggish, more than a bit clunky, and was overall a less reliable experience than the version on my PC. Nine times out of ten a different app would be a better option. That might be about to change though, thanks to some improvements the Discord team has been working on with help from the community.

Speaking of which, if you’ve been trying out the experimental build of Discord, you might find some of the updates are familiar – that’s because today’s update is finally rolling the fine-tuned upgrades out to everyone. So now all mobile Discord users can take advantage of the app's new features which should improve load times, extend your phone's battery life, and use your data package more efficiently. 

More to come 

Alongside the updates highlighted below, Discord has a few more mobile app improvements up its sleeve that are set to arrive in the (hopefully near) future. This includes better search filters for finding the exact message or post you’re after, giving you more control over how compact lists and messages appear so that they suit your preferences, and adding a quick access option to see a server’s member list.

But let's get into the features you can take advantage of right now.

Discord icon on phone screen with logo on blurry background, Illustrative Editorial

Update your discord app today to see the improvements (Image credit: Shutterstock / Postmodern Studio)

Faster, more efficient chatting

The best upgrade to the Discord app is that it now opens much more quickly – with the new version reducing app opening times by 43% on iOS and 55% on Android. What’s more, when you hop between servers the mobile app now uses four times less data so you can hop between conversations without eating into as much of your monthly limit.

Android users should also notice the software is more reliable. Over the past year, the team says they’ve cut the crash rate by half for people using Android phones and tablets.

Midnight dark mode is here 

A screenshot of the new black Midnight Mode on Discord Mobile

A proper dark mode is finally here (Image credit: Discord)

Second on my list of Discord upgrades is that the app finally has a proper dark mode. Discord’s old Dark mode just wasn’t dark enough, but thankfully it now has Midnight mode that hits the mark by making menus black – with it not only adding some subjective style but also offering reduced battery drain on phones with an OLED display. 

By tapping on your profile picture, then the Settings cog wheel, you can scroll down to see your app’s Appearance settings. From here, tap Theme and you can now select Midnight (or the other free Dark and Light themes), or perhaps one of the funky color options if you pay for Nitro.

Media sharing simplified 

If you’re looking to share snaps via a DM or in your server’s picture chat, everything should feel a lot more organized.

With this new update, Discord mobile gained the ability to send images and videos as a neatly packed gallery that you could swipe through without having to scroll through a huge trail of images in the main chat. 

This should help to keep your conversations clearer, without losing the ability to share fun snaps or clips.

Cleaner call UI

A screenshot of the new leaner call UI on Discord Mobile

The call UI isn’t massively different, but feels better (Image credit: Discord)

Last but not least, the voice and video call user interface has been redesigned to offer a more intuitive and “cozy” space when you’re on a call while out on the go. It's also now a little more seamless to jump into one of Discord's inbuilt games with other members of the call, based on our experience with the experimental build. 

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Fed up with Microsoft’s default apps bloating Windows 11? We’ve got some good news
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Windows 11 is set to give you the option to remove more of its default apps if you wish to streamline the operating system a bit.

The ability to uninstall more of these so-called ‘inbox apps’ (or core applications) is present in the latest preview build (25931) which has been released in the Canary channel (Microsoft’s earliest test builds).

As of that build, you can now uninstall the default Photos app, People app, and Remote Desktop (MSTSC) client, as well as the Camera app (which you could already remove since preview builds in March, as The Verge, which spotted this, observes).

Furthermore, Cortana can now be dropped from Windows 11 following the official deprecation of the digital assistant, as we recently reported.

Cortana being swept away is part of preparing the ground for the arrival of the Windows Copilot AI – possibly later this year with the Windows 11 23H2 update – so that case is a little bit different.

Analysis: Expect more of this going forward

It’s useful to have the ability to trim away these default apps. Even though they aren’t huge in size, if you never use them, you can save a bit of storage space, and streamline your system in general. Also, you won’t have to look at pointless programs when scrolling through your lists of apps in Windows 11 menus.

It’s likely Microsoft will give users the choice to uninstall more of these core apps going forward, and you can already remove a fair few. Anything that isn’t system-critical should be fair game to be given the elbow in our book.

Build 25931 doesn’t do a huge amount elsewhere – it’s mainly about porting over features from the Dev channel – but there are some interesting tweaks, such as a change to Dynamic Lighting to allow you to match your Windows accent color with the RGB lights on the devices attached to your PC. Nifty.

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6 things we’ve learned about the Apple Vision Pro from the visionOS beta
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Apple has launched its first-ever beta for visionOS – the operating system the upcoming Apple Vision Pro mixed-reality headset will use – giving us a glimpse at what its new gadget should be capable of at launch.

As explained in the Apple Developer blog post making the announcement, the launch of the visionOS SDK will give developers the chance to start working on spatial computing apps for the Vision Pro. It will also help developers understand the Vision Pro's capabilities. Even better, the SDK provides a visionOS simulator so that developers can test out their 3D interface in a number of room layouts with various lighting conditions. And those tests have already revealed a number of details about what the Vision Pro will and won’t be able to do at launch.

This is only the first beta, and users are accessing the simulator via a PC rather than a headset – so expect some changes to be made to visionOS before it officially launches. With that said, here’s what we’ve learned so far about the Apple Vision Pro from the visionOS beta.

1. Visual Search is coming 

Visual Search is basically the Vision Pro’s version of Google Lens or the Visual Lookup feature found on the best iPhones and best iPads (via MacRumors).

A man wearing the Apple Vision Pro headset and pressing its shutter button to take a photo

You can use the Vision Pro to scan real-world objects and text (Image credit: Apple)

According to info found in the visionOS beta, Vision Pro headset wearers will be able to use the headset’s cameras to find information about an item they scan and to interact with real-world text. This includes copying and pasting the text into Vision Pro apps, translating it between 17 supported languages, and converting units (like grams to ounces, or meters to feet). This sounds pretty neat, but unless you’re wearing your Vision Pro headset all the time while traveling abroad or baking with a recipe we aren’t too sure how often you’ll rely on these features.

2. The OS is intuitive 

While not the most flashy feature, intuitive OS design and windows management in 3D space will be crucial for the Vision Pro. The idea of having loads of software windows floating around us seems neat – it'd be like we’re a real-world Tony Stark – but if it's a pain to position them how we want, it’ll be easier to stick with a traditional PC and monitor.

Thankfully, it looks like it’s super easy to move, resize, and hide app windows in Vision Pro, as shown off by @Lascorbe on Twitter.

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The video also shows that you aren’t moving the apps on a fixed cylinder around you; you can take full advantage of the 3D space around you by bringing some windows closer while moving others further away – and even stacking them in front of each other if you want. While dragging a window it’ll turn translucent so you can see what’s behind it as you decide where to position it.

3. Porting iOS to visionOS is easy 

According to developers (like @lydakisg on Twitter) that have started working with visionOS, it’s incredibly easy to port iOS apps over to the new system – so many of the best iPhone apps could be available on the Vision Pro at launch. 

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This is great news for people that were worried that the Vision Pro might not have an app library comparable to the Quest Store found on Meta’s VR headsets like the Meta Quest Pro.

The only downside is that the ported iOS apps appear in a floating window as they would on a Mac rather than being a fully-fledged immersive experience. So while your favorite appears can easily appear on the Vision Pro, they might not take advantage of its new tech – at least not without the developers spending more time working on a dedicated visionOS version.

4. Battery percentages return 

Battery percentages are a sore spot for many iPhone users. When the iPhone X was released over five years ago it changed the battery status symbol – the percentage disappeared and only a steadily emptying symbol of a battery remained. While this symbol does give a visual indication of how much charge your phone has left, it’s not always as clear as a number; as such, it's been a constant request from iPhone users for Apple to bring back battery charge percentages – which it did with iOS 16 when the iPhone 14 launched.

A woman wears the Vision pro in front of a menu showing a battery icon that has no number inside of it

The Vision Pro trailer shows a battery icon with no percentage (Image credit: Apple)

Unfortunately, a brief section of Apple’s Vision Pro intro video showed us that the Vision Pro might make the iPhone X’s mistake by using a battery status symbol without a number.  

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Thankfully for fans of Apple’s more accurate battery symbol, users like @aaronp613 on Twitter have found that battery percentages do show up on Vision Pro. It’s not a massive win, but an important one for a lot of people. 

5. Apps can use unique control schemes 

The visionOS beta not only gives developers tools to create their own Vision Pro apps and to port their existing iOS software to the system; they’re also given details, sample code, and videos showing off the kinds of projects they could create for the upcoming Apple hardware.

One such game is Happy Beam, a video of which has been shared on Twitter by @SwiftlyAlex.

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Happy Beam doesn’t look super interesting in and of itself – one Twitter commenter noted it looks like the sort of AR game you could play on the Nintendo 3DS – but it shows that the Vision Pro is able to recognize different hand gestures (like forming a heart) and translate them to different in-game controls. 

We’ll have to wait and see how developers use these capabilities in their creations, but we can already imagine a few possible implementations. For example, rather than using button prompts you could make a scissors gesture with your hand to cut images and text from one document, then clap your hands to paste it in a new spot.

It also appears that Apple is conscious that its headset should remain accessible. As shown in the Happy Beam demo, there are alternative controls that allow Vision Pro users to rely on simpler gestures or controllers to play the game – with it serving as a reminder to other developers to consider similar alternative control schemes in their software.

This gameplay video shared by @wilburwongdev on YouTube shows how the game changes when not using your hands.

6. Fitness apps are discouraged

One last tidbit that has been spotted not in the visionOS beta but in the developer guidelines for the operating system. In its guidelines, Apple says app makers should “avoid encouraging people to move too much” while immersed in the headset. The wording is a little vague, but it seems as if Apple is against the development of fitness apps for Vision Pro at this time.

One notable omission from the Vision Pro reveal trailer was that there were no fitness apps featured. Many people (some of our writers included) use VR headsets for working out, or even just getting a bit active. There’s Beat Saber and Pistol Whip for more gamified workouts, or FitXR and Litesport for more traditional fitness options. These developer notes make the omission seem more intentional, suggesting fitness and activities involving a lot of movement are not in Apple’s current plan for the Vision Pro. We’ll have to wait and see if this changes when the device launches.

Want to learn more about the Vision Pro? Check this round-up of 5 features Apple may have removed from the Vision Pro before it was even out.

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Microsoft shares some good Windows 11 news we’ve all been waiting for
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If you were worried that you’d have to wait a while before Windows 11 gets any major new features, then Microsoft has just shared some good news, which means the new operating system will get updated and improved far more regularly than first thought.

Microsoft had initially said that it would be only releasing a single annual feature update for Windows 11 each year, which led some people to worry that they would have to wait 12 months for new features to come to their PCs.

However, as ZDNet has discovered, in a new blog post about the Windows Insider program, Microsoft states that: “We will deliver updates to features and experiences in builds from the Dev and Beta Channels by releasing Feature, Web, and Online Service Experience Packs on top of these builds too.”

This means there will be three ‘Experience Pack’ updates alongside the annual feature updates. Rather than bringing a range of features, bug fixes and security upgrades across the whole of the Windows 11 operating system, as a major feature update does, these new Experience Packs will focus on adding or expanding features for particular aspects of the operating system.

So, Online Service Experience Packs will focus on adding features related to how Windows 11 manages online services and accounts – such as changing or improving the ‘Your Microsoft Account’ settings page.

Web Experience Packs will add features to do with browsing the internet, as well as features within Windows 11 that use the internet to bring you news and information. ZDNet spoke to Microsoft, which clarified that “the Web Experience Pack is updated through the Microsoft Store (while the Feature Experience Packs and Online Service Packs will be updated through Windows Update). The Web Experience Pack will allow Microsoft to update things like the Widgets experience in Windows 11.”

Finally, Feature Experience Packs will contain more broader features, such as updates to legacy apps to make them feel more modern.

Analysis: Keep the improvements coming

These new Experience Packs will be released independently of the annual major operating system updates, and this is good news for several reasons.

As we mentioned earlier, it means that you don’t have to wait a year for new features to be added. While in our Windows 11 review we said there’s a lot to like about the new operating system, it’s still not perfect. By having a regular new features coming to the operating system, Windows 11 will continue to evolve, while feeling fresh and exciting.

There’s another benefit as well. Microsoft’s move to single annual major updates for Windows 11 (and Windows 10, which is getting the same treatment) is a welcome move in many respects. It should reduce the number of times a user gets bugged to download, install and restart their PC. It’s also no secret that Microsoft has having some pretty major issues with recent Windows 10 updates. By focusing on a single update, there’s a hope that Microsoft will be able to ensure these updates are much better built and tested, hopefully reducing any potential problems.

However, if Microsoft kept all of its updates to a single download once per year, that could lead to very large and complex updates. By separating features to their own updates, this will reduce the size of the annual update.

Adding new features to an operating system is also fraught with complexities, and this is where issues sometimes arise. If a new feature is added that doesn’t work as expected – or ends up breaking other parts of the operating system – it should hopefully be easier for Microsoft to identify and fix if it’s part of a smaller Experience Pack update, rather than causing issues in a major annual update (which will also inevitably lead to bad PR).

So, this is good news from Microsoft regarding Windows 11. Hopefully the days of major issues after updating Windows are behind us.

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This AMD Ryzen notebook deal is probably the best we’ve ever seen
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We reviewers are used to obsessing over incremental technology changes, but every now and then a supernova appears on our radar – something that can single handedly change the status quo.

The AMD Ryzen 4000 family is one such supernova and promises to bring some of the best processing performance ever to laptops, at a price that defies logic.

When we first laid eyes on the Ideapad 5 15, it was immediately clear Lenovo is going for the jugular.

Available for as as little as £475 (roughly $ 590/AU$ 920), the IdeaPad is considered an entry level model, so we were delighted to see the AMD Ryzen 7 4700U making an emphatic appearance.

The laptop comes with 8GB of RAM and a 128GB SSD (M.2 2242, PCIe-NVMe, TLC) and, most importantly, you can swap out Windows 10 for FreeDOS (an MS-DOS equivalent).

You can also add a dummy hard disk drive for free, which means you can integrate a secondary 2.5-inch SSD at a later date.

It also features a 15.6-inch full HD TN display, which you can swap for a touch/non-touch superior IPS model for a small additional fee. 

Likewise, if your budget will allow, you can add a fingerprint reader, replace the 45Whr battery with a 57Whr model and exchange the Wireless 2×2 AC for a more advanced Wi-Fi 6 2×2 AX.

Note, the machine is not yet available in Australia or the US, but we've contacted Lenovo to find out when it will appear in non-European regions.

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