iOS Beta Adds 'Spatial Video' Recording. Blogger Calls Them 'Astonishing', 'Breathtaking', 'Compelling'

MacRumors writes that the second beta of iOS 17.2 'adds a new feature that
allows an iPhone 15 Pro or iPhone 15 Pro Max to record Spatial Video' — that is, in the immersive 3D format for the yet-to-be-released Apple Vision Pro (where it can be viewed in the 'Photos' app):

Spatial Video recording can be enabled by going to the Settings app, tapping into the Camera section, selecting Formats, and toggling on 'Spatial Video for âOEApple Vision ProâOE...' Spatial Videos taken with an âOEiPhone 15 ProâOE can be viewed on the âOEiPhoneâOE as well, but the video appears to be a normal video and not a Spatial Video.
Tech blogger John Gruber got to test the technology, watching the videos on a (still yet-to-be-released) Vision Pro headset. 'I'm blown away once again,' he wrote, calling the experience 'astonishing.'

'Before my demo, I provided Apple with my eyeglasses prescription, and the Vision Pro headset I used had appropriate corrective lenses in place. As with my demo back in June, everything I saw through the headset looked incredibly sharp...'
The Vision Pro experience is highly dependent upon foveated rendering, which Wikipedia succinctly describes as 'a rendering technique which uses an eye tracker integrated with a virtual reality headset to reduce the rendering workload by greatly reducing the image quality in the peripheral vision (outside of the zone gazed by the fovea)...' It's just incredible, though, how detailed and high resolution the overall effect is...

Plain old still photos look amazing. You can resize the virtual window in which you're viewing photos to as large as you can practically desire. It's not merely like having a 20-foot displayâ — âa size far more akin to that of a movie theater screen than a television. It's like having a 20-foot display with retina quality resolution, and the best brightness and clarity of any display you've ever used... And then there are panoramic photos... Panoramic photos viewed using Vision Pro are breathtaking. There is no optical distortion at all, no fish-eye look. It just looks like you're standing at the place where the panoramic photo was takenâ — âand the wider the panoramic view at capture, the more compelling the playback experience is. It's incredible...

As a basic rule, going forward, I plan to capture spatial videos of people, especially my family and dearest friends, and panoramic photos of places I visit. It's like teleportation... When you watch regular (non-spatial) videos using Vision Pro, or view regular still photography, the image appears in a crisply defined window in front of you. Spatial videos don't appear like that at all. I can't describe it any better today than I did in June: it's like watchingâ — âand listening toâ — âa dream, through a hazy-bordered portal opened into another world...

Nothing you've ever viewed on a screen, however, can prepare you for the experience of watching these spatial videos, especially the ones you will have shot yourself, of your own family and friends. They truly are more like memories than videos... [T]he ones I shot myself were more compelling, and took my breath away... Prepare to be moved, emotionally, when you experience this.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.