8 months ago
51 ARTICLE AD
Out of the box, Apple’s Vision Pro doubles as a 4K Mac virtual display, allowing you to extend an existing Mac desktop to the device’s spatial computing environment. A new app called Splitscreen takes things a step further, by allowing you to add a second macOS display to your Vision Pro — even if it uses a different Apple ID.
Such an app could prove valuable for multitaskers who want to use more than one Mac computer with their Mac Virtual Display in the Vision Pro — for instance, one for work and one for personal use. With Splitscreen, you can effectively create the feeling of having a multiple monitor setup, but inside the VR/AR environment.
The problem was not an easy one to solve, notes developer Jordi Bruin. However, the approach the app takes will allow the team behind Splitscreen to add more displays, settings, and other features soon after launching. Says Bruin on X, more granular controls, and a more stable connection are also in the works.
The app hails from indie developers, Mathijs Kadjik and Tom Lokhorst, who built an iPhone-to-Mac mirroring app Bezel, and Bruin, who offers a suite of utilities for iOS, along with other apps, like allergy scanner Soosee and health app PosturePal under the developer account Good Snooze.
Kadjik says they took their learnings from Bezel to help build Splitscreen along with Bruin.
At launch, Splitscreen will attempt to connect with the VisionPro over the best network that’s available to the two devices. Because performance can be impacted by several factors, the developers offer a 15-minute free session to test Splitscreen on your own network. This session can be reset after each use or, to remove the time limit, users can buy the app via a one-time in-app purchase of $20 (at least until the end of March.)
The app doesn’t work on Intel Mac, as it relies on the HEVC video codec to send over video data for the time being. A later update will add support for Intel Macs in the future, though. Currently, only one resolution (1920×1080) is supported, but the developers say they’re working on adding other options along with support for having more displays beyond the two it supports today.
