Applications designed for a spatial user experience need an initial assessment of the level of immersion. For visionOS, this means targeting one of the following application types:

• Emulated iPad application

• 2D Spatial application (windows only)

• Immersive application (volumes and immersive spaces)

  • Spatial applications with 2D & 3D UI elements utilizing volumes, enabling applications to be displayed and used side by side
  • Fully immersive experiences, focusing the user experience on a single application and allowing a dedicated full space to be opened, where only the application’s content will appear.

An emulated iPad application requires little to no adjustments to its user interface. However, testing and validation efforts should be conducted to ensure the application behaves as expected. This is particularly important if the app includes custom UI behaviors or uses APIs that are not fully supported in visionOS (e.g., camera view).

If your application is built on Apple’s SwiftUI and primarily uses standard UI controls, transitioning to a 2D spatial application should be relatively straightforward. We recommend an iterative approach: get the application running on visionOS and then make design adjustments as needed. Apple's extensive guidelines and tutorials serve as a great starting point.