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Apple iPhone Spatial Video Arrives in Beta and Looks Amazing on Vision Pro

I tried the new iPhone 15 Pro camera feature on Apple’s upcoming AR-VR headset. The 3D is undeniably vivid.

I’m looking at a plate of sushi hovering in front of me in 3D. The chef finishes off toppings on yellowtail rolls and tuna, talking to me as she works. It looks vivid. It looks real. The amazing part is that I just shot this video myself, moments earlier, on an iPhone 15 Pro. And now it’s a VR experience I’m watching in beautiful 3D on Apple’s Vision Pro headset.

I swipe with my fingers and watch other ghostly videos Apple provided. Families in a home, walking through grass. Cuddling together. All in lifelike 3D. I feel like I’m peeking in on their lives, which is weird and intimate. But the vividness is undeniable.

I’m experiencing Apple’s new Spatial Video iPhone camera feature, now available in Apple’s new iOS 17.2 public beta, with the final version rolling out in 17.2 later this year. It allows you to record 3D videos, but to use it you’ll need Apple’s best phone, the $1,000 iPhone 15 Pro. And to watch the videos in 3D you’ll need the $3,500 Vision Pro headset, which launches early next year. 

The videos look great and the 3D is compellingly realistic. They’re also easy to record, and can save as videos that will play back in 2D in a normal video format. But ultimately this feature is made for a 2024 product that, at $3,500, it’s safe to say most people won’t buy anytime soon. Still, the experience is impressive.

Vision Pro impressed me once again

I first used the Vision Pro at Apple’s WWDC conference in June, and once again I’m reminded of its extraordinary display capabilities. Photos and video look fantastic on Apple’s headset. I’d even venture to say the Vision Pro beats any display I have anywhere in my home right now. Yes, I’d want to look at videos and photos — 3D and otherwise — if I had a Vision Pro. 

My second dive into the Vision Pro, complete with fitted prescription lenses that matched my needs, reminds me how much smaller the headset was than I remembered. And also, how effortless the interface is. 

Setting up eye tracking was a rapid process; I looked at dots around a circle and tapped them. I also tried a new set of zoom gestures, pinching my fingers and stretching them to expand photos. The gesture works with eye tracking, so wherever I looked, the image expanded. It felt like telepathy. I got to look through a few test photos in the Photos app, and play back photos in Memories. After having used a Quest 3 recently, Apple’s passthrough cameras and display resolution are on another planet.

Panoramic photos were a surprise. They opened up and wrapped around me, felt like windows into other places — almost 3D, in fact. And spatial videos look nice, too. Their 3D, almost ghostly playback quality feels like it’s aiming for an immersive memory more than a straight-up video playback. But I found some limits even in my brief demo of the experience.

Unfortunately, there aren’t any captures of what I saw or recorded here: the photos are all ones Apple provided, so you’ll have to just follow along and read about my experience.

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Spatial videos on iPhone 15 Pro: How they work

Spatial videos need to be recorded by holding the phone horizontally. The iPhone 15 Pro uses its main and ultrawide cameras side-by-side in landscape mode to create the 3D video. It records two 1080p, 30fps videos at once, resolving the lens and distance differences with computational photography. The file is saved in HEVC format, similar to other Apple video files, with a storage size of about 130MB a minute. That’s not too bad, likely because the files are limited to that relatively low 1080p and 30fps resolution and framerate. 

Spatial video clips can be shared via Messages or AirDrop, but there could be cases where files are compressed down in other apps, losing the 3D data. Still, the video clips should be usable anywhere as an everyday video file, which is great news for anyone who wondered (myself included) whether you’d have to choose a «special» 3D video format.

You do have to toggle Spatial Video mode on, either inside Apple’s Camera app settings or with a Vision Pro-mask-shaped toggle in the Camera app itself. That limits your video resolution and frame rate, and also means you have to shoot in landscape. Sorry, no 3D vertical videos.

The camera app makes recommendations on turning the camera sideways, and staying a certain distance from a subject. I was told to stay within 3 to 8 feet of what I was shooting for a good spatial video, but when I shot my test recording of someone making sushi at a table I got up closer and it looked perfectly fine. I also recorded in a well-lit room, but apparently the spatial video recording mode prevents adjustments on brightness and contrast, which means low-light recording may end up grainier than normal videos.

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How will spatial video evolve or be edited?

There’s no API for Apple’s 3D HEVC video format, which means the files are not designed so that third-party apps can recognize them yet. But it’s possible app developers will figure out some sort of a solution. Also, it’s disappointing that there’s no other way to view the videos in 3D than on a Vision Pro. 

The stereo 3D recording theoretically sounds like a process that could be adapted for other VR headsets like the $500 Meta Quest 3. It’s straightforward stereo video, and doesn’t use lidar or depth sensing for any sort of full-movement spatial capture. Unfortunately that’s not currently in Apple’s plans.

There’s no recording limit on the videos, so you could theoretically make a spatial video 3D feature-length film. But the clips will only be able to be trimmed, either in the iPhone or Vision Pro. Final Cut Pro, Apple’s video editing software, will get Spatial Video editing support, but not until sometime next year. Meanwhile if you do end up trying to edit these video files in a Mac or iOS video editor, they’ll end up being converted over into 2D-only files.

It’s also a tiny bit disappointing that the videos can’t be recorded in 4K resolution. Apple’s Vision Pro headset has astounding quality and resolution, which became clear once again as I looked at iPhone photos in the headset and zoomed in on them, or viewed panoramic photos in a wraparound mode that made it feel like I was in a vivid immersive recreation of a location, similar to a 360-degree photo. The spatial videos look really nice, but I felt the desire to see them in more fluid 60fps, 4K or both. Maybe someday.

Memories for a 3D future

Apple often seems like it’s trying to become not just a lifestyle, but a memory company. Automated photo collections are already called «Memories.» And that’s how 3D spatial videos feel on Vision Pro: hazily bordered, like digital recollections in some Minority Report or Bladerunner future. It reminded me, too, of some of the immersive 3D realism I had using Google’s real-time 3D light field conversations in Project Starline, but in this case I was just watching videos.

Apple’s choice to frame the spatial videos in a fuzzy sort of frame makes it look more like the videos are almost holographically being cast into the room, and the edges sort of dissolve a bit. But I’d love to see a way for the videos to have a standard frame around them, too.

Apple’s spatial video format shows up in a new category of its own on the Photos app, and won’t show up in Memories yet. Maybe this new spatial video tab in Photos becomes the go-to repository for new 3D experiences. Right now, Apple isn’t allowing 3D spatial photos on the iPhone 15 Pro, just videos, although the Vision Pro can capture photos itself. But Apple’s clearly aiming for everyone to hopefully start recording in the format before the headset arrives, building a library of capable videos.

That means you’ll have to remember to toggle spatial video on, and care to use it. Future Vision Pro owners will have that feature toggled on by default on the iPhone 15 Pro, but that’s a tiny portion of iPhone owners. I’ll be turning it on, because I want to see what my videos will look like next year on a Vision Pro. But unless you’re planning on buying a Vision Pro yourself, there’s little reason to record spatial video now, even though it’s possible, someday way down the road, you might regret not shooting that birthday party footage in 3D. I’m already thinking about I shot video footage at my niece’s bat mitzvah last week, and what it would have been like if I could see it in 3D, too. That new spatial video camera toggle is already playing on my future FOMO.

I Took 600+ Photos With the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max. Look at My Favorites

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Technologies

The Future’s Here: Testing Out Gemini’s Live Camera Mode

Gemini Live’s new camera mode feels like the future when it works. I put it through a stress test with my offbeat collectibles.

«I just spotted your scissors on the table, right next to the green package of pistachios. Do you see them?»

Gemini Live’s chatty new camera feature was right. My scissors were exactly where it said they were, and all I did was pass my camera in front of them at some point during a 15-minute live session of me giving the AI chatbot a tour of my apartment. Google’s been rolling out the new camera mode to all Android phones using the Gemini app for free after a two-week exclusive to Pixel 9 (including the new Pixel 9A) and Galaxy S5 smartphones. So, what exactly is this camera mode and how does it work?

When you start a live session with Gemini, you now how have the option to enable a live camera view, where you can talk to the chatbot and ask it about anything the camera sees. Not only can it identify objects, but you can also ask questions about them — and it works pretty well for the most part. In addition, you can share your screen with Gemini so it can identify things you surface on your phone’s display. 

When the new camera feature popped up on my phone, I didn’t hesitate to try it out. In one of my longer tests, I turned it on and started walking through my apartment, asking Gemini what it saw. It identified some fruit, ChapStick and a few other everyday items with no problem. I was wowed when it found my scissors. 

That’s because I hadn’t mentioned the scissors at all. Gemini had silently identified them somewhere along the way and then  recalled the location with precision. It felt so much like the future, I had to do further testing. 

My experiment with Gemini Live’s camera feature was following the lead of the demo that Google did last summer when it first showed off these live video AI capabilities. Gemini reminded the person giving the demo where they’d left their glasses, and it seemed too good to be true. But as I discovered, it was very true indeed.

Gemini Live will recognize a whole lot more than household odds and ends. Google says it’ll help you navigate a crowded train station or figure out the filling of a pastry. It can give you deeper information about artwork, like where an object originated and whether it was a limited edition piece.

It’s more than just a souped-up Google Lens. You talk with it, and it talks to you. I didn’t need to speak to Gemini in any particular way — it was as casual as any conversation. Way better than talking with the old Google Assistant that the company is quickly phasing out.

Google also released a new YouTube video for the April 2025 Pixel Drop showcasing the feature, and there’s now a dedicated page on the Google Store for it.

To get started, you can go live with Gemini, enable the camera and start talking. That’s it.

Gemini Live follows on from Google’s Project Astra, first revealed last year as possibly the company’s biggest «we’re in the future» feature, an experimental next step for generative AI capabilities, beyond your simply typing or even speaking prompts into a chatbot like ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini. It comes as AI companies continue to dramatically increase the skills of AI tools, from video generation to raw processing power. Similar to Gemini Live, there’s Apple’s Visual Intelligence, which the iPhone maker released in a beta form late last year. 

My big takeaway is that a feature like Gemini Live has the potential to change how we interact with the world around us, melding our digital and physical worlds together just by holding your camera in front of almost anything.

I put Gemini Live to a real test

The first time I tried it, Gemini was shockingly accurate when I placed a very specific gaming collectible of a stuffed rabbit in my camera’s view. The second time, I showed it to a friend in an art gallery. It identified the tortoise on a cross (don’t ask me) and immediately identified and translated the kanji right next to the tortoise, giving both of us chills and leaving us more than a little creeped out. In a good way, I think.

I got to thinking about how I could stress-test the feature. I tried to screen-record it in action, but it consistently fell apart at that task. And what if I went off the beaten path with it? I’m a huge fan of the horror genre — movies, TV shows, video games — and have countless collectibles, trinkets and what have you. How well would it do with more obscure stuff — like my horror-themed collectibles?

First, let me say that Gemini can be both absolutely incredible and ridiculously frustrating in the same round of questions. I had roughly 11 objects that I was asking Gemini to identify, and it would sometimes get worse the longer the live session ran, so I had to limit sessions to only one or two objects. My guess is that Gemini attempted to use contextual information from previously identified objects to guess new objects put in front of it, which sort of makes sense, but ultimately, neither I nor it benefited from this.

Sometimes, Gemini was just on point, easily landing the correct answers with no fuss or confusion, but this tended to happen with more recent or popular objects. For example, I was surprised when it immediately guessed one of my test objects was not only from Destiny 2, but was a limited edition from a seasonal event from last year. 

At other times, Gemini would be way off the mark, and I would need to give it more hints to get into the ballpark of the right answer. And sometimes, it seemed as though Gemini was taking context from my previous live sessions to come up with answers, identifying multiple objects as coming from Silent Hill when they were not. I have a display case dedicated to the game series, so I could see why it would want to dip into that territory quickly.

Gemini can get full-on bugged out at times. On more than one occasion, Gemini misidentified one of the items as a made-up character from the unreleased Silent Hill: f game, clearly merging pieces of different titles into something that never was. The other consistent bug I experienced was when Gemini would produce an incorrect answer, and I would correct it and hint closer at the answer — or straight up give it the answer, only to have it repeat the incorrect answer as if it was a new guess. When that happened, I would close the session and start a new one, which wasn’t always helpful.

One trick I found was that some conversations did better than others. If I scrolled through my Gemini conversation list, tapped an old chat that had gotten a specific item correct, and then went live again from that chat, it would be able to identify the items without issue. While that’s not necessarily surprising, it was interesting to see that some conversations worked better than others, even if you used the same language. 

Google didn’t respond to my requests for more information on how Gemini Live works.

I wanted Gemini to successfully answer my sometimes highly specific questions, so I provided plenty of hints to get there. The nudges were often helpful, but not always. Below are a series of objects I tried to get Gemini to identify and provide information about. 

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Technologies

Today’s Wordle Hints, Answer and Help for April 26, #1407

Here are hints and the answer for today’s Wordle No. 1,407 for April 26. Hint: Fans of a certain musical group will rock out with this puzzle.

Looking for the most recent Wordle answer? Click here for today’s Wordle hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands puzzles.


Today’s Wordle puzzle isn’t too tough. The letters are fairly common, and fans of a certain rock band might get a kick out of the answer. If you need a new starter word, check out our list of which letters show up the most in English words. If you need hints and the answer, read on.

Today’s Wordle hints

Before we show you today’s Wordle answer, we’ll give you some hints. If you don’t want a spoiler, look away now.

Wordle hint No. 1: Repeats

Today’s Wordle answer has no repeated letters.

Wordle hint No. 2: Vowels

There is one vowel in today’s Wordle answer.

Wordle hint No. 3: Start letter

Today’s Wordle answer begins with the letter C.

Wordle hint No. 4: Rock out

Today’s Wordle answer is the name of a legendary English rock band.

Wordle hint No. 5: Meaning

Today’s Wordle answer can refer to a violent confrontation.

TODAY’S WORDLE ANSWER

Today’s Wordle answer is CLASH.

Yesterday’s Wordle answer

Yesterday’s Wordle answer, April 25,  No. 1406 was KNOWN.

Recent Wordle answers

April 21, No. 1402: SPATE

April 22, No. 1403: ARTSY

April 23, No. 1404: OZONE.

April 24, No. 1405: GENIE

What’s the best Wordle starting word?

Don’t be afraid to use our tip sheet ranking all the letters in the alphabet by frequency of uses. In short, you want starter words that lean heavy on E, A and R, and don’t contain Z, J and Q. 

Some solid starter words to try:

ADIEU

TRAIN

CLOSE

STARE

NOISE

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Technologies

T-Mobile Adds New Top 5G Plans, T-Satellite and New 5-Year Price Locks

The new top unlimited plans, Experience More and Experience Beyond, shave some costs and add data and satellite options.

Just two years after expanding its lineup of cellular plans, T-Mobile this week announced two new plans that replace its Go5G Plus and Go5G Next offerings, refreshed its prepaid Metro line and wrapped them all in a promised five-year pricing guarantee. 

To convert more subscribers, the carrier is also offering up to $800 to help customers pay off phone balances when switching from another carrier.

In a briefing with CNET, Jon Friar, president of T-Mobile’s consumer group, explained why the company is revamping and simplifying its array of mobile plans. «The pain point that’s out there over the last couple of years is rising costs all around consumers,» Friar said. «For us to be able to bring more value and even lower prices on [plans like] Experience More versus our former Go5G Plus is a huge win for consumers.»

The new plans went into effect April 23.

With these changes, CNET is already hard at work updating our picks for Best T-Mobile Plans, so check back soon for our recommendations.

More Experiences to define the T-Mobile experience

The top of the new T-Mobile postpaid lineup is two new plans: Experience More and Experience Beyond.

Experience More is the next generation of the Go5G Plus plan, which has unlimited 5G and 4G LTE access and unlimited Premium Data (download speeds up to 418Mbps and upload speeds up to 31Mbps). High-speed hotspot data is bumped up to 60GB from 50GB per month. The monthly price is now $5 lower per line than Go5G Plus.

The Experience More plan also gets free T-Satellite with Starlink service (the new name for T-Mobile’s satellite feature that uses Starlink’s constellation of satellites) through the end of 2025. Although T-Satellite is still officially in beta until July, customers can continue to get free access to the beta starting now. At the start of the new year, the service will cost $10 per month, a $5 drop from T-Mobile’s originally announced pricing. T-Satellite will be open to customers of other carriers for the same pricing beginning in July.

The new top-tier plan, Experience Beyond, also comes in $5 per line cheaper than its predecessor, Go5G Next. It has 250GB of high-speed hotspot data per month, up from 50GB, and more data when you’re traveling outside the US: 30GB in Canada and Mexico (versus 15GB) and 15GB in 215 countries (up from 5GB). T-Satellite service is included in the Experience Beyond plan.

However, one small change to the Experience plans affects that pricing: Taxes and fees, previously included in the Go5G Plus and Go5G Next prices, are now broken out separately. T-Mobile recently announced that one such fee, the Regulatory Programs and Telco Recovery Fee, would increase up to 50 cents per month.

According to T-Mobile, the Experience Beyond rates and features will be «rolling out soon» for customers currently on the Go5G Next plan.

The Essentials plan is staying in the lineup at the same cost of $60 per month for a single line, the same 50GB of Premium Data and unlimited 5G and 4G LTE data. High-speed hotspot data is an optional $10 add-on, as is T-Satellite access, for $15 (both per month).

Also still in the mix is the Essentials Saver plan, an affordable option that has ranked high in CNET’s Best Cellphone Plans recommendations.

Corresponding T-Mobile plans, such as those for military, first responders and people age 55 and older are also getting refreshed with the new lineup.

T-Mobile’s plan shakeup is being driven in part by the current economic climate. Explaining the rationale behind the price reductions and the streamlined number of plans, Mike Katz, president of marketing, innovation and experience at T-Mobile told CNET, «We’re in a weird time right now where prices everywhere are going up and they’ve happened over the last several years. We felt like there was an opportunity to compete with some simplicity, but more importantly, some peace of mind for customers.»

Existing customers who want to switch to one of the new plans can do so at the same rates offered to new customers. Or, if a current plan still works for them, they can continue without changes (although keep in mind that T-Mobile earlier this year increased prices for some legacy plans).

Five years of price stability

It’s nearly impossible to think about prices these days without warily eyeing how tariffs and US economic policy will affect what we pay for things. So it’s not surprising to see carriers implement some cost stability into their plans. For instance, Verizon recently locked prices for three years on their plans.

Now, T-Mobile is building a five-year price guarantee for its T-Mobile and Metro plans. That pricing applies to talk, text and data amounts — not necessarily taxes and other fees that can fluctuate.

Given the uncertain outlook, it seems counterintuitive to lock in a longer rate. When asked about this, Katz said, «We feel like our job is to solve pain points for customers and we feel like this helps with this exact sentiment. It shifts the risk from customers to us. We’ll take the risk so they don’t have to.»

The price hold applies to new customers signing up for the plans as well as current customers switching to one. T-Mobile is offering the same deals and pricing to new and existing subscribers. Also, the five-year deal applies to pricing; it’s not a five-year plan commitment.

More money and options to encourage switchers

The promise of a five-year price guarantee is also intended to lure people from other carriers, particularly AT&T and Verizon. As further incentive, T-Mobile is offering up to $800 per line (distributed via a virtual prepaid Mastercard) to help pay off other carriers’ device contracts. This is a limited-time offer. There are also options to trade in old devices, including locked phones, to get up to four new flagship phones.

Or, if getting out of a contract isn’t an issue, T-Mobile can offer $200 in credit (up to $800 for four lines) to bring an existing number to the network.

Four new Metro prepaid plans

On the prepaid side, T-Mobile is rolling out four new Metro plans, which are also covered by the new five-year price guarantee:

• Metro Starter costs $25 per line per month for a family of four and there is no need to bring an existing number. (The cost is $105 the first month.)

• Metro Starter Plus runs $40 per month for a new phone, unlimited talk, text and 5G data when bringing an existing number. For $65 per month, new customers can get two lines and two new Samsung A15 phones. No autopay is required.

• Metro Flex Unlimited is $30 per line per month with autopay for four lines ($125 the first month) with unlimited talk, text and 5G data.

• Metro Flex Unlimited Plus costs $60 per line per month, then $35 for lines two and three and then lowers the price of the fourth line to $10 per month as more family members are added. Adding a tablet or smartwatch to an existing line costs $5. And streaming video, such as from the included Amazon Prime membership, comes through at HD quality.

See more: If you’re looking for phone plans, you may also be looking for a new cell phone. Here are CNET’s picks.

The Pixel 9A’s Design: Google Takes Minimalism to the Extreme

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