Cinema (Apple Vision Pro)

On Apple Vision Pro, the Cinema puts the app on a big screen inside a search and rescue comms tent, a ham shack or a fire lookout. Open it with the tent button in the round glass menu under the app's tab bar. The app's window closes while you're in the tent and comes back when you leave.

The screen

The screen on the tent's front wall shows the app. The tabs above it are the app's own: Messages, Nodes, Map, Settings and Connect. It opens on Connect. Sheets, menus and dialogs that would pop up over the app open as pages beside the screen instead. Things that only work in the app's window, like sharing or saving a file, show an Open in App Window button in their place. While the radio is locked down or needs a firmware update, the screen says to continue in the app window.

The 3D map

The 3D spatial map opens in front of you when you enter, at its largest size. If you close it, Open 3D Map on the control panel brings it back.

Radio models

On a node's details, the AR button on the radio's 3D model stands the model on a clear stand in front of you, at real size. Pinch it to pick it up and turn it over; let go and it goes back on the stand. The card beside it shows the node's name, when it was last heard, its battery, signal and hops. Pinch the bar under the stand to move it; the stand, the model and the card turn to face you wherever it goes, like the card on the 3D map. The X on the card puts the model away. Outside the tent, the AR button places the model in the room around you instead.

For the radio you're connected to, the model shows its screen live, the same picture as the Device Screen view. The card then has a size slider, from real size up to five times it so the screen is easy to read from the seat, and the radio's buttons: four directions around OK, with Back underneath.

Boards

Fire lookout

The third place is a fire lookout: a glass cab on a tall tower on a summit at sunset, looking out over forested ridges, with its storm shutters propped open as awnings all round, the screen hanging in the front windows, the team whiteboard in a bay on the left and the trace route print in one on the right, with the view all round them.

If you've downloaded terrain for the 3D map, the view out the windows can be the real thing. The control panel's Summit picker lists up to ten of the highest mountains in the downloaded area, highest first, with how far each is from your radio and which way. Pick one and the cab stands on it, with the terrain around it out every window, lit by the same sunset. Every node with a position is marked out the windows where it really is from there, by bearing and distance: its round chip on a stem over the spot. Where markers would cover each other, some stand on taller stems so each node keeps its own; only where there's no room left do nodes share one marker, with how many there are on it. A node behind the screen or a board is out of sight.

Tap a marker to open its card beside it, so you don't have to turn to the screen: the node's name, how far away it is and its bearing, its altitude, when it was last heard, its battery, signal and hops. Show on Map centers the 3D map on the node, and Show on Screen opens its details on the screen. A marker that stands for several nodes lists them first; pick one to see its card. The card opens beside the marker as you see it, at reading distance; pinch the bar under it to move it. Tap the marker again, or the card's close button, to close it. Forest sunset puts the forest view back.

While the cab stands on a summit, the 3D map shows the lookout there too: the cab on its braced timber tower, facing the way the screen does. If a node stands on the same summit, the lookout stands just beside it.

Control panel

The tent also closes when you leave the app.