9to5mac:

Personas launched in beta when the Vision Pro first debuted, and it was easily one of the most criticized features. Apple’s first attempt at Personas was a technical marvel in some ways, but for many it felt too close to the uncanny valley.

visionOS 26, however, graduated the feature out of beta and was a remarkably lifelike upgrade.

“Uncanny valley” doesn’t quite explain just how bizarre and awkward the first version of Personas were. I didn’t have a single conversation with someone as my Persona that didn’t start with an exclamation or gasp. The difference in visionOS 26 is exponential.

And regarding the Dual Knit band: It has finally made Vision Pro comfortable for me. I tried many different options in the past (two Solo Kit bands with 3D-printed attachment points, Globular Cluster, the Belkin Head Strap), and nothing allowed me to use AVP for more than an hour or so without pain in my cheeks, nose and forehead.

Apple never should have shipped Vision Pro without this Dual Knit band to begin with, but I’m just glad it exists today. I can wear AVP for hours comfortably now.

• Sigma BF — “An uncompromising new vision for the digital camera. […] The BF balances performance with simplicity and returns the focus to what matters most: your photographs.” Solid block of aluminum, simple controls, please stop me from pre-ordering it.
• Daredevil: Born Again — The long-ago-cancelled Netflix Daredevil series was terrific and I was quite sad when it ended. I really hope the current Marvel team can bring this show back with the same depth and soul and not turn it into more of the mess the current MCU is dishing out.
• Pieoneer — An extremely playful yet focused macOS utility for spawning a radial menu to launch apps, task switch or run shortcuts.
• Croissant — Between Bluesky, Mastodon and, to a lesser extent, Threads, the current giant expanse of social media systems requires either focusing on one network and ignoring the others, or tedious cross-posting. Thankfully, Croissant makes cross-posting trivial and works on both iOS and macOS.

• Flow — Beautifully animated and quite moving, Flow was wonderful. Took the kiddos over the weekend and we loved it. The film is entirely without dialogue and yet succeeds to tell a moving story, and the animal behavior was captured perfectly. This is really a special film and I highly recommend it.
• NORCO — “A Southern Gothic point & click narrative adventure that immerses the player in the sinking suburbs and verdant industrial swamps of a distorted South Louisiana.” Visually stunning.
• Indiana Jones and the Great Circle — Spent a thoroughly enjoyable several hours muttering “it should be in a museum!” to myself while bashing in the skulls of fascists with brooms and candlesticks and anything else I could find, so, yeah, good game so far.
• Pageboy — “Build a static site from plain HTML, no templating or command line required.” Tiny app that lives in your menubar and spins up a static website for you. This is a simple, great little tool.

• Dot — “The AI that grows with you.” I’ll admit I’m extremely bearish on AI assistants, so it was with a heavy dose of skepticism that I installed and tried Dot, but I was pleasantly surprised by the kind, supportive tone and interesting conversations I’ve had in the past few weeks. One downside is that currently Dot is iOS-only, which means you cannot continue interactions on macOS. This will change with Sequoia in the fall, when it’s possible to mirror iPhone to your Mac. Consider the experiment ongoing…
• Tuneshine — I’m such a sucker for bespoke, purpose-driven hardware ideas, especially when they involve a combination of software and funky displays. Tuneshine lights up your room with the album artwork from the songs you listen to, with support for various music services including Apple Music. It’s like a digital record album cover on the shelf in my office.
• Record Club — Speaking of music, I’m super excited about Record Club, the self-proclaimed “Letterboxd but for music”. I’ve missed the early-aughts days of eMusic and Rdio when I could easily discover new music from friends and strangers. Record Club seems like the perfect fit. Invitations are rolling out slowly, but I’m looking forward to the site growing rapidly over the coming months.
• Still Wakes the Deep — “December 1975. Disaster strikes the Beira D oil rig off the coast of Scotland.” While Still Wakes the Deep doesn’t exactly set out on a unique path to its horror—you’ll find a fairly typical “something went wrong and now everything is falling apart” setup at play here—walking the path is immersive and disturbing. Where it is most successful is in its narrative, vocal performances and gorgeous visuals, which come together to elevate that which might have otherwise been a simple, rote horror into something poetic, heartbreaking and moving.