by Jason Snell
Disney+ Vision Pro app adds Iceland environment
Disney+ has been at the forefront of offering unique environments on its Vision Pro app, so you can watch movies at Avengers Tower or on the Monsters Inc. Scare Floor. On Monday, the company is rolling out another one: Iceland! In conjunction with Disney-owned National Geographic, the new Disney+ environment is based on imagery from Thingvellir National Park in Iceland. In the daytime view, snowflakes fall around the rocky mountain scene. In the nighttime view, there’s a spectacular aurora above you.
According to Disney, the immersive environment was built from high-resolution 3D models captured on-site, as well as gigapixel panoramas, captured by National Geographic. Then Disney Entertainment and ESPN Technology took it across the finish line.
In addition, Disney has announced the addition of four more 3D movies to the Disney+ app: the first two “Avengers” and “Ant Man” films. This joins a fairly large collection of 3D movies already in the app, including several added over the months since Vision Pro first launched.
I think environments may be one of the very best features of the Vision Pro. It’s great that Disney has gone to the trouble of building so many—and a shame that they can only be appreciated inside the Disney+ app. I hope Apple is working on some sort of system that would allow apps like Disney+ to contribute environments to the entire system. Getting some writing done in Iceland as the snow falls would be a nice change of pace from my time among the rocks at Joshua Tree.