From Virtual Monitors to Virtual Apps

Richard Pruitt

— 4 min read

For the last year, “VR for work” has mostly meant pinning a giant virtual monitor in your space and remoting into a Mac or PC. It works, but it’s a workaround. The real leap isn’t ultra-wide windows; it’s native-feeling, device-powered apps that run as VR windows inside visionOS and AndroidXR, while still being driven by the best compute for the job (Mac, iPhone, iPad, ChromeOS, Android, or cloud).

Here’s the model: instead of a single floating desktop, you connect to your device fleet and get a universal launch bar plus a virtual “Desktop” folder. You pick the app you want, choose which device should drive it, and the app appears as a first-class VR window, resizable, pinnable, sharable, without hauling around an entire remote screen.

Why this beats virtual displays

1) Less bandwidth, less latency, more battery.
Streaming a 6K desktop is wasteful when you only need the pixels for one app. App-surface streaming reduces encoding load, improves sharpness (app renders once, not via screen capture), and cuts motion-to-photon jitter.

2) Real window semantics.
The XR system can manage z-order, occlusion, shadows, and focus per app. That means better multi-app layouts, per-app permissions, compositing optimizations, and true spatial pinning.

3) Accessibility and input fidelity.
Instead of “mouse on a TV,” the XR runtime maps eyes/hands/voice to the app’s semantic controls. Switch control, voice dictation, and large-text modes become app-aware.

4) Security you can reason about.
App-scoped permissions and device attestations beat “entire desktop inside one opaque video stream.”

The user experience

  • Connect: Put on your headset; it auto-discovers your signed-in devices (Mac, iPad, iPhone, Android, ChromeOS, cloud VMs).
  • Launch Bar: One place to search and launch applications, not machines.
  • Unified Search: Type “Numbers” or “Spotify.” If the app exists on multiple devices, you see one result with a device chooser. Default logic picks the best host (performance, battery, proximity, licensing).
  • Desktop Folder: A virtual folder mirrors your desktop files across hosts so you can drag a file onto any running app surface.
  • Pin & Share: Pin windows in your space. Invite a colleague to view or co-control that one app surface, no need to share your whole desktop.

In the AVP (Apple Vision Pro) world, the search bar should span visionOS + macOS + iOS, and app launch chooses the device that will drive the session. If an app exists across platforms (e.g., Spotify), you see one “Spotify”.

The technical blueprint

This is the “how it actually works” layer, portable across visionOS and AndroidXR.

1) App Surface Protocol

A low-latency stream carrying:

  • Scene or surface frames (ideally vector or subview layers where possible; bitmap fallback allowed)
  • Input events (gaze, gesture, keyboard, voice actions)
  • Accessibility semantics (role, label, hint; hit-test tree)
  • State diffs (cursor, selection, notifications)

Think “remote app,” not “remote desktop.”

2) Host Device Broker

On macOS/iOS/Android/ChromeOS:

  • Attested session (device identity, MDM status, key exchange)
  • App container that renders to an off-screen surface
  • Policy engine: which apps are exposable, what data can cross, DLP rules
  • Codec ladder for XR (alpha channel, foveated regions, variable refresh, HDR if available)

3) XR Runtime Integration

On visionOS/AndroidXR:

  • Native window objects that receive the app surface
  • Compositor that honors depth, occlusion, shadows
  • Input router translating gaze/gesture/voice into the app’s semantic events
  • System search index merges local apps + remote-launchable apps
  • Per-app entitlement prompts (camera, mic, file scope) rather than “trust this whole machine”

4) Unified Search & De-duplication

  • Global index with app IDs normalized across platforms (bundle IDs ↔ package names ↔ web app manifests)
  • Deduping heuristics (show one “Spotify” unless user expands “More options”)
  • Best-host selection (GPU/CPU score, network RTT, battery, licensing)
  • User override (pin a preferred host per app or per context)

5) File & Clipboard Bridges

  • Typed clipboard (rich text, images, structured objects) with policy checks
  • Scoped file pickers so an app surface can open files from the virtual Desktop folder without mounting entire filesystems

6) Collaboration

  • Share a surface (view-only or co-edit) with watermarking and content-aware redaction
  • Presence & cursors for multi-user sessions
  • Enterprise controls (recording indicators, retention policies, audit events)

Running non-native apps as if they were native

This is the killer feature: pin and run apps that aren’t built for visionOS or AndroidXR with full fidelity, like they’re native windows. The host renders the app, the XR client displays the surface, and you get eye/hand/voice control mapped back to real UI elements. For some app classes (web, Electron, Qt), host-side accessibility trees can be proxied so XR can highlight and snap to real controls.

Result: Apps can live inside VR without waiting for every vendor to ship a visionOS/AndroidXR build, like Youtube and Instagram.

Apple vs. Android: the platform paths

Apple (visionOS + macOS + iOS):
Apple already ships “Mac Virtual Display.” The next step is App Relay: per-app surfaces from Mac/iPad/iPhone appearing as visionOS windows with Spotlight-driven launch and per-app entitlements. Tight integration makes unified search across devices natural, and deduping (“one Spotify”) clean.

AndroidXR + ChromeOS: the competitive unlock.
Google’s edge is the breadth of Android + the rise of ChromeOS in the enterprise. To win in VR at work, AndroidXR needs first-class:

  • ChromeOS App Surfaces in XR (ARCVM-backed apps and PWAs remoted as XR windows)
  • Unified Play/Workspace search that includes Android + ChromeOS + PWAs + web apps
  • Workspace/MDM policies that govern which apps can be remoted and where data flows

I’m bullish on ChromeOS: its security model, fast boot, and web-first approach fit enterprise VR perfectly. Running ChromeOS applications inside AndroidXR is paramount, it gives Android the same “all-your-devices” coherence Apple will wield, but with the added advantage of PWAs and Google’s collaboration stack.

What IT & Security need

  • Device attestation & posture checks (MDM, OS version, disk encryption) before hosting or receiving surfaces
  • Per-app policies (allow lists, data residency, watermarking, recording controls)
  • Content classification hooks (DLP inside the encoder path)
  • Audit trails (who launched what, from where, with what data access)
  • Zero-trust brokering across identity domains (enterprise + personal devices with strict boundaries)

A phased rollout plan

  1. Single-user App Surfaces for core desktop apps (Office/Workspace, browser, Slack/Teams, design tools)
  2. Unified Search + Deduping across device fleet
  3. Clipboard & File Bridge with DLP policies
  4. Co-presence & Sharing for app surfaces (view → co-edit)
  5. Optimized Hand-Off (move a running surface between hosts seamlessly)
  6. Admin Controls & Analytics (experience quality, policy hits, top apps)

Bottom line

The future of office VR isn’t a giant floating monitor. It’s device-driven, app-scoped windows that feel native to visionOS and AndroidXR, secure, fast, and collaboration-ready. Apple can get there by letting visionOS host macOS/iOS apps as first-class surfaces via App Relay. Android can win big by making ChromeOS applications first-class citizens in AndroidXR, with unified search and enterprise-grade controls.

Give people a launch bar, a universal Desktop folder, and the power to pin any app, native or not, and VR finally becomes the best place to work, not just a clever place to mirror a screen.

Read more