Alibaba's DingTalk, miHoYo's Honkai: Star Rail among Chinese apps launching on Apple Vision Pro headset

DingTalk, the work collaboration platform run by Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding, has launched a native app for Apple's newly released Vision Pro headset, allowing users to send messages and hold video meetings in a three-dimensional virtual environment.

DingTalk is among hundreds of apps and mobile games that have become available on the visionOS store since Apple debuted its US$3,499 device in the US on Friday, the Chinese platform announced in a blog post on Sunday.

The Vision Pro version of DingTalk is equipped with special features, including options to display multiple windows and draw on the screen using hand gestures, according to the app. Alibaba is the owner of the South China Morning Post.

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DingTalk on visionOS also supports Persona, a Vision Pro feature that lets users create realistic avatars of themselves by scanning their faces, to be used in video calls. These avatars are designed to be digital representations of the users, recreating their facial expressions by tracking their movements in real time.

DingTalk supports Apple digital avatars known as Persona on the Vision Pro headset. Photo: Handout alt=DingTalk supports Apple digital avatars known as Persona on the Vision Pro headset. Photo: Handout>

DingTalk joins several Chinese apps that have announced support for Apple's new headset, which is currently available only in the US, although the Californian giant reportedly has plans to introduce the device to other markets later, including China.

The role-playing anime title was the third-highest grossing Chinese mobile game in the international market last year, behind Genshin Impact - another miHoYo game - and Tencent Holdings' PUBG Mobile, according to app analytics platform Sensor Tower.

Shanghai-based online travel service provider Trip.com - which also operates Ctrip, Qunar and Skyscanner - is also launching an app for the Vision Pro, which lets users watch panoramic videos featuring various travel destinations, including Mount Everest, Maldives, Antarctica and the Sahara.

The visionOS version of DingTalk allows users to see multiple windows at the same time. Photo: Handout alt=The visionOS version of DingTalk allows users to see multiple windows at the same time. Photo: Handout>

Ahead of the Vision Pro's release, some merchants in China last week were offering to ship the highly-anticipated gadget to buyers in the country willing to pay double the original price.

DingTalk said last month it reached 700 million users by the end of 2023, including 120,000 paying enterprises. The platform recently added an artificial intelligence (AI) agent function that aims to help users customise their workflow, as other Chinese Big Tech firms also rush to integrate AI functions into new and existing products.

DingTalk's mixed-reality app will face competition from a flurry of productivity apps available on the Apple headset. The US tech giant said last week that more than one million apps will eventually be compatible with the Vision Pro, 600 of them built specifically to take advantage of the device's unique spatial experience.

This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP's Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright © 2024 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.

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