ByteDance, the Chinese language firm greatest recognized for creating TikTok, acquired into the digital actuality sport when it bought the startup Pico in 2021. Now, Pico is taking its blended actuality (XR) efforts much more critically by constructing out software program that lets individuals use a number of functions in 3D digital workspaces. A lot of its options sound very very like what yow will discover within the Apple Vision Pro, two years after that machine launched.
At Mobile World Congress 2026 in Barcelona, Pico introduced its latest XR working system, Pico OS 6. The OS won’t work on the corporate’s present Pico 4 from 2022, however is aimed to deploy on Pico’s unreleased headset, nicknamed Challenge Swan. At MWC, Pico solely provided a lightweight spritz of details about its upcoming headset. However particulars about what options it plans to place in its OS provide a very good take a look at what Pico hopes to realize with its flagship machine, which it says will arrive this 12 months.
One of many massive focuses of the brand new working system model is what Pico calls PanoScreen, a characteristic that lets the wearer run a number of functions directly whereas additionally preserving a 360-degree view of the real-world area round them. Different customers can pop into the area as 3D avatars whilst you spin round to see spreadsheets, browser tabs, design software program, or no matter else you’re engaged on. “Pico OS 6 represents a step towards making XR a sensible computing software, not only a gaming machine,” the corporate says in its press launch. (WIRED requested for remark instantly, however Pico declined to reply any questions on its new OS or Challenge Swan.)
Spatial Race
If Pico’s 3D workspace focus feels acquainted, it’s in all probability as a result of Apple had a really comparable strategy when it launched its Apple Vision Pro headset in 2024.
“It is a little bit odd, their timing,” says Jitesh Ubrani, a analysis supervisor on the analyst group IDC. “The truth that they’re entering into the market in any respect additionally appears a little bit unusual.”
Pico will not be the one one engaged on XR workspaces. Sightful’s Spacetop glasses introduced spatial computing into the office in a manner that was extra approachable than the Apple Imaginative and prescient Professional, to not point out a lot simpler to put on than a cumbersome headset. In July 2025, The Data reported that Pico was engaged on a unique ultralight headset meant to go face-to-face with Meta’s Orion glasses, nevertheless it was ultimately canceled.
Like each face computer on the market, Pico’s upcoming flagship headset can be aiming to search out the fragile steadiness between usefulness and wearability. At its MWC occasion, Pico gave just a few hints about how which may pan out for Challenge Swan. Pico says the headset could have a micro-OLED show with a pixel density approaching 4,000 pixels per inch. It is going to additionally supposedly have a decision of 40 pixels per diploma (PPD) with a “heart candy spot” at round 45 PPD to assist learn all that tiny textual content in your floating spreadsheets.
These are specs which might be very near the Apple Imaginative and prescient Professional. To compete, Pico must make one thing cheaper and lighter, but additionally have builders constructing on its platform. (The Apple Imaginative and prescient Professional begins at $3,499.)
Pico OS 6 will work with developer toolkits like Spatial, OpenXR, and WebXR. It additionally permits for improvement in Unity and Unreal Engine. The OS has assist for Android apps, net apps, and PCVR streaming. WebSpatial, an open supply toolkit, lets customers develop their very own apps utilizing commonplace net instruments like HTML and CSS to create spatial computing companies. These apps can run cross-platform throughout Pico OS, Apple’s visionOS, and Android XR.
