Cursor data on VisionOS

I'm afraid eye tracking information isn't currently available at all, regardless of the immersion level of your app. When creating an app in the mixed space, Apple handles eye tracking for you (but it's abstracted away), but when creating a fully immersive app you get nothing. So you'll need to come up with an alternative mechanism of input, for example using a game controller to manipulate an onscreen cursor.

It's a shame, and is the biggest limitation of the system right now IMO.

The sensor data are processed internally by system. The processing results are provided via DataProvider.

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/arkit/dataprovider

We have two alternatives to eye-tracking in visionOS:

• Use the device's 6DoF information (DeviceAnchor). The screen center is the default gazing point.
• Use the hand-tracking (HandAnchor). The direction of your arm or index finger will provide a ray.

ARKitSession - DataProvider - Anchor.

I hope this helpful.

To help protect people’s privacy, visionOS ARKit data is available only when your app presents a Full Space and other apps are hidden.

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/visionos/setting-up-access-to-arkit-data

Your device (iPhone, iPad, Vision Pro), hands, and fingers are visible to others, and there are fewer privacy issues. But the directions of your eyeballs are virtually invisible to others, potentially leading to privacy issues.

To protect people's privacy, data are selectively shared with developers.

Data provided to iOS/iPadOS developers but not to visionOS developers:

• ARPointCloud
• ARDepthData
• Body data
• Geo-reference data
• Image sensor data stream
• ...

Data provided by visionOS to developers via DataProvider:

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/arkit/dataprovider

• MeshAnchor
• PlaneAnchor
• DeviceAnchor
• WorldAnchor
• HandAnchor
• ImageAnchor.

Data NOT provided to developers by either visionOS or iOS/iPadOS:

• LiDAR range point data
• Eye tracking data.

Under given conditions, we like to draw a ray pointing a digital content in space. Of course, eye-tracking data would be the first choice but not accessible for developers.

Alternatives to eye tracking data are DeviceAnchor and HandAnchor.

visionOS includes internally the hovering-framework for matching the ray of DeviceAnchor or HandAnchor (and eye-tracking) with a digital content in space.

It would be great if Apple made the hovoring API available to developers. How to identify the digital content in the scene that is closest to the device and next to the device's line of sight.