From what I gather the distance between the left and right lens will be less than an inch. Technically it’s still stereo, but don’t get your hopes high.

They didn't say much about it but hopefully they can infer enough to do a good job. You can already do mildly ok fake depth maps from a single image. I also would like to know if this is going to be somehow locked down to Apple Vision or a format we could use in a Quest3 or other VR headset.

They have depth with the LIDAR sensor as well - so I wonder if that enables them to pull of some trick to make it more convincing.

It’s more about the difference in magnitude of the lenses. This also gives you depth information when combined.

a 360 camera , or at least the ability to take 360 photos easily would make a bigger difference

180 camera makes more sense at this stage. 360-degree cameras on a phone would be weird when recording with the phone in hand. It would be better on a tripod, but I think Apple is trying not to complicate it unless professionals want it.