If your clients can’t justify the expense of a custom Vision OS app, is there a more cost-effective approach? Yes, there is.
When Apple brings out a new product, people usually sit up and take note. Even though the majority of us won’t partake in the extravagance of these flagship devices, their mere existence does something to the market.
Look how many smartphones, watches, tablets and ear pods we see around us. Yes, the iPhone was a revolutionary internet device, but smart watches and tablets were around long before the iPad and Apple Watch hit the stores. They just didn’t become household items until Apple added them to their repertoire.
The goal wasn’t to bring out another Virtual Reality headset, destined to be pulled over the eyes of the world’s gamers. Apple wants you to invest in a companion; one that lives within their ecosystem and becomes as much a part of your life as your iPhone.
Spatial Computing is all about improving your productivity, wherever you are in the world, and Apple Vision Pro is just the start of it. By setting themselves apart from the gaming community, they dare to claim that their Vision OS is breaking new ground.
And so the eyes of the mainstream world start watching; as do those of other headset manufacturers.
Many years ago, Meta, the corporation that brought us Facebook, acquired Oculus, the company behind the Rift, a seminal VR headset. Today, it is no secret that Meta’s founder, Mark Zuckerberg wants to rule the Metaverse from behind the twin lenses of his best-selling product, the Meta Quest.
Since Apple’s release, which is not in direct competition with the Quest, Mr. Zuckerberg has publicly claimed that Meta’s headset is just as capable, if not better than the Vision Pro, and to add weight to this, his company has been busy pushing updates to their Horizon OS platform, where many similarities in both form and function are emerging. Additionally, the Horizon OS App Store, centred primarily around gaming, is seeing an increase in productivity software.
While Mark’s nose may seem a little put out by having a new player in town, I like to think of this as evidence that Apple are nurturing the grassroots without digging up the soil; though maybe disrupting it a little. An outcome which must be good for the whole industry.
Let’s get back to the original thought. How can we introduce the Apple Vision Pro to our clients in a positive and hopefully economical way?
We can do this by leveraging a technology that is compatible with both Vision OS and Horizon OS, while at the same time offering something to iPhone and Android users, and it’s been around for a very long time.
Virtual Reality on the web has been through a number of iterations, but its most recent incarnation, WebXR, is shaping up to be a decent multi-platform solution. Not only that, but it is freely available within frameworks that sit comfortably inside our favourite platforms, for example React, Angular or just plain HTML and Javascript.
By setting up the right permissions, it gives you access to hand gestures, controllers and room spaces, allows for VR and AR (Augmented Reality) experiences and can be served up from a website.
This makes development highly accessible, and allows you to easily integrate your own APIs, in addition to myriad other services, such as AI models, commerce and social media. Imagine a bookshelf appearing on your wall containing the latest bestsellers, a collaborative whiteboard in your study or your social media feed as graffiti on your bathroom wall!
According to Wikipedia, Google, Meta, Mozilla, Microsoft, Samsung and Apple all have skin in the game, and the specification discussions are publicly accessible on GitHub, so we’re likely to see support increase over time.
While the debut version of Vision OS doesn’t enable WebXR by default, a quick sift through the Safari settings presents you with an enable switch and then you’re good to go. Another annoyance is that Safari doesn’t currently support AR, but at the time of writing, the promise is that the forthcoming Vision OS 2 will address both these issues.
So, if you’re hesitant about getting your clients to buy into a dedicated Apple Vision Pro app, why not explore the worlds of Web XR, and offer them a whole multiverse of solutions instead.
Then invite them over, sit them down and blow them away with the clarity and richness of an Apple Vision Pro experience.
Or chuck a Meta Quest on their head and it’ll run on that too!
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