Noticed a reference to PlayCanvas in an Apple WWDC video about spatial computing with the upcoming Vision Pro.
Is this anything to get excited about yet? Will it become more exciting later?
Link to video, go to 14:35 for the reference: Meet Safari for spatial computing - WWDC23 - Videos - Apple Developer
Hi @Bigcatrik,
One thing that stands out is that the Vision Pro will support WebXR which is huge for PlayCanvas. You can develop WebXR experiences in other headsets today (e.g. Oculus) and expect your content to work on the Vision Pro as soon as it launches and WebXR is enabled.
And given how easy the PlayCanvas editor makes development I expect more and more devs and studios using it.
Definitely exciting. WebXR is an easy (the easiest?) way to distribute XR experiences. It’s supported on Android phones and Meta headsets. The blocker has been Apple holding out on supporting WebXR on their devices.
Apple’s WebXR announcement is significant in that it means WebXR is a way to produce and distribute cross-platform XR experiences for both Meta and Apple headsets, as well as a large portion of mobile devices. This will be good for PlayCanvas, as it is a leader in web 3D, and it is well-positioned for the future of the web 3D ecosystem, such as with it’s support for WebGPU.
I’m not seeing an announcement about WebXR for iOS/iPadOS, but this post by WebKit is interesting because it says WebKit will continue collaborating with the WebXR team on the standard, which is still in draft form. I’m hoping this collaboration helps keep WebXR moving in the right direction, so that it becomes fully realized and widely supported.
I can confirm as of yesterday that I visited an Apple Store here in Santa Monica, and tried the Apple Vision Pro for 30 minutes. Either WebXR is not yet supported in the version of the headset currently in stores, or there’s some other JS function that triggers immersive mode in the version of Safari on their headset. One other possibility is that it’s a setting in the headset to enable / disable WebXR support, but I couldn’t access those settings myself (Apple does the demos and fully controls the experience).
One thing’s for sure: Compared to the Quest 3, the AVP is definitely “premium”, the displays are absolutely incredible in terms of pixel density, sharpness (quality of lens), and brightness. I compared for example with the same content (the 3D version of the latest Avatar movie), and while it looked decent on the Quest 3, it was absolutely incredible on the AVP. You’d of course expect this from a device that costs 7 times more than the Quest 3.
Finally, the AVP is massively more powerful than the Q3 in terms of processing power. I was getting max FPS in the experience we built, and I have no doubt the AVP would allow us to put way more objects in the scene before FPS starts to drop. I can’t wait for Apple to release a $999 headset because at that price level and quality of experience, I’m pretty sure it will be the device that tips the scales for AR/XR.
There are options in the Safari setting that need to be activated to get WebXR working on AVP currently. It’s not on by default. These settings were discovered pretty quickly, but I’ve seen recent posts on forums spreading this information so it still doesn’t seem to be generally known.
I went for a demo on launch day and, yes, it’s really great. I have PSVR1 and Quest 2, both of which I still find magical in their way, but if the Appple Vision Pro was a full MacOS device I would have had a hard time not whipping out my credit card right then and there. But since it’s more like an iPad in its OS I’ll have to see how things shake out.