Apple and the Spatial Web: A Winding Path Towards a Bright Future

Two and a half years ago, I wrote a blog post titled "The Immersive Web and WebXR Matter More Than Ever". Well, now we've seen Apple's plans. Apple announced their Vision Pro headset, Safari is an application on it, and the WebXR API will be supported on it out of the gate.

Apple and the 3D Web

It is simply not easy to make sure Frame runs successfully from Safari on either desktop or mobile. In the area of "all things 3D on the web", it's pretty reliably bad.

Apple was five years late to support WebGL2 compared to Chrome, and their support of it is still woefully buggy and unreliable. Meanwhile, the next generation of WebGL, WebGPU, has already shipped in Chrome.

Apple Vision Pro and Spatial Safari

Skip to WWDC 2023. Apple revealed that Safari will indeed support the WebXR standard when the Vision Pro launches, and developers can create full 3D experiences that users can interact with using their hands via the WebXR hand-tracking API.

Because of this, Frame will be accessible on the Vision Pro at launch.

Impact

To be able to develop immersive experiences for it with WebXR means that the world of web developers will be able to target this extraordinary piece of hardware and make the next generation of spatial websites.

I've long thought that the web browser sort of IS the metaverse, or at least a huge part of it. It's the connecting platform for disparate worlds that users already know how to use.

We're excited to bring Frame to the Vision Pro headset through Safari.