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Apple embraces WebXR, but not for the devices you own

Baby steps

Welcome to Lowpass, a newsletter about the future of entertainment and the next big hardware platforms, including smart TVs, ambient computing and AR / VR. This week: Apple’s embrace of WebXR, and nine in ten TV households are now streaming.

Apple embraces WebXR for its Vision Pro headset

When Apple unveiled its Vision Pro headset this week, it also confirmed that the device will be supporting a widely-embraced immersive web standard: Safari on Vision Pro will be able to run web-based AR, VR and mixed reality experiences via WebXR, meaning that users of the headset will be able to switch from 2D websites to truly immersive 3D experiences without having to download any additional apps.

This announcement was met with excitement from the immersive web community. Meta VR Web Platform Engineering Manager Dave Hill called it “fantastic news,” Google Chrome developer Brandon Jones tweeted that he was “very, very glad” about this development, and Foveate co-founder Ian Petrarca called it a “huge win for open web standards.” “I kinda can't believe this happened,” he added.

However, there’s one major caveat: WebXR support is only being added to the headset, with hundreds of millions of mobile devices being left out in the cold.

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