Cover of This Issue

In this issue’s cover, we share Lay’s League of Legends Streaming Platform - Spatial UI Concept.

Foreword

A thousand readers may have a thousand interpretations of the same news. Similarly, a thousand viewers may have a thousand Hamlets in their eyes.

Recently, many people may have been drawn to a piece of news: Apple is sharply scaling back production of Vision Pro. Some are worried, thinking this signals Apple is about to abandon Vision Pro.

In fact, whether through cross-verification with other information or through communication with industry insiders, we can clearly see one result: the information is true, but the interpretation may not be quite right.

On one hand, the high price has led to Vision Pro sales not exceeding 500,000 units (estimated at around 400,000 units). Based on normal business considerations, it is very normal for Apple to adjust production capacity.

On the other hand, according to an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Cook also mentioned that Vision Pro and Apple Intelligence are Apple’s major bets on the future, and Apple’s goal is “Not first, but best,” so the investment in the Vision product line should not decrease. Cook also stated that the price of Apple Vision Pro means it is not a mass-market product but an early adopter product, targeting customers who want to have tomorrow’s technology today. This also shows that Apple has a long-term plan for Apple Vision Pro and does not hope for the first-generation product to be an instant hit.

Interestingly, a news report in 2023 mentioned that Sony could provide an annual production capacity of 900,000 units for Apple Vision Pro, supporting sales of 450,000 Vision Pro units. This number is basically in line with the current sales volume. From this perspective, could it be said that Apple Vision Pro’s sales are actually meeting expectations? 👀

Even more interesting is when this news appeared on Reddit:

The netizens quickly gave their interpretations:

So, don’t worry, let the dust settle for a while. Additionally, in this issue of XR World Weekly, we have a new friend joining us—Menhera, let’s give a warm welcome 👏!

News

Tim Cook Visits China Again

Last week, Tim Cook visited China again, marking his second visit this year (the first was in March). During his last visit, the Apple Vision Pro had not yet been officially released in China.

This time, Cook’s itinerary included:

• Government Level: Meeting with Jin Zhuanglong, Minister of Industry and Information Technology, to discuss Apple’s investment and innovation plans in China; meeting with Wang Wentao, Minister of Commerce, to discuss Apple’s business development in China and China-U.S. economic and trade relations.
• Business Level: Meeting with China Mobile Chairman Yang Jie, meeting with Weibo CEO Wang Gaofei, and attending the NBA Peak Duel mobile game event.
• Media Level: Meeting with well-known musician Chace, well-known musician Lexie Liu, renowned photographer Chen Man, and Olympic women’s diving champion Shi Tingmao.

It seems that during this visit, the landing of Apple Intelligence in China and the landing of Apple’s official Vision Pro immersive video in China are important topics in Cook’s eyes.

Cisco Announces Cisco Spatial Meetings for Apple Vision Pro

Cisco announced that it will launch Cisco Spatial Meetings for Apple Vision Pro. Specifically, Cisco will use its existing Room Bar Pro to allow Apple Vision Pro users to conduct meetings in spatial video form.

PICO OS Released New Version 5.12.0

Last week, PICO pushed the latest PICO OS 5.12.0 version. The highlight of this version is the multi-mode interconnection extension. With this feature, you can directly operate the phone mirror in PICO, which is an effective supplement to the inability to operate the phone while wearing a headset. Coupled with the previous multi-window mechanism, PICO is one step closer to being a “productivity tool.” (Currently, the Android version of PICO is available after granting permissions, while the iOS version is still awaiting new version approval.)

Other feature updates include:

• Full-screen multi-window experience optimization
• Player supports perspective mode viewing, windows can be placed freely
• Browser supports opening multiple windows simultaneously
• Added support for Bluetooth keyboards
• Spatial album, VST visual effects optimization
• Optimized body tracker, gesture, and controller interaction recognition accuracy

PICO Releases Optimized Version of Unity Universal Render Pipeline for XR Development

Recently, addressing some issues with the official Unity URP rendering pipeline, PICO released a forked version of the URP rendering pipeline for XR development, providing improvements such as Bloom optimization, shadow optimization, adaptive resolution bug fixes, and Shadergraph multi-view bug fixes. For more details, you can check the official documentation (Chinese, English).

Tool

PRISMXR Charging Dock for Vision Pro: A Dock for Charging and Placing Vision Pro

Recently, I came across this PRISMXR Charging Dock, which is quite interesting. In addition to the placement function that ordinary docks have, it also creatively designed a USC-C adapter. You can directly plug it into the Vision Pro’s battery, and then the adapter with contacts touches the contacts on the dock to charge the Vision Pro directly.

Model Viewer: PlayCanvas glTF Viewer

Model Viewer is a glTF viewer based on PlayCanvas. You can directly load glTF files and view the model effects through this viewer.

Recently, this tool has been upgraded to version 5.0, adding support for the Gaussian splash format (PLY), supporting sky dome rendering, and this tool is open source. You can find its source code on Github.

Article

Lab 007 – Anchor an Attachment to a Hand

In this article, author Joseph Simpson shows us how to achieve a hand-following effect on Apple Vision Pro. Instead of directly using ARKit’s interface, a simpler implementation method is used: directly using AnchorEntity (a new feature in visionOS 2.0).

Video

Blender+Runway Gen 3+VR Creation Video

Martin Nebelong (@MartinNebelong) is using AI-generated image planes, moving them with @freebirdxr, and running them through Runway Gen 3. By using a headset for camera recording, it greatly reduces the complexity of virtual scene camera control, allowing for recording and camera movement as in real space.

SnapAR’s Spectacles Glasses Real-World Perception Capability Demonstration

Arthur Bouffard (@arthurbfrd) shared footage of AR glasses Spectacles performing real-time spatial scanning mesh grid construction and gesture physical interaction effects. As an OST solution AR glasses, this effect is quite impressive.

Immersive Filmmaking for the Apple Vision Pro - What are the Challenges? CineD Focus Check Ep35

In this podcast recording video, CineD invited Christoph Tilley from MXR Production to talk about the challenges encountered when creating immersive videos for Apple Vision Pro and how to solve these problems.

For example, the first problem is that Apple does not provide an immersive video player exactly like Apple TV, so they had to find someone to develop a player to view the effects of their recorded immersive videos (they actually found the author of POV Explore).

Code

Meta’s Interaction SDK Supports Unreal and More Platforms via Unity XR on Unity

Recently, in the latest version of Interaction SDK v69, Meta added support for the Unreal engine. By removing the dependency on Meta XR Core SDK, Meta Interaction SDK can support more devices based on Unity XR and Unity XR Hands.

Interaction SDK mainly provides support for interactions like grabbing and gesture interactions in the XR world at a relatively high level.

Combined with the 031 issue where we mentioned Meta Horizon UI Set, it can be seen that Meta is becoming more open to developers and increasingly focusing on cross-platform support.

App

Batman: Arkham Shadow

Finally, Batman: Arkham Shadow has officially launched. As a major game title supporting the Quest 3 series (only playable on the Quest 3 series, and new Quest 3/3s users can play for free), its game quality is quite impressive. In less than a week, it has received a high score of 4.7 from over 1700 players.

Idea

A Demo Presenting Video Lists Using Maps and Directions

mechpil0t demonstrated a YouTube search/browse demo based on maps running on Apple Vision Pro.

This demo uses the YouTube API to place geotagged YouTube videos on Cesium 3D map tiles, and selecting a video opens it in the browser.

Flying a Helicopter in the Living Room

Eternal Starlight VR (@e_starlight_vr) shared a prototype of a helicopter battle made with Quest3. It feels like these toy-oriented designs are a great direction for MR, allowing for interaction with the space without having to tidy up the room.

Cloning a Virtual Plant

Spectacles (@Spectacles) shared the effect of scanning and cloning a real plant using Scaniverse. You can directly import the Gaussian splash model scanned by Scaniverse into Spectacles AR glasses.

Job

[Beijing] FunFitLand - Vision Pro Development, Backend Development, Art, Planning, Product Manager

FunFitLand is actively recruiting talent, with key positions including:

• Senior Apple VisionPro Development Engineer (🔥🔥🔥)
• VR Product Manager (🔥🔥🔥) CEO personally leads (internship/full-time welcome)
• VR Game Planner (🔥🔥🔥) CEO personally leads (internship/full-time welcome)
• UI Designer (🔥🔥🔥)

Contributors of This Issue

Onee

Menhera

Siqi