After working on the Vision Pro, this AR veteran is going back to phones
A former Apple Vision Pro developer has pivoted to mobile-first AR, arguing that smartphones are superior to headsets for interactive AR experiences due to better social shareability and lower barriers to adoption. This signals a strategic challenge to spatial computing investments, as on-device AI increasingly enables sophisticated AR experiences on ubiquitous devices, potentially limiting enterprise VR/XR headset use cases to specialized applications. IT organizations should reassess their extended reality strategies to prioritize mobile AR capabilities alongside or instead of headset deployments, as developer talent and market momentum are shifting toward smartphone-based solutions.
This is Lowpass by Janko Roettgers, a newsletter on the ever-evolving intersection of tech and entertainment, syndicated just for The Verge subscribers once a week. When Mark Drummond was working on the Vision Pro at Apple, he had a bit of an epiphany that didn't really fit Cupertino's preferred narrative. Drummond was managing the Character Intelligence Team, which among other things built the Encounter Dinosaurs demo. Preinstalled on the Vision Pro, the demo puts viewers eye to eye with interactive prehistoric creatures. "We built that with Jon Favreau," Drummond says, referring to Apple's long-standing partnership with the Mandalorian … Read the full story at The Verge.