Apple Hiring Junior Engineer to Help Develop “a 3D Mixed-Reality World”

Intriguing new job opening from Apple for a AR/VR Network Engineer stating “In this role you will work closely with other developers and build tools and frameworks to enable connected experiences in a 3D mixed-reality world.”

I found the job listing via this Bloomberg story which interprets it in the broadest way possible:

The most interesting job listing is one that specifically calls out the development of a 3D mixed-reality world, suggesting that Apple is working on a virtual environment that is similar to the metaverse—though don’t expect Apple to embrace that term. Its marketing chief said at a recent event that metaverse is “a word I’ll never use.”

It’s definitely interesting, but as with previous rumors of Apple about to go big on a mixed reality Metaverse and XR headsets, I’m still curbing my enthusiasm:

For one, this is very much a junior role, asking for “at least 2 years of experience” in several overlapping criteria. For another, it’s focused on content for ARKit and Metal2, graphics tools/hardware in Apple’s iPhone/iPad devices. I don’t doubt Apple has several VR and XR headset projects in R&D, but it’s still hard for me to see any reason for them to launch any of them anytime soon. 

All that said, looks like a great job opening for a qualified person. Which probably includes any engineer who’s worked in iPhone game development for at least a couple years.