Apple VisionPro Reveal Features Metaverse Platform Rec Room as Playable App! Unity-Powered Roblox, VRChat, ZEPETO, Second Life, Etc. to Follow?

Screengrab via Rec Room’s Shawn Whiting

While Apple VisionPro may not be primarily targeted at or architected for VR/virtual world/Metaverse usage, it may still become an interesting niche peripheral for them. It looks like Apple very much knows and is preparing for that — evidenced by this intriguing screengrab from the WWDC reveal, showing VisionPro being used in the App Store’s premium Apps and Games We Love section. (See above.)

Top selection among those apps, even above Zoom: Rec Room, the highly popular, multi-device metaverse platform. 

This is very likely no accident, especially when the VisionPro presentation is the most highly anticipated and carefully prepared in all technology. Even more intriguingly, the screen grab was first posted on Twitter… by Rec Room head Shawn Whiting! With a sunglasses emoji no less:

😎 pic.twitter.com/uh3ywHzxf4

— Shawn Whiting (@ShawnRecRoom) June 5, 2023

I reached out to Shawn and will update this post if I get a reply. I’m not completely surprised, as Rec Room is already playable on iOS, and (to judge by its 556,000+ App Store user ratings), easily has well over 10 million active users on iPhones/iPads.

And that’s likely just the start: Another key part of the VisionPro reveal is the news that Apple is closely partnered with Unity the company to bring Unity-based apps to the HMD.

Most of the other leading metaverse platforms, including Roblox, ZEPETO, VRChat, and IMVU, are also powered by Unity. 

And as longtime readers know, Linden Lab has long been developing a Unity-based iOS app version of Second Life, while the community-created Crystal Frost project is porting Second Life to Unity.

All that to one side, VisionPro is still a $3499 headset, and its price is unlikely to be affordable to most consumer for nearly a decade. But as a powerful and valuable niche peripheral to the Metaverse? That’s definitely in the cards already.