Apple is finally getting serious about VR on its Mac platform, announcing that it is working with Valve to bring SteamVR to Mac.
Apple’s executives hinted that more announcements would be coming related to VR during its developer conference, including VR workflows so creators can make VR content with the Mac.
There are a lot of VR developers out there who had moved to Microsoft-powered machines to dive deep into VR development, and today’s announcements should provide major incentive to dive back into the Apple ecosystem. Early on the Rift development kit supported Mac, but it became clear Apple computers weren’t optimized with graphics cards that could drive high-quality VR and VR support essentially stalled. That seems to be changing though as Apple begins supporting higher end graphics cards as well as external graphics processors.
A blog post from HTC provided some detail about a demonstration powered by a MacBook:
Through a newly announced external GPU, developers and content creators will be able to use a beta of SteamVR and the new MacOS, High Sierra, to access the creative power of Vive with their MacBooks…
On stage during WWDC, Apple demonstrated their commitment to VR using a Vive with ILM and Unity. They showcased high-end VR for the first time running on a Macbook in front of thousands of developers.
