VRLA Summer Expo — Apple Essentially Missing in Action from VR Market

While you will see MacBook laptops at all kinds of computer technology events, in many cases they are often running Windows in Parallels or Boot Camp. Such is the case in the virtual reality (VR) market.

While Architosh is not officially covering the event, associate editor, Akiko Ashley happened to attend the summer expo which was presented by AMD’s Radeon Technologies Group as major sponsors. In a breakfast exchange I got a chance to learn a bit about this new event.

Apple Missing in VR—What’s Up?

The first big news is the concentrated VR event was a big hit. The exhibition may have been larger than SIGGRAPH 2016 which just took place. Maybe.

MORE: SIGGRAPH 2016: Computer Graphics Show Round-Up

The second news is that Macs were pretty much left out of this VR party raging this year in just about all the visual computing markets. Again, you can make a MacBook into a PC laptop so we are discounting that scenario. That doesn’t count for Apple being in the VR market. We are interested in native macOS VR. Either on the production side or the consumption side the experience is just not there.

01 – The VRLA event sponsored by AMD’s Radeon Group was a big success. But Apple’s customers interested in this space need to look to Windows PCs in order to partake in all the virtual reality goodness. That’s a bummer for Mac users; that’s a bummer for Apple.

It makes us ask—what is going on with Apple? What is going on with Apple and its Mac computer division? What the heck?

When Steve Jobs took over the reigns at Apple in the late 90’s he made sure the Mac was shaping the computer and technology trends (USB, computer design, digital hub, video, etc) not woefully lagging behind them.

But this is the reality in the hot VR and AR market. While Apple may have quietly acquired some augmented reality companies in the recent past, its computer line has been publicly embarrassed as being incapable of supporting the leading VR hardware devices like Oculus Rift.

MORE: Innovative VR startup discusses Mac and Oculus Rift—Apple and VR Future

So again another event passes us by without any word from Cupertino about what it may have in store for its legions of Mac customers (consumer and professional) who want and need both VR and AR solutions for their workflows.