Vision Pro

Apple Vision Pro natural input support comes to WebXR with Safari

Zac Hall | Mar 21 2024 - 6:45 am PT

Apple recently released visionOS 1.1, bringing higher quality Persona avatars and enterprise support to Apple Vision Pro. The software update also introduces support for a significant advancement in immersive web experiences.

As UploadVR points out, WebXR on Safari for Vision Pro has been missing a key input method until now. Starting with visionOS 1.1, Safari introduces support for the default gaze-pinch control method for WebXR experiences.

The change is documented in detail in a WebKit blog post from this week:

Apple Vision Pro is here, and with it, a lot of excitement about the possibilities for WebXR in visionOS. Support is in progress, where you can test it today.

WebXR now includes a more natural and privacy-preserving method for interaction — the new transient-pointer input mode — available for Safari 17.4 in visionOS 1.1. Let’s explore how natural input for WebXR works, and how to leverage it when developing a WebXR experience for Apple Vision Pro.

In the blog post, the WebKit team explains how Vision Pro’s natural input method wasn’t originally considered for WebXR:

The initial web standards for WebXR assumed all input would be provided by persistent hardware controllers. Since the natural input interaction model of visionOS differs from XR platforms which rely on listening to physical controllers and button presses, many existing WebXR experiences won’t work as intended on Apple Vision Pro.

We’ve been collaborating in the W3C to incorporate support for the interaction model of visionOS into WebXR. And we’re excited to help the WebXR community add support to popular WebXR frameworks.

WebXR support on Vision Pro is disabled by default. However, users can enable the feature in Settings > Apps > Safari > Advanced > Feature Flags. Learn more here.

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