SteamVR canned for Apple's Macs

Apple has been long-rumored to be working on some form of AR and VR technologies but it has been a long time coming. After initially working with Valve to bring support for its SteamVR platform to macOS in 2017, that collaboration has officially ended with development of SteamVR for Macs officially dumped. Valve has directed Mac users to continue using what is now a legacy platform while it now shifts its full development focus for SteamVR to Windows and Linux.

Apple was famously eviscerated by Oculus founder Palmer Luckey back in 2016 who said then that “We’ll make Oculus for Mac when Apple releases a good computer”. Apple responded by releasing its next generation of iMacs, MacBooks and iMac Pro with VR-level graphics capabilities and through its VR partnership with Valve. However, since then VR and AR technologies have struggled to gain widespread consumer traction.

This was highlighted recently when the once high-flying flag bearer of consumer AR Magic Leap announced a major restructure that cancelled its consumer AR efforts. Instead, in the process of shedding around 1,000 employees, the company is now pivoting to potential commercial applications for its AR tech. Similarly, Microsoft has also focused its AR Hololens efforts on enterprise and Apple is now thought to be doing the same.