SteamVR is the virtual reality platform PC from Valve that support Windows and Linux. Mac owners can continue to use the latest version of SteamVR, installing Windows as a secondary OS .
Competitive platform Facebook Oculus Rift not supported by Mac with the early developments that preceded the Rift. In 2016, the founder Palmer Luckey stated that this was due to the lack of Apple’s priorities in the power of the graphics processors.
Support for macOS was Apple’s announced during the annual developers conference in 2017. Craig Federighi, who reports directly to Tim cook, spoke about the support with excitement — VR will be a demonstration of the new Apple’s desire for high performance graphics.
At the time Apple released updates for Metal, its equivalent Vulkan / DX12 to make it suitable for high-performance rendering, VR with low latency, including using external graphics processors on the MacBook.
The company even worked with Unity and Unreal Engine to make it available for all developers.
Later in the conference the staff of the ILM showed a demo version of virtual reality on macOS — scene Star Wars running on the Unreal Engine.
In September 2018, Apple added support for HTC Vive Pro, including giving developers access to built-in stereo cameras, presumably for the development of AR.
What happened?
Less than two years later, Valve announces the end of support macOS. It seems that Apple has not made statements about this, but some of the staff who worked on the Metal support in VR, gave some clarification.
According to the review of the equipment, Valve , slightly less than 4% of all Steam users use Mac OS, and more than 95% are using Windows from Microsoft. Given that just over 1% own VR headset, easy to understand, how likely was a niche virtual reality in MacOS.
Valve said that now “the focus on Windows and Linux”. Despite the fact that Linux is still less popular than macOS, the developers prefer this operating system, which is required for certain advanced use cases for enterprises and governments.
Apple is reportedly working on an Autonomous mixed reality headset, which is scheduled for 2022. The company may decide to maintain it in MacOS similar to Oculus Link from Facebook.
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