QuickTime VR and Spatial Computing

Source: Tabletops.

Soon, the world will get a glimpse of the Apple Vision Pro outside of the tightly controlled demos provided to a select number of people. As we wait for that moment, it’s worth taking a look back at QuickTime VR with Michael Steeber through his excellent newsletter, Tabletops.

QuickTime VR was a 3D image format that explored some of the spatial video concepts coming to the Vision Pro, albeit using CD-ROMs in 90s-era Macs. To show off the technology, Apple created a demo CD that included a virtual tour of the recently closed Company Store. Steeber got the tour up and running and shared some wonderful images and videos of Apple’s vision for VR 30 years ago.

The story is full of interesting details about Apple retail when the Company Store was all there was to Apple retail:

At the entrance to the store is a physical map of the space, like the kind you’d find at a trailhead or in a museum lobby. In the Performa department, a cutout of a child hanging upside down looms from the ceiling. Along the wall is a disheveled pile of AppleDesign Speaker boxes. In the Newton department, an entire wall is wrapped with a print of someone’s backside, toting a Newton in their jeans pocket.

One section of the store is filled with more than 700 software titles. In early promotional materials, Apple called this aisle “Technology Way,” which is so similar to the “Software Alley” in early Apple Stores that I can’t help but wonder if it was carried over.

Be sure to check out the latest issue of Tabletops to see QuickTime VR in all its glory and sign up for the newsletter while you’re there. It’s always a good read.