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Samsung's Gear VR uses its Galaxy Note 4 phablet to deliver a VR experience and it's possible that Apple may do something similar. AP Photo/Koji Ueda
getting serious

Apple's virtual reality ambitions are beginning to take shape

The company is on the lookout for an engineer who will work on “high performance apps that integrate with Virtual Reality systems.”

WHEN A TREND starts to develop and grow in popularity, it’s only a matter of time before one of the world’s biggest companies takes an interest.

Now Apple is looking for an App Engineer who will be able to develop apps and services that will work with VR, according to 9to5Mac.

The description says that the successful candidate “will create high performance apps that integrate with Virtual Reality systems for prototyping and user testing”.

Alongside VR, the job description also covers augmented reality suggesting that this position will focus mostly on bringing these experiences to its iPhone range instead of desktop.

If it does decide to focus more on VR, it has two real options. It could follow a similar system by Samsung, where it will team up with a company like Oculus VR and release their own product like the Gear VR. That device is similar to Google Cardboard where it uses a Galaxy Note 4 to run the VR experience.

Both Oculus and Samsung are asking app developers to create VR experiences for both platforms, and it’s unlikely that Apple will want to share the space with one of its biggest rivals.

The other option would be creating its own product like Sony and Project Morpheus. Apple already has a patent for a virtual reality headset, although the company has a reputation for filing numerous patents that don’t materialise.

Read: Explainer: The European Parliament wants to break up Google, but why? >

Read: So Samsung’s flagship phone didn’t do as well as expected >

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