Looking for a way to get your favourite porn star into your bedroom? The newly launched Apple Vision Pro VR headset is (probably) not the answer – or is it?
At a launch-day price of $3,500 (£2,800), people have been excited to get their hands on the new AR headset and settle in for a 3D fap to some immersive VR porn.
So it came as a shock for many to discover that Apple’s state-of-the-art ‘spatial computing’ headset doesn’t support VR porn in the traditional side-by-side (SBS) format. At least, not by default.
A new subreddit, applevisionnsfw, has already sprung up to track any big wins in the search for NSFW content on Apple Vision Pro.
On Friday, February 2nd 2024, the subreddit’s moderator Infamous_Bee_7445 wrote: “As of 1pm Mountain Standard Time, it doesn’t appear that any adult content in its current form on popular websites can be viewed in 180° 3D SBS.“
This continues a long history of Apple products not supporting porn. So what are the options for VR porn on Apple Vision Pro, and what might Apple Vision Pro mean for the future of the adult VR space?
As we’ll see below, there are still ways you can watch authentic VR porn on APV, but we could be waiting a while for full support to be rolled out to your favorite VR porn sites.
An Apple A Day Keeps The Porno Away
Apple blocking porn on its products is nothing new.
Back in 2010, the late great Steve Jobs said at an iPhone 4 Developer Q&A: “You know, there’s a porn store for Android. You can download nothing but porn. You can download porn, your kids can download porn. That’s a place we don’t want to go – so we’re not going to go there.“
The new headset is aimed at business users – not at kids – so that part of the argument doesn’t really apply. But regardless of that fact, Apple have opted to leave out support for SBS VR porn.
It’s worth taking a trip down memory lane to look at what Jobs was talking about back then.
Tits & Glass
Although he didn’t mention it by name, it’s likely that the ‘porn store’ Jobs referred to was MiKandi, which was developed for the open-source Android OS. MiKandi launched in 2009 with an HTML5 web app widely compatible with Android touchscreen devices.
In 2013, Google Glass launched. This was a ‘smart glasses’ headset equipped with a camera and microphone, bone conduction audio, and a small 640 x 360 pixel display.
MiKandi developed a dedicated porn app, called Tits & Glass, and Google immediately banned it.
Jesse Adams, CEO of MiKandi, wrote on June 3rd 2013: “MiKandi became aware today that Google changed its policy over the weekend to ban adult content on all Glassware. When we received our Glass and started developing our app two weeks ago, we went through the policy very carefully to make sure we were developing the app within the terms.
“We double checked again last week when making the site live on the internet and available for install for testing during last week’s announcement. We were not notified of any changes and still haven’t been notified by Google.“
So, at least where AR smart glasses are concerned, Android hasn’t always been an adult-friendly developer environment either.
Can I Watch Porn on the Apple Vision Pro?
Yes, but not in the way that many of us hoped when we saw the first Apple Vision Pro demos.
The experience is still buggy and many of the top VR porn sites are still rolling out full support for WebXR, which is the way that your Apple Vision Pro will interact with adult VR content.
The first thing you’ll need to do is enable four WebXR browser settings that are turned off by default.
To do this:
- Go to Settings after booting your AVP
- Navigate to Apps > Safari
- Navigate to Advanced > Feature Flags
- Enable the following settings:
- WebXR Device API
- WebXR Hand Input Module
- WebXR Augmented Reality Module
- WebXR Gamepads Module
WebXR is an API necessary for viewing VR content on Apple Vision Pro. It acts as an interface between the headset’s software and the browser-based digital experience. This API provides data for creating mixed reality or VR scenes and enables the transmission of pose and orientation information for the headset and connected controllers.
The problem is: while many sites claim to support WebXR (and will surely do so much more effectively in the coming weeks and months), their video libraries aren’t yet fully migrated. Many scenes crash within seconds of loading, making for a frustrating experience.
Even once you access the interactive content in full VR POV, the experience is a downgrade on the sleek and polished interface you’ll find elsewhere while using the Vision Pro. It’s old school VR. Apple’s proprietary interface and smooth navigation makes way for the jerky experience of just another headset.
So, if you want to use AVP for your premium subscription on VR Bangers or Virtual Real Porn, or Netflix-style aggregators like Sex Like Real or VRPorn.com… there are growing pains, and you won’t be able to access the entire content libraries, for now.
Will this change in the future? Absolutely. The major studios are all working hard to ensure their videos can run effectively on AVP.
Just don’t expect a flawless VR porn experience if you are an early adopter.
Other Types of VR Porn on AVP
We all know there are no iOS porn games in the App Store, so if you want to play porn games on Apple products (e.g. iPhone and iPad) you’re basically limited to browser-based titles.
This also applies to VR porn gaming on the Apple Vision Pro. You’re not going to find dedicated porn apps in the Apple ‘closed-wall’ ecosystem.
There’s a lot more support for Windows PCs than there is for Apple Mac systems.
What is SBS 3D Porn?
To make an image appear 3D, you need to show a slightly different angle to each eye.
People have been doing this for decades using different methods:
- Red-cyan 3D glasses (like in the 80s)
- Polarised lenses (like at the cinema)
- Active shutter glasses (like home 3D cinema/TV systems)
The easiest way is to put a different image in front of each eye, and this is how a lot of 3D VR porn works:
- The scene is filmed using two cameras side-by-side
- The two angles are edited into a single video file side-by-side
- The VR headset splits the video into two and shows a different angle to each eye
Unless the headset is compatible – which Apple Vision Pro isn’t out of the box – you’ll see two versions of the scene alongside each other. To get around this, you will need to enable the WebXR settings and choose a site that is capable of supporting WebXR content.
Both Sex Like Real and VRPorn.com are doing a good job in this department, but many smaller platforms are still a long way behind and won’t reliably support AVP.
What About 3D Spatial Videos?
Surely a $3,500 VR headset supports 3D video, I hear you cry – and you’re right, it does!
Apple Vision Pro is PACKED with cameras – two main cameras, six “world-facing” cameras to track the environment, and four eye-tracking cameras looking at the user’s face.
It supports 3D spatial videos, filmed using the pair of main forward-facing lenses to get the depth data needed, and not just a flat 2D image.
This is encoded using the MV-HEVC codec, which takes the twin images and mixes them together into a single video format, without needing to show them side-by-side.
What is MV-HEVC?
MV-HEVC is short for Multi View, High Efficiency Video Coding, and is designed especially for 3D videos. But the clever part is how it stores the information to give the image its depth.
Instead of saving two full video files side by side, MV-HEVC just has one 2D video. In another layer of data, it stores all of the differences between this original angle, and the second angle needed to recreate the 3D image.
When the video is played, the codec allows the device to draw the first angle, then calculate the differences and draw the second angle, allowing each eye to see a slightly different image and give the video back its depth.
This means that Apple Vision Pro wearers can film 3D video – the Vision Pro launch video (see below) shows this as a way to capture happy family memories, but Reddit users are already discussing its use “in the act”.
Sharing Spatial Videos to 2D Devices
One of the really clever things about the MV-HEVC format is the way it stores the video data, that combination of a full 2D video, and a set of ‘delta’ data to calculate the second angle.
When an MV-HEVC video is played back on a 2D device, it plays perfectly normally, showing the original angle as a single 2D video.
There’s none of the side-by-side duplication or image distortion you get when playing an SBS 3D video on a 2D device, and that’s good news for anyone producing VR porn in this format, as it means a much wider potential audience.
Yes, the fully immersive 3D experience would be lost on a 2D device, but the video would still work fine as a 2D POV porno – and those are plenty popular too.
Sharing 3D Spatial Porn Videos
But what about sharing 3D spatial porn videos once you’ve filmed them?
Well, MV-HEVC is just a codec, so any device that supports it should (in theory) be able to play the 3D video – and any 2D device with the standard HEVC codec should be able to play the 2D version of the video.
MV-HEVC is compatible with Apple’s own Silicon processors, but even better, it can also be played on Meta Quest headsets running the v62 update.
3D spatial videos can be shared via iCloud and can be uploaded to Meta Quest VR headsets using the Meta Quest app.
So it’s possible to shoot and share 3D amateur porn using the MV-HEVC format on Apple Vision Pro (it’s only a matter of time!).
But we’re still only talking about 3D VR porn – watching a POV video in its original bedroom or studio. What about AR porn, where the action appears to take place in your own room?
What About Augmented Reality Porn?
AR, or Augmented Reality, takes 3D elements and shows them in your own environment. An example of this would be a virtual version of your favourite porn star masturbating on YOUR bed, instead of in some studio somewhere.
So much of what Apple Vision Pro can do is based around AR, to the point where its screen and apps cast a virtual shadow on your floor and furniture, and reflect light from real-world light sources.
This is important for safety reasons. If you move too close to an object, the headset’s software, visionOS, will fade the virtual reality stuff so you can see the real-life stuff (which will hurt a lot more if you bump into it).
AR is all about the balance between seeing the real world and seeing the virtual objects superimposed on it – and that’s known as ‘passthrough’.
What Is AR Passthrough Porn?
AR passthrough porn is the name given to porn videos where you can see through the background.
When AR is working perfectly, you don’t see the video’s background at all, and it’s as if the actress (and the action) is right there in front of you in the real world.
This uses a similar technique to green-screen or chroma key, where the background is detected and made transparent, so with an AR headset you can see your own room through it.
A good AR platform will also know if you move around, so that the porn star on your bed will stay on your bed, rather than floating away into mid-air.
How to Watch Passthrough Porn on AR Headsets
If you have a compatible AR headset (Meta Quest Pro and Quest 3 are two of the best) there are a few ways to turn VR porn into passthrough AR porn.
DeoVR is an app with passthrough capabilities. Just play your VR porn video, turn on passthrough, and adjust the settings to match the background colour of the video.
Alternatively, any VR video app with chroma key can be used to make the background transparent, just like green screen.
This obviously depends on the porn video having a single-colour background, and sites like SexLikeReal are catering more and more for this.
What’s The Future of 3D/VR/AR Porn?
Will Apple Vision Pro redefine the VR porn genre? Probably not – Apple is too hostile of an environment for that. But it may set the cogs in motion all the same.
There are a few different directions things could go, and in all honesty, it’s likely that all of these will happen to an extent (and probably are already happening as we speak).
Big money drives big change, and if the porn industry can really nail AR as more comfortable, lightweight headsets come on to the market, we could be entering a golden age for POV immersive porn.
Amateur Spatial Porn
For a start, someone is surely going to use their Vision Pro to film some POV spatial porn, and with the ever-growing number of amateur porn stars on OnlyFans and similar platforms, might we see that get shared?
The wide compatibility of MV-HEVC as a file format means gonzo porn studios could very easily start filming in spatial 3D, in the knowledge that their 2D customers could still play their content.
And with 3D AR cameras coming down in price, the setup costs to start production are now closer to £1,000 than £10,000.
POV Avatar Porn
What about a pre-recorded porn scene that digitally paints you in, in real-time? Either allowing you to look down and see your own body in a POV scene, or even for an external view of yourself fucking your favourite porn star?
Apple Vision Pro can scan your face using its front-facing cameras and create a CGI model of you called Persona. When you make a FaceTime call wearing your headset, the person on the other end of the call will see this digital avatar instead, so they can see your face.
Real-time tracking of your mouth and eyes means the virtual version of you can still display emotion and facial expressions – so why not extend this to paste your face and body into AR porn scenes too?
Fully Immersive AR Porn
Taking it to extremes, AR porn could get seriously immersive, with or without a video avatar of yourself involved in the action.
With technology that already exists, porn could theoretically offer 3D, passthrough AR, spatial video (with realistic shadows and light reflections) and surround sound spatial audio too.
Haptic feedback – so you feel as if you are physically touching virtual AR objects – already exists, and could combine with teledildonics platforms (like Fleshlight or Lovense) so that it feels like you’re actually fucking the person you can see.
And using AI deepfake technology, the porn star could even listen to you, generate a realistic reply, and say it out loud to you, right there in the video.
Final Thoughts: If Apple Brings The Eyeballs, Who Brings The Porn?
Even if Apple Vision Pro doesn’t prove the catalyst for take-off in the VR/AR porn space, it could still lead to the rapid adoption of VR tech. Once Apple embraces a product category, the mainstream generally laps it up.
The top virtual reality porn studios will be pinning their hopes on this theory.
Of course, immersive porn has been around for a while now.
Back in 2020, SLR Originals released Bunny on the Casting Couch, a multi-view VR porn scene starring Bunny Colby (AKA Nadya Nabakova).
The VR scene shows a second angle so Bunny’s face is visible at all times, and comes with a downloadable Fleshlight Launch script to control the viewer’s Fleshlight in perfect sync with the video.
In this case, it’s not about giving the viewer a convincing, realistic POV experience – it’s about showing things (like the two different camera views) that you could NEVER experience IRL.
‘Onthetelly’, who directed the scene, said: “I wanted to explore what a casting couch would be like in the future with augmented reality… As VR is a new medium, we should explore the possibilities it has, as opposed to limiting our experiences to what ‘real life’ is like.“
I think that’s a reasonable ambition for any AR porn producer to have. And while Apple might not embrace adult content, open-source platforms like Android hold huge potential for AR headsets similar to Vision Pro in the future.
The tech is out there: now who has the vision to give the world its first fully immersive fap?
