How to see the huge AR easter egg hidden in Apple’s Oct. 13 event invite

By

The invite to the Apple October event 2020 offers an augmented-reality easter egg.
The invite to the Apple October event includes a bit of augmented reality.
Photo: Ed Hardy/Cult of Mac

Hidden in Tuesday’s invite to the October Apple event is a hint that the company is about to make a big push into augmented reality.

The graphic for the event invite is the Apple logo surrounded by bubbles. iPhone and iPad users can transfer that design to the real 3D world, and put it in motion.

How to see the AR easter egg in October Apple event invite

To see the easter egg, go to the official Apple Events page on an iPhone or iPad. Next, tap on the big orange Apple graphic you see on that web page. (It’s just above “Apple Event.”) That will launch the ARKit augmented-reality viewer built into iOS/iPadOS.

The Apple graphic will appear virtually in the space behind your computer through the power of AR. It’ll soon be replaced by a couple of dozen orange, white and blue balls that circle around “10.13,” the date of the Apple October event.

It’s a 3D object, and a fairly large one. Walk around it to see the moving AR object from any side.

iPhone 12 is expected to embrace augmented reality

Apple’s AR easter egg isn’t really coming out of nowhere. Numerous unconfirmed reports over the last few months indicate the company is about to embrace augmented reality in a big way.

Cupertino actually started the push by building a 3D scanner into the 2020 iPad Pro released this spring. The upcoming iPhone 12 supposedly will pack its own version of this lidar scanner, along with an updated AR viewer application.

This might be stepping stone to a pair of augmented-reality glasses. Leaks out of Cupertino indicate these have been in development for years, and the so-called Apple Glass could be out in 2021.

Newsletters

Daily round-ups or a weekly refresher, straight from Cult of Mac to your inbox.

  • The Weekender

    The week's best Apple news, reviews and how-tos from Cult of Mac, every Saturday morning. Our readers say: "Thank you guys for always posting cool stuff" -- Vaughn Nevins. "Very informative" -- Kenly Xavier.