How to see the AR Easter egg hidden in Apple’s September 14 event invite

How to see the AR Easter egg hidden in Apple’s September 14 event invite

The Apple September event invite has a beautiful but hidden augmented-reality feature.
Photo: Ed Hardy/Cult of Mac

Hidden in Tuesday’s invite to the Apple September event is an augmented reality Easter egg. It’s part of the company’s ongoing move to draw more attention to AR — and make its event invites cooler than anyone else’s.

The graphic for the event is the Apple logo floating over a lake in the evening. iPhone users can transfer that design to the real 3D world, and pass through it into a star-lit virtual space.

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

To see the Easter egg, go to the official Apple Events page on an iPhone. Next, tap on the big 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.

The Apple logo appears virtually in the space behind your computer through the power of AR. Nice but a bit boring … until you move toward it and pass through the open logo into the virtual space on the far side.

Get a demonstration of the coolness from Greg Joswiak, Apple’s head of marketing.

Is this a hint?

People love to look for hints of what Apple will unveil in its event invites. And it’s not a crazy idea. The multicolored logo used for the April 2021 event presaged the many colors of iMac announced that day.

Some people pointed out that today’s invite suggests we will see improvements to the iPhone’s camera’s night mode. Or perhaps an astrophotography mode. There are stars on the virtual world that can only be seen by passing through the Apple logo.