Apple Hires 360VR Plugin Developer Tim Dashwood

Tim Cook and other Apple executives have historically vocal about the company’s interest in virtual and augmented reality in past months. Recently, there have been several reports that Apple is exploring an AR smart glasses product internally.

Now, according to Final Cut Pro community site fcp.co, Tim Dashwood, founder of 11 Motion Pictures and its sister companies Dashwood Cinema Solutions and the Toronto-based stereoscopic 3D production company Stereo3D Unlimited, has joined Apple.

Dashwood is known for the $1,000 360VR Toolbox plugin, which is compatible not only with Final Cut Pro but also with Adobe Premiere Pro and After Effects, includes various filters, utilities, and tools to easily create stereoscopic 3D videos. It also enables you to use your VR headsets to monitor 360-degree videos in real-time while editing. It is compatible only with Mac and was a great set of tools for producing VR content.

The entrepreneur, whose LinkedIn profile is yet to be updated with details about his new role at Apple, has made all of Stereo3D Unlimited’s plugins free to download as a result of his employment at Apple, according to the report.

The plugins that Dashwood develops could prove useful to Apple, as the company recently admitted that it needs to do more to support its professional power users that buy its most advanced and professional products.

Companies like Google and Facebook have already made their VR ambitions known with the release of products like Oculus and Google Cardboard, but Apple is yet to embrace the new technology. However, it’s possible that Apple’s upcoming iPhone 8 will feature hardware that supports VR and AR applications.