WebXR playground examples don't work on iphone, but WebVR examples do

I tried to show a friend how WebXR would look. He doesn’t own an expensive headset but I thought he might be able to use google cardboard and his existing smartphone (iphone 11) to at least look around at stuff. But interestingly the newest WebXR playground examples don’t show up in stereoscopic view (on Chrome on iphone 11). However the older WebVR examples do show up in stereoscopic view (on Chrome, on iphone 11). Why is that? And is there path forward to develop WebXR immersive experiences for iphones?

I think this is because WebXR is simply not supported on iOS (it is not the real chropme but a simple CHrome frame on top of webkit)

adding @RaananW

Does that mean if we want to support iphone we need to also bring in the older WebVR modules as a graceful fallback?

Unfortunately yes. Apple is the IE of the modern web

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iOS does not even support WebVR (Can I use... Support tables for HTML5, CSS3, etc). you will eventually fallback to a device orientation camera.

I do hope apple will come to terms with web standards at a certain point and will implement WebXR support, but until then you will probably need to implement a fallback. I would try the WebXR polyfill on the iphone, as they do state that it is “providing support when run on browsers that implement the WebVR 1.1 spec, or on mobile devices with no WebVR/WebXR support at all.” - GitHub - immersive-web/webxr-polyfill: Use the WebXR Device API today, providing fallbacks to native WebVR 1.1 and Cardboard