VR, AR and Metaverse Blog and Tools

How to Start Building VR/AR Applications

Rustam Atai10 min read

In 2026, getting into XR is both easier and harder than it used to be. Easier, because Apple, Google, and Meta now offer fairly clear starting paths: Apple has visionOS with SwiftUI and RealityKit, Google has Android XR with Jetpack XR, Unity, OpenXR, and WebXR, and Meta has Meta Horizon OS with official support for Unity, Unreal Engine, Native/OpenXR, Android apps, and web. Harder, because the biggest beginner mistake is no longer choosing the "wrong language." It is choosing the wrong platform to begin with. (Apple, Google, Meta)

Put bluntly, the first real question in XR today is not "Unity or Unreal?" It is which device and which use case you want your first working prototype to run on. A simple VR training app for a headset, a spatial interface for Apple Vision Pro, an AR feature for Android XR glasses, and a cross-platform 3D experience built around OpenXR are four very different paths, even if conferences lump them all together under the XR label. (Apple, Google, Khronos)

Choose the Platform Before the Engine

If you want the most practical entry point into full headset applications, Meta Quest is usually the most sensible place to start. Meta's official developer portal clearly breaks the ecosystem into several paths: Unity, Unreal Engine, Native/OpenXR, Meta Spatial SDK, Android apps, and web. At the same time, Meta presents Quest devices as a shared developer platform built on Meta Horizon OS, and the current headsets all come with a common baseline of features such as boundary, passthrough, and hand tracking. That makes Quest a very approachable starting point if your goal is to get a real VR/MR scene running on real hardware quickly, rather than spending weeks in theory. (Meta, MetaQuest)

If you are more interested in spatial interfaces inside the Apple ecosystem, then visionOS is the obvious route. Apple recommends starting with a new project in Xcode and positions SwiftUI as the primary way to build for visionOS: it gives you full access to the platform, and some of the platform's distinctive capabilities are only available through it. Apple also gives you a clear mental model from the start: Window for mostly 2D content, Volume for 3D content, and Immersive Space for full immersion. This is a strong path for productivity apps, educational tools, design review, and spatial UI in general, though it is not the cheapest way to get started in hardware terms. (Apple, AppleDocs)

If you want to move into an ecosystem built around new headsets and glasses while staying closer to the Android world, look at Android XR. Google positions Android XR as a platform for XR headsets, wired XR glasses, and AI glasses. On the official developer site, you can build through Jetpack XR SDK, Unity, OpenXR, or WebXR. Google also explicitly points out that many existing Android apps can already run on XR devices as 2D panels inside 3D space. For Android teams, that is a meaningful advantage: the on-ramp is often less steep than jumping into an entirely unfamiliar ecosystem. (Google, GoogleBlog)

If cross-vendor portability matters more than getting a first release out quickly, then OpenXR starts to make sense. Khronos promotes it as a royalty-free standard for XR platforms and devices, which is exactly what makes it attractive in a fragmented market. But the official OpenXR Tutorial is also refreshingly honest about what that means in practice: you need to understand graphics APIs, runtime concepts, CMake, your IDE, and a more engineering-heavy workflow than you would get from a ready-made engine. It is powerful, but it is not the easiest first step for a beginner. (Khronos, OpenXRTutorial)

There is also WebXR. I would treat it as a good path for demos, educational scenes, and shareable prototypes that are easy to open from a link. Both Google and Meta include web as part of their official XR development tracks. But if you want deep device integration, richer interactions, and more predictable performance, the browser in 2026 is still more often a convenient delivery channel than the default foundation for a serious XR product. (Google, Meta)

How to Pick a Stack Without Making It Painful

For a first serious prototype, Unity is still the safest all-purpose choice most of the time. Unity has two major advantages here. First, XR Interaction Toolkit already gives you high-level building blocks for hover, select, grab, haptic feedback, UI interactions, locomotion, and XR Origin. Second, it includes XR Interaction Simulator, which lets you test part of your logic without constantly putting on a headset. For AR scenarios, Unity also connects this workflow directly to AR Foundation, so the path from mobile AR to headset XR stays reasonably coherent. (UnityToolkit)

The second major benefit is Unity's official OpenXR Plugin. It lets you stay inside a relatively comfortable engine workflow without cutting yourself off from a more portable architecture. Yes, you still need to enable OpenXR through XR Plug-in Management, choose features and interaction profiles, and validate project settings. But that is still a much softer landing than building your first XR stack almost from scratch. (UnityOpenXR)

I would recommend Unreal Engine when you genuinely need high-fidelity visuals, a more demanding 3D scene, a Blueprint/C++ pipeline, or when the team already knows Unreal well. Epic's XR materials cover the full grown-up set of topics: project templates, head-mounted experiences via OpenXR, hand tracking, motion controllers, eye tracking, 3D UI, multi-user workflows, and performance. But as a first XR stack, Unreal is usually a better fit for people who already know Unreal than for people who are still trying to grasp the basics of XR development. (Epic)

Then there is native visionOS. If your real target is Apple Vision Pro, do not automatically drag Unity into the project just because that feels familiar to the game world. Apple is quite clear that SwiftUI is the main path into visionOS, and some platform-specific behavior depends on it. For an iOS or macOS developer, that is often a more natural and more productive route than forcing old game-engine habits into a spatial UI app. (AppleDocs)

What You Actually Need to Get Started

For visionOS, you need an Apple silicon Mac, Xcode, and the willingness to begin in Simulator if necessary. Apple explicitly notes that visionOS development requires Apple silicon. The actual starting path is fairly straightforward: create a project, choose your initial scene type, optionally add Reality Composer Pro for 3D assets, and then gradually move from window-based UI toward more spatial experiences. (AppleDocs)

For Android XR, Google recommends using a recent Canary build of Android Studio because that is where the latest XR tooling lives. You will also need Android SDK Build-Tools, Android Emulator, Platform-Tools, and Layout Inspector. The good news is that Google also documents how to create virtual XR devices, so your first steps do not necessarily require buying hardware on day one. (AndroidSetup)

For Meta Quest, one especially practical point is that Meta explicitly says every Quest headset can be used as a developer kit. The lineup also shares a common developer platform, while more powerful devices such as Quest 3 and 3S can be targeted later through device targeting. That is a healthy way to begin: one device, one scenario, and no premature fight with fragmentation. (MetaQuest)

For low-level OpenXR, the requirements are much heavier. The official tutorial talks about a Windows or Linux PC for building code, a suitable IDE, a real XR device or an Android-based headset, familiarity with a graphics API, CMake 3.28.3+, and Python 3.6+ for building SDK sources. That does not make it a bad path. It simply puts it in a different class of problems. (OpenXRTutorial)

A Practical Plan for Your First MVP

The most workable beginner path usually looks something like this.

  1. Pick one primary platform. Not "I am building for all of XR," but "I am building for Quest," "I am building for visionOS," or "I am building for Android XR."
  2. Set up the minimum environment. Your IDE, SDK, simulator or emulator, and ideally a real device as soon as possible. If you can already test input, comfort, and performance in week one, you picked a good starting path.
  3. Build one working scene, not the whole product. Apple encourages you to start with a Window or Volume and add Immersive Space later. Google, meanwhile, separates the path of adapting an existing Android app from building a new immersive one. In both cases, the core idea is the same: get one coherent spatial scene working first. (AppleDocs, Google)
  4. Implement one complete interaction loop. For example: point at and select an object, grab and move an item, open a simple panel, or trigger one AR anchor or spatial UI flow. This is exactly where XR Interaction Toolkit shines, because it already packages the most common interaction patterns. (UnityToolkit)
  5. Check performance and comfort early. Unity's OpenXR docs explicitly call out render mode, latency optimization, and depth submission. Epic also treats XR performance as a foundational concern, not something cosmetic to clean up at the end. In XR, "it kind of works" is not enough: input lag, jitter, or poor depth handling can break the entire experience. (UnityOpenXR, Epic)
  6. Only then worry about cross-platform support. OpenXR and modern engines reduce fragmentation, but they do not erase differences in UX, input models, and comfort rules across platforms. (Khronos, Meta)

The Most Common Beginner Mistakes

  • Trying to choose the "best engine" before choosing the device and the actual use case.
  • Planning for multi-platform support before you have even built one clean interaction loop.
  • Underestimating UX and interaction design. In XR, the interface is not a thin layer on top of the app. It is part of the architecture.
  • Assuming a simulator or emulator fully replaces real hardware. They are excellent for early work, but hand input, passthrough, comfort, and presence still need to be checked on an actual device.
  • Jumping into low-level OpenXR "for the future" when the real task is simply to build a first live prototype and decide whether you even enjoy XR development. (Apple, Google, OpenXRTutorial)

Where to Start

If you are completely new to XR and want to feel how immersive apps work as quickly as possible, start with Unity + Meta Quest or Unity/OpenXR + the Android XR emulator. That gives you the shortest path to a working scene, basic interactions, and your first real performance constraints. (Meta, Google, UnityToolkit)

If you are already an Apple developer and spatial UI feels more natural to you than game-style scenes, it makes more sense to go straight into visionOS + SwiftUI + RealityKit. Apple has made that path fairly direct and does not really hide the fact that native development is the preferred route there. (AppleDocs)

If your goal is to build a foundation that can stretch across multiple devices and vendors, then look toward Unity/OpenXR or even a more low-level OpenXR stack. But even then, it is still smarter to choose one main test device rather than trying to become cross-platform in a vacuum. (UnityOpenXR, Khronos)

Short Conclusion

In 2026, the best way to start building VR/AR applications is not to begin with a debate about the "most powerful engine." It is to answer three questions clearly: what your first device is, what kind of experience you are building, and what minimum interaction has to work in the first week.

A good start today looks almost boring, and that is exactly why it works: one platform, one SDK, one scene, one working interaction. Once you have that, you are no longer just reading about XR. You are actually in it.