The app finally debuted on the Vision Pro in February, becoming one of the few applications from India to support Apple’s mixed-reality headset natively.
AdvertisementA background in psychologyGanguly is the creator of the Mahou or (maa-ho) app for the Apple Vision Pro headset.
(Image credit: Anuj Bhatia/The Indian Express) Ganguly is the creator of the Mahou or (maa-ho) app for the Apple Vision Pro headset.
This was the first time Ganguly experienced virtual reality and understood its applicability.
I don’t feel that has existed before, but the Vision Pro can bring it.
When Aditya Ganguly visited teamLab Planets in Toyosu, an interactive space that’s a combination of a museum, an art installation, and an amusement park southeast of the city centre on Tokyo Bay last July, he started thinking about replicating the experience for a wider audience using a headset.
“I felt a different level of energy in the room, and that was quite something. Since that day, I’ve been chasing this idea. I didn’t understand how this would work, but I’m going to get to the bottom of this and want to understand how one could sort of build something and bring it out to experience to more folks,” the 28-year-old Ganguly recalls how his visit to teamLab Planets inspired him to develop the art exhibition app.
A few months later, Ganguly met Apple executives in Singapore, pitched the idea to them, and the work on Mahou or (maa-ho) magic in Japanese began. The app finally debuted on the Vision Pro in February, becoming one of the few applications from India to support Apple’s mixed-reality headset natively.
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A background in psychology
Ganguly is the creator of the Mahou or (maa-ho) app for the Apple Vision Pro headset. (Image credit: Anuj Bhatia/The Indian Express) Ganguly is the creator of the Mahou or (maa-ho) app for the Apple Vision Pro headset. (Image credit: Anuj Bhatia/The Indian Express)
Born and brought up in Delhi, Ganguly says he has always had a knack for technology, and wanted to use his background in psychology and combine it with technology to create something that involves user empathy. While working with the United Nations he created story-based gamified interactions for the time on a project around sexual well-being for adolescent youth, he recalls.
He gained exposure to interaction design and worked on a project with a Netherlands-based company with expertise in bringing digital interactions to museums. This was the first time Ganguly experienced virtual reality and understood its applicability. Later, he founded his startup Brevity, a media company that summarises nonfiction content from podcasts, books, and news articles. Eventually, Ganguly joined as a chief growth officer for Noida-based AR/VR company, Simulanis, which gave him exposure to lead sales and marketing alongside the development of immersive products aimed at B2B clients. His last stint was with Gurgaon-based Zupee where Ganguly worked as a product manager before founding Omoi Studio and working full time in developing applications.
Ganguly says he chose the Vision Pro as the device for the app because of the headset’s sheer rendering power and exquisite displays, making it apt to recreate immersive art experiences. Just like a trip to a virtual wonderland, he says, as one would experience in the Van Gogh immersive art exhibition, for example, where upcoming technologies such as augmented reality and virtual reality serve both as tools for artistic creation and as mediums for 360-degree storytelling.
“Imagine you are surrounded by four walls, and there is a projection on the surface as well as you’ll see in the video. But running such content coming from five different directions requires high quality… 4K-level of content being projected on a large scale. This is the sort of processing power that’s required to do something like that. I don’t feel that has existed before, but the Vision Pro can bring it. That’s the idea: you put on the headset and you get immersed in these experiences,” he explains.
