We have been wondering if Apple would support 3D technology and apart from a few patents that hinted 3D without glasses, we haven’t heard anything officially from Apple about 3D. Apple is known to ditch technologies that it thinks is a ‘bag of hurt’ (Read: Blu-ray) and while we wait, Apple has quietly added support for 3D photos with OS X Lion upgrade.
Before the Lion upgrade we weren’t even able to preview 3D files on our MacBook Pro, but now we can open these files and see both the images separately, view thumbnails of .MPO files. As of now you can import these files to iPhoto’11, though a small update to iPhoto should be able to fix that.
The 3D photos we tested on OS X Lion with were shot using a Fujifilm W3 digital camera. It is a welcome change for people who have decided to invest in 3D cameras and are looking at options to view / store them on their Mac.
Thumbnails as seen in Finder
Incidentally Nvidia promotes 3D technology to the masses and given MacBook uses Nvidia graphics, we would expect Apple to be working on more 3D love in the near future. For now, opening .MPO 3D photos on the Mac is possible!