As Apple's Craig Federighi explained on stage, the new file format is basically an "AR Quicklook" with a WYSIWYG editor designed to support mobile AR experiences across the iOS 12 landscape. With it, developers will be able to design objects in say, Photoshop or Dimension, and easily export those objects into an AR environment.

To that end, USDZ is primarily being marketed to content creators, rather than end users directly. For example, Adobe's Executive VP and CTO Abhay Parasnis joined Federighi on stage to announce that his company will be bringing native support for USDZ to its Creative Cloud suite. Autodesk and Sketchfab will offer similar support in their products.

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