(YouTube) How a viral concept became an incredible product

The Moment

At the beginning of 2024, just as Apple Vision Pro launched, it felt like mainstream technology had finally taken a meaningful step toward science fiction. And yet the earliest experiences seemed to use this $3,500 hallucination machine to view as many rounded rectangles as you like.

BlackBox founder John LePore wanted to answer a different question: what would a killer app for spatial computing actually look like?

The Concept

Experiencing a Formula 1 race inside Vision Pro — equal parts Iron Man and the toy-car rug so many of us grew up playing on. Spectacle, but also joy.

And never science fiction. The concept was built on three real-world constraints: three-dimensional geographic data already existed. F1 already generated extraordinarily rich real-time telemetry. And fans genuinely struggle to understand a four-mile circuit through a single television frame. Not a flashy concept — a real problem, solved. That pathway to plausibility was everything.

(The idea had deep roots: an earlier version earned commendation at the 2018 F1 Innovation Prize — from Sir Lewis Hamilton himself.)

A Concept Goes Supernova

The original viral video the kicked the idea off

The prototype — built with visual effects and animation techniques, published as a video essay — went supernova. Sixty million views. MKBHD called it the future of immersive experiences. And the reaction that mattered most: people kept saying it reminded them of something they'd imagined as kids, inventing races on the rug. Spatial computing could feel both futuristic and deeply familiar.

The World Builds Back

Then something better than virality: developers around the world began building working versions of the concept — almost as if auditioning to make it real.

One build stood out. Lapz, created by a small team of world-class engineers, was so faithful to the original vision that a partnership was inevitable. Today John LePore serves as co-CEO of Lapz (alongside Simon Rico), shaping the product's roadmap and continued development.

Lapz is not a prototype. It's not an MVP. It is a complete, exceptionally polished product, currently in private beta — the experience Forbes called "the best reason to own a Vision Pro."

The Open Door

This experience has become a platform for live spatial experiences, wherever geography, real-time data, and physical context converge — a thesis already carried into BlackBox's broadcast work with IndyCar, and expanding into new verticals. Leagues, teams, venues, broadcasters, sponsors: the platform is built. The instances are waiting.

A model: The 'Halo Project'

This experience is the tentpole example of a principle at the core of BlackBox's practice: no one knows what future to ask for — it has to be shown to them.

Digital product design is a mature discipline, rich with proven processes and best practices. But today, technology is surpassing every existing reference point. BlackBox increasingly works with leaders, brands, and organizations who need a Halo Project of their own — visual and emotional proof of what's possible, and a living blueprint for where to go next.

The Inevitable

More than two years on, the concept keeps being referenced — in press, in product roadmaps, in the way people talk about what spatial computing is for. Asked on CNBC about sports on Vision Pro, Apple's Eddy Cue pointed to it unprompted:

"One of the coolest apps that ever happened on Vision Pro... he creates the tracks in three dimensions and all the cars you can follow on the track... it gives you this whole experience."

The best visions of the future aren't memorable because they're flashy. They're memorable because, once experienced, they feel surprisingly simple, obvious, and inevitable. Of course weather data should simply exist in the sky above the circuit. Of course you should understand the entire race — not just the cars that fit inside a television frame.

Nobody knows what the future looks like until it's put right in front of them.

This concept is dedicated to the memory of Rick LePore.