The more rumors that emerge about Apple's upcoming augmented reality and mixed reality headset, the more it feels like we're entering into a two-company heavyweight smackdown to see who will own mixed reality: Apple or Meta. Other companies will inevitably hop in, but nobody seems nearly as imminent of a threat.
The question becomes: what singular factor will determine who wins? What is going to be the most important variable in deciding whether it's Tim Cook or Mark Zuckerberg that gets to have their legless avatar sit atop the glistening metaverse throne?
I'm convinced the single most important variable deciding this will be whether or not Apple decides to make their platform open or closed for developers. Apple controls all of the cards here.
When I say "open" or "closed,"what I'm really thinking about is how many hurdles Apple is going to make developers jump over to create apps specifically for their platform. I think this war for mixed reality dominance will be almost entirely fought and won on the battlefield for developers. The truth of the matter is both companies will likely be able to create hardware that does all the necessary video passthrough and eye tracking and everything that users need because 1) Meta is betting their entire company on this mission and has no choice but to invest in people that will build them the best hardware, proven by the Meta Quest Pro being surprisingly solid by most accounts and 2) if the company who created the Facebook phone can do it, then Apple surely can too. So I don't foresee this being a hardware battle.
But the biggest problem plaguing VR and mixed reality headsets right now is that there's nothing to freaking do with them. It's incredible tech with incredible promise and yet even the early adopters sound like they're using it more as post-modern coffee table art than an actual computing device. This is a problem only developers can solve. The iPhone wasn't the iPhone until developers got involved and started submitted apps by the million to the App Store, and mixed reality headsets will be the same way. This is the reason Zuckerberg seems very at-ease with the Meta Quest Pro not making Meta a single dime as long as it gets developers interested in the product.
Meta is the clear market leader right now since they're, well, virtually the only player, and they changed their company name to make it clear they're the market leader (and to make you forget they gave all those teen girls depression back in the 2010s). But it seems like Apple could launch their mixed reality headset within the next 12 months, at which point I bet most developers will still be firing up their compilers and figuring out how to dip their toe into the metaverse, so they'll still be flexible in what platforms they want to optimize their workflows for.
And after 15 years of the iPhone, Apple, as controversial as some of its App Store policies are, has proven to be very strong at rallying its developers to adapt to new features and hardware, and I don't think mixed reality will be any different because Apple will always carry with it a committed customer base who will buy anything and everything with an Apple logo on it. If we're stuck right now in a zero-start problem because developers don't want to develop for headsets until there are enough users and users don't want to use their headsets until there's enough apps, having Apple get into the marketplace, which will by default bring a flood of black turtleneck-wearing devotees into the headset ecosystem, gives developers all the confidence they need to start building apps. It's still unclear to me whether or not Apple will be able to exercise any sort of exclusive grip over developers that makes it difficult for them to develop for both platforms, but if Apple finds a way to build this mote and keep their platform "closed," I think Meta is screwed. They simply don't have the developer relationships Apple currently does.
And almost everything Zuckerberg has said about his vision for the metaverse points toward Meta building a very open, interoperable platform similar to what Microsoft did for PCs. Apple on the other hand has built almost all of its brand value around being a closed ecosystem. So I think we land in an interesting situation where Apple has all the incentive to build a closed platform and all the market power to command that developers follow them into it.
That being said, let's not forget the Oculus Quest 2 is outselling the Xbox Series X and S right now, so developers might see that as proof enough that an active user base exists and start coding. I don't feel that excitement right now, but that's not to say it definitely won't happen.
So it's to-be-seen whether Meta's one-year head start is enough to make devoted Apple developers switch their allegiance to a competing brand's hardware, but either way the thesis is the same: whoever wins the battle for developers wins the metaverse, and I'll be watching closely to find out.
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