During the last weeks we barely heard from the metaverse, Meta’s incipient project to create a virtual space, accessible through VR viewers, and which aims to be the great next Internet revolution (although some of us are not clear at all). Clearly inspired by the model that Ready Player One showed us, the metaverse aims to advance on the path that Habbo Hotel, Second Life and similar services have already started a few years ago.
For now, by Meta we have little more than a declaration of intent, accompanied by some basic elements that the company showed when announcing the metaverse, a few months ago. And after an initial perhaps too enthusiastic reception by a part of the sector, the declarations of Intel on the matter served to stifle the hype that had been generated around him. And since then, although it is true that we have had the Christmas celebrations in between, radio silence.
We have not had to wait too long for the metaverse to receive its first setback of 2022, even if it is in the form of rumor, and it is that those with the bitten apple would not be very willing to participate in Zuckerberg’s plans. That is what Mark Gurman has ventured not only in his weekly newsletter, but also on your Twitter account.
Lots of interest in my take on “Apple Reality” and the Metaverse https://t.co/ZmacFcOC9k pic.twitter.com/C4SNbFbULp
– Mark Gurman (@markgurman) January 9, 2022
«I’ve been told pretty directly that the idea of a completely virtual world where users can escape to – like they can in Meta Platforms / Facebook’s vision of the future – is off limits from Apple”. Come on, it seems that Apple is not attracted at all by the user experience model posed by the Zuckerberg metaverse and consequently, do not have them.
This is especially important if we take into account that, from what we know so far, the “secret” project of whatApple’s augmented reality and virtual reality headsets keep on going. And yes, it is true that based on the rumors that point to a particularly high price, it is probably little more than a niche product, yes, but it also has all the potential to become a tremendously aspirational product. And his rejection of the metaverse is not exactly a positive thing for his image.
According to Gurman, his sources talk about how Apple does not like the model proposed by the metaverse, but as soon as we stop to think about it, it is difficult not to see after said hypothetical rejection the bad relationship that, for years, both technologies have, something that began when Steve Jobs was still with us, and that has undoubtedly become chronic. And if there is something that personally gives me goosebumps, it is to think about the privacy model of the metaverse. It would not surprise me if that same concern is recurrent in Cupertino.
The big question, yes, is whether Apple will actively choose to prevent access to the metaverse from its virtual reality viewer or if, on the contrary, it will simply show itself against said environment. This, of course, it will depend very directly on the operation of said viewer, of whether it can act as an extension of the PC or, on the contrary, it will have its own app store and, although it takes advantage of the processing capacity of a computer, it does not allow access to the software of the same.
