While many are excited about the technological development associated with Mark Zuckerberg’s conception of the “metaverse,” a somewhat nebulous catchall phrase for how virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) devices could figure into daily life, some tech leaders are expressing skepticism.
For his part, Apple CEO Tim Cook recently revealed that he is unsure what the future of the metaverse holds.
Cook stated that he feels AR technologies hold “the biggest technological promise for the future.” He went on to say that future generations will one day look back on life before AR the way that people today look back on life before smartphones or the internet.
“It won’t be that long,” Cook said, “AR apps are already in the [Apple] App Store, but the possibilities will go much, much further. I think AR is a profound technology that will affect everything.”
However, for someone who is pro-AR, Cook is more cautious about the metaverse as a whole. His hesitancy comes from the ambiguity of the term and what it really means.
“I’m really not sure the average person can tell you what the metaverse is,” he said.
Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt said something similar back in June, stating that “there’s not an agreement on what the metaverse is.”
Still, Apple is presently developing a headset with AR/VR capabilities with an anticipated rollout date of 2023.
“Imagine suddenly being able to teach with AR and demonstrate concepts that way or medically and so on. We are really going to look back and think about how we once lived without AR,” Cook said.
Cook’s plans and predictions regarding AR are different than Zuckerberg’s, which are more based on social media and cross-platforming.
Disagreement between the two tech leaders over the metaverse could be coming from a place of competition and rivalry.
Zuckerberg said earlier this year that his company, Meta, is in “very deep, philosophical competition with Apple to build the metaverse. This is a competition of philosophies and ideas, where [Apple] believes that by doing everything themselves and tightly integrating that they build a better consumer experience.”
Meta is currently developing AR glasses, the launch date of which has been pushed repeatedly over the years. Its current release date is set for 2024.
