What Tim Cook thinks about the Metaverse
While Facebook is spending billions of dollars on its Metaverse platform, Apple CEO, Tim Cook thinks that people still do not know ‘what the metaverse is’ instead augmented reality is a profound technology as it is easily accessible to people around the world.
Amazon, Snapchat and now Apple downplays the Metaverse
One may find the statement contradictory as during the earning call last year, Cook said, “We’re a company in the business of innovation, so we’re always exploring new and emerging technologies.”
Tim Cook is the latest CEO to question the concept of the Metaverse. As per his interview with the Dutch publication, Baright, “Virtual Reality is a well defined technology and has certain use cases, however, people are unlikely to spend quality time in the virtual world.
Tim Cook feels AR is more Profound
Cook is wary of the metaverse because different businesses are investing millions of dollars in its development yet there is no agreement on what it actually is.
For example, Mark Zuckerberg calls it an ‘embodied internet’ where instead of viewing it you are inside it. Microsoft and Adobe are viewing the metaverse as a place for collaboration, mobility and work. According to Tim Sweeney, Fortnite is, by far, the easiest Metaverse idea which allows gamers to hang out in a 3D world in their digital avatar.
During the discussion with Bright, Cook said, “I think AR is a profound technology that will affect everything. Imagine suddenly being able to teach with AR and demonstrate things that way. Or medically, and so on.”
Tim’s optimism about AR technology stems from the fact that the app store currently has around 14,000 AR apps and its development platform for iOS devices, ARkit has over 34% market share compared to its competitors.
Additionally, there have been rumors that Apple is working on its mixed reality device codenamed, Apple Reality One which will have VR and AR functionalities.
Tim Cook isn’t the only CEO to lay down his skepticism on the Metaverse. nap CEO Evan Spiegel told The Guardian that the company avoids using the term because it’s “quite ambiguous and hypothetical.” Meanwhile, Amazon’s head of devices David Limp recently said that if he asked “several hundred people what they think about the metaverse, we’d get 205 different answers” and that there is no “common definition” of the term.
