Meta and Apple in ‘deep’ competition to build the metaverse, Zuckerberg tells staff

Photo by AMY OSBORNE / AFP via Getty Images

Mark believes that Apple and his company are in a very deep competition to build the metaverse, suggesting that the two tech giants are ready to butt heads in selling hardware for augmented and virtual reality

The Meta CEO told employees earlier this month that they were competing with Apple to determine what direction the internet should go in. He said that Meta would be a cheaper alternative to Apple, which is expected to release its first augmented reality headset later this year.

The competition of philosophies and ideas is where they believe that by doing everything themselves and tightly integrating that they build a better consumer experience. There is a lot of work that needs to be done across different companies, and that will allow a larger ecosystems to exist.

The idea of interoperability for the metaverse, or what he sees as the next major chapter of computing after mobile phones, has been pushed for by the founder of Facebook. The Metaverse Open Standards Group was helped by Meta. The idea is to encourage the creation of open protocols that will allow people to move quickly through future worlds with their virtual goods.

In his comments to employees, he said that it was unsurprising that Apple was not in the group. He explained how Apple's approach of building hardware and software it tightly controls had worked well with the iPhone, but that for the metaverse, "it's not really clear upfront whether an open or closedecosystem is going to be better."

While CEO Tim Cook has been upfront about the company's interest in augmented reality, Apple has been reticent about its hardware plans. All indications point to the imminent release of a high-end headset that blurs the full experience of virtual reality with augmented reality. Meta is planning to release a similar kind of headset later this year and is also readying its first pair of augmented reality glasses.

It seems that if virtual reality and augmented reality do take off, he wants to position Meta as the mobile operating system of choice. The side loading of apps that are not approved by Meta is similar to the side loading of apps that are approved by Google. Meta's hardware is mostly sold at a loss or breakeven despite the price increase.

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Apple and Meta have never looked at each other in the same way. The latter is costing billions of dollars a year in lost ad revenue due to its prompt that asks people if they want a third-party app to track them. The two tech giants are going to be fighting for years to come even as they try to find a way out of being under Apple's thumb on mobile.

On June 30th, a Meta employee asked a question about metaverse competition with Apple.

Apple is coming out with their own augmented reality glasses. What does that mean for our system? Thank you, thanks.

It is clear that Apple is going to be a competitor for us, not just as a product, but as a philosophy. We are trying to build a more open environment. We're trying to make things compatible with the operating system. The metaverse is a place where you can bring your virtual goods from one place to another. Apple didn't join the Metaverse Open Standards Group because we created it with other people. I don't think that's a big deal. Apple has been the closed provider of computing for a long time.

They believe that by doing everything themselves and tightly integrating that they can create a better consumer experience. There is a lot of work that needs to be done across different companies, and that will allow for a larger ecosystems.

It is not clear if an open or closed environment will be better. Windows was the default and norm when it came to PCs because it had a lot more scale. PC and Windows were the premier ecosystems in that environment.

It is more the other way on a mobile device. In developed countries and places like the US or Western Europe, a lot of the culture-setters and developers prefer the Apple product. I think Apple is the most valuable company in the world because of their position on mobile.

I don't believe that the future is written for the metaverse. At all levels of the stack, we are going to continue doing leading research and push on this. We are using virtual reality. We're using augmented reality. We usually deliver our devices at a cost or slightly more than cost. Our business does not take a premium on the devices. As many people as possible can interact in there. It needs to be an open environment that is compatible.

Can we get a billion people to join the metaverse by the end of the decade? We will build a big business if we do that. That is an exciting thing. We are going to push the open metaverse forward in order to do that.

Apple is going to compete. That is clear, but it is actually a very deep competitor. They have a device that has more features than we do. There is a competition about what direction the internet should take. We are making investments to push forward the open metaverse and hopefully make the next version of computing a bit more open.