Meta has made no secret of the fact that it is planning on releasing a new virtual reality (VR) headset towards the end of 2022, currently codenamed Project Cambria. Recent details suggest it won’t rival Meta Quest 2 as it’ll be focused on the high-end, more enterprise area of the market. With new reports suggesting it’ll cost $800 USD, the company has unusually come out and said that’s not the case, costing “significantly” more than $800.
The Information (paywalled) published a report saying it had seen an internal roadmap of Meta’s VR headset plans, suggesting that four are slated to arrive between now and 2024. One of those will be Project Cambria which Meta has described as: “more focused on work use cases and eventually replacing your laptop or work setup.”
Suggesting that Meta is targeting a $799 price tag, Road to VR reports that a Meta spokesperson rubbished those claims, saying they were inaccurate and that Project Cambria will be “significantly higher” than the claimed price. How much so wasn’t divulged but such a statement doesn’t exactly indicate a jump of $100 or so.
While no specifications have yet been released, Project Cambria will house plenty of features including eye and face tracking capabilities, controllers that could possibly track themselves, full-colour passthrough mixed reality (MR) and possibly pancake optics for a slimmer profile. It is far more likely that Project Cambria will be HTC Vive Focus 3’s main rival, a standalone headset priced at $1300 (£1272.00 GBP).
Meta’s Andrew ‘Boz’ Bosworth wearing a VR prototype. Image credit: Meta
As for all those other headsets mentioned in the report, one of those is the second iteration of Cambria (codenamed Funston) supposedly arriving in 2024. The other two are next-generation Quest’s, reportedly codenamed Stinson and Cardiff, slated to arrive in 2023 and 2024 respectively. Whilst certainly an aggressive hardware rollout, with supply lines as they are, these launch windows should be taken with a pinch of salt.
Project Cambria is slated to arrive in September 2022, most likely showcased during Meta’s annual Connect event which takes place around that time. For continued updates on Meta’s VR and AR plans, keep reading gmw3.
Following a report today which claimed Meta’s upcoming Project Cambria headset would be priced at $800, rather than denying the information as a rumor, the company took the curious step of confirming the headset would be much more expensive.
Now typically when there’s a leak like this, companies will simply decline to comment on any of it. In this case, Meta took the somewhat odd step of pretty much doing that except for addressing a single point.
A Spokesperson for the company tells Road to VR the $800 price for Project Cambria claimed by the report is not accurate, and further, that the actual price of the headset will be “significantly higher.”
That’s a curious move, but it seems that Meta didn’t want the report to set a false expectation for the price of the headset, which is expected to launch later this year.
If the reported price of $800 was within $100 or even $200 of the actual price, it doesn’t seem like it would be that big of a deal. But because the company took the odd step of not just saying ‘the price is incorrect’, but also adding that it will be higher, makes us think the real price will certainly exceed $1,000.
That’s definitely expensive for a standalone VR headset, but not unheard of. HTC’s Vive Focus 3—which is aimed at enterprise customers—is priced at $1,300. If Meta sees itself competing for those same customers, they may aim to come close to that price (if not a bit under).
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Interestingly, the episode bears resemblance to something that happened in the early Oculus days, before the company was absorbed deeply into Meta. Back in 2015, Oculus founder Palmer Luckey said the launch price of the original Oculus Rift headset would be “roughly in [the $350] ballpark.” But when the headset’s price was officially revealed at $600, nearly double the ‘ballpark’ price, people weren’t happy.
This was before the launch of Oculus Touch, the headset’s motion controllers; later when someone asked Luckey what the ‘ballpark’ price would be for Touch he remarked, “no more ballparks for now. I have learned my lesson.”
Whether that’s a long forgotten memory for Meta or not, the company must have felt it was quite important to get ahead of the Project Cambria price discussion before it got out of their hands.
“By 2024,” the report says, the company plans to launch four new headsets. The report specifically says these are “virtual reality headsets” (though this could well include mixed reality headsets using passthrough AR) and indicates the four new devices are separate from the AR headsets that Meta is also developing.
The first of Meta’s four new headsets will be Project Cambria, which the report says is expected in September of this year.
And a follow-up to Cambria is already in the works, according to the report; codenamed Funston, which is expected in 2024.
As for the other two headsets, those are the next-gen iterations of Meta’s more affordable Quest 2 headset, reportedly codenamed Stinson and Cardiff, with an expected release in 2023 and 2024, respectively.
As ever, only time will tell, but it looks like Meta’s increasingly steep investments in XR are ramping up the pace for the company’s headset releases.
Mark Zuckerberg said he sees Project Cambria “eventually replacing your laptop”.
Here’s how he described Cambria to Meta’s investors during the Q1 2022 earnings call:
“On the hardware side, Meta Quest 2 continues to be the leading virtual reality headset. Later this year, we’ll release a higher-end headset, codenamed Project Cambria, which will be more focused on work use cases and eventually replacing your laptop or work setup.
This premium device will have improved ergonomics and full color passthrough mixed reality to seamlessly blend virtual reality with the physical world. We’re also building in eye tracking and face tracking so that your avatar can make eye contact and facial expressions, which dramatically improves your sense of presence. It’s also a good example of why we’re developing hardware in addition to the social platforms.”
But what exactly does he mean by “replacing your laptop”?
The short teaser for Cambria shared at Connect 2021 shows one of VR’s key potential use cases: a portable but powerful workspace. The idea is that instead of being limited to hunching over the one small screen built into your laptop, you can have multiple virtual screens of whatever size you want floating in front of you. Consulting CTO John Carmack described the eventual goal as “to be something that somebody hard up for money decides I’m going to buy a VR headset instead of a Chromebook or instead of a tablet”.
Meta has been slowly adding productivity features to the Quest operating system, branded as Infinite Office. If you have a Logitech K830 or Apple Magic Keyboard, they’ll show up in VR so you can type and use the trackpad to navigate. Triple window support was added to the web browser in August, with window resizing added in December. These windows can actually also be Android phone apps, but the Quest Store doesn’t serve these and there’s obviously no Google Play Store or Amazon Appstore, so such apps have to be sideloaded.
While the software is starting to support these use cases, Quest 2’s front-heavy design makes extended seated use uncomfortable and its passthrough view is low resolution black & white. Cambria appears to have a more compact and balanced design, with a smaller frontbox and a strap resembling Quest 2’s elite strap accessory. And as shown in the teaser, its high resolution color passthrough should allow interaction with real world objects as well as reading notes on paper.
Still, the focus on web apps limits the current scope of Meta’s VR productivity ambitions to taking on Chromebooks. A lot of work is done on Windows or Mac, leveraging power hungry native apps like Photoshop, Premiere, Unity, or programming IDEs. You can of course use apps like Virtual Desktop and Immersed to use your PC in VR, but neither is frictionless and both still work around an operating system designed for windows housed within physical screens.
We didn’t cover the claims at the time as we were focused on covering CES 2022, we doubted the “Oculus Quest 3” naming claim given Meta dropped the Oculus brand, and 1-2 million seemed too low for a Quest 2 successor.
Meta hasn’t yet revealed the name, specs, or price of Project Cambria, but did say it:
isn’t Quest 3
has color passthrough cameras for mixed reality
has a more compact design thanks to multi element pancake lenses used instead of fresnel lenses
has eye tracking and face tracking
will launch in 2022
Mark Zuckerberg referred to Cambria as the first of “a new product line”, separate from “the Quest product line”. That suggests Cambria might not be called Quest 2 Pro – though it seemingly was once known as ‘Quest Pro’.
Given Kuo’s naming pivot and his mention of pancake lenses and face tracking, we believe his reports are probably referring to Project Cambria and his product name claims are guesses. We highly doubt Meta would release two headsets in the same year both with expensive pancake lenses and face tracking. What would make these products substantially different? And why would Meta only announce one of them?
As such, if Kuo’s claims are correct – naming aside – Cambria should have dual 2160×2160 Mini LED panels and launch in the second half of this year (between July and December). That’s up from the 1832×1920 per eye resolution provided by Quest 2’s single conventional LCD display.
Mini LED uses many small backlight elements instead of a few large backlights
Mini LED isn’t a completely new display technology like the name might suggest – it’s just an advanced form of LCD backlighting. While traditional small LCD panels use a single backlight behind the entire display, Mini LED instead uses thousands of tiny LED elements to deliver contrast levels close to OLED – though usually with the tradeoff of some blooming. Mini LED is already present in the high end PC headset Varjo Aero, and Pimax plans to use it in its standalone headset too.
Renders by product designer Marcus Kane based on recollection of YouTuber Bradley Lynch
Last week a YouTuber claimed to have seen photos of Project Cambria and collaborated with a product designer to produce detailed renders. The source of those photos apparently claimed the field of view feels “very similar” to Quest 2, and cautioned when using it in VR mode “don’t expect Cambria to be something that different. It’s different, but not that much.”
YouTuber Bradley Lynch claims to have seen Meta’s upcoming Project Cambria headset, and collaborated with a product designer to produce detailed renders.
Cambria was announced in late October at Connect 2021. Cambria isn’t Quest 3 – CEO Mark Zuckerberg described it as “a completely new advanced and high end product” positioned “at the higher end of the price spectrum”. Cambria will be sold alongside Quest 2 as a higher end alternative.
Cambria appears to have a much more balanced design than Quest 2, with a significantly smaller frontbox and a strap resembling Quest 2’s elite strap accessory, potentially housing the battery. Meta says this is achieved through the use of multi-element pancake lenses used instead of fresnel lenses. Whereas Quest 2 has grainy black & white cameras, Cambria will have high resolution color passthrough for mixed reality experiences. It will also include eye tracking and face tracking to drive avatars in social VR.
At the time of the announcement, Meta confirmed it had sent development kits out.
Past ‘Quest Pro’ Leaks
Cambria was seemingly once known as “Quest Pro”.
In February 2021 now-CTO Andrew Bosworth was asked about the prospect of ‘Quest Pro’. He replied “Quest Pro, huh… Interesting…” and winked at the camera. By April 2021 Bosworth’s stance on “Quest Pro” became more solid. In a public conversation with “Consulting CTO” John Carmack, he remarked “I did hint at an AMA earlier this year about Quest Pro because we do have a lot of things in development where we want to introduce new functionality to the headset”.
In September references to ‘Quest Pro’ were found in the Quest firmware, as well as eye and face tracking calibration steps. Just two weeks later, the leaks significantly intensified.
Screenshots of a video call leaked showing Touch controllers with onboard cameras instead of an LED tracking ring. But days before this, a redditor going by the username Samulia had posted low resolution renders of these same controllers, alongside detailed apparent specs of the headset.
In that reddit post Samulia claimed:
The headset’s codename is “Seacliff” and the controllers codename is “Starlet”.
The display is a Dual-Cell LCD with the same resolution as Quest 2 but an advanced backlight with pixel-level control, enabling OLED-like black levels without OLED’s black smear or manufacturability issues.
Three sensors are on the exterior of the headset: a 4K 120FPS RGB camera for color passthrough & mixed reality and two side-facing 1K near-infrared 120FPS cameras.
Some form of laser pattern projection guides controller tracking and potentially aids hand tracking.
Internally there are 480p 120FPS eye tracking cameras and two 400p 120FPS face tracking cameras.
Days after this YouTuber Basti564 – known for finding upcoming features in Quest firmware on multiple occasions – posted a new video backing up Samulia with firmware findings revealing the same sensor configuration as claimed and the same “Seacliff” codename. That suggested either Samulia had insider knowledge, or was using the same firmware decompiling methodology as Basti. Basti also found references to Seacliff having two cooling fans, up from one in Quest 2. The primary CPU cores in Quest 2 are actually underclocked. Better cooling could allow for significant improvement in CPU clock speed, and perhaps even GPU overclocking too.
In October, just days before Cambria was teased by Meta, Basti discovered tutorial videos in the firmware giving us the first look at the headset’s design.
By November, just weeks after the dark teaser video, Basti had found textures of Cambria and its controllers, and formed them into a 3D model.
“Don’t expect Cambria to be something that different. It’s different, but not that much.”
The source apparently claimed Cambria has a resolution of 2160×2160 per eye, up from Quest 2’s 1832×1920 per eye, and that the field of view feels “very similar” to Quest 2.
Yesterday Lynch posted a new video in which he claims his source showed him real images of the Cambria headset via an app which prevents screenshots. Lynch worked with product designer Marcus Kane in the VR app Gravity Sketch to produce a detailed 3D model of what he saw for renders, seen above.
The renders look essentially identical to Meta’s teaser video and the leaked tutorial video, with one notable exception. Underneath the front of the headset is two cameras near the bottom (in a similar position to Quest 2’s) as well as an apparent sensor suite directly in the middle. It’s unclear whether these sensors are a recent addition to Cambria, were simply not included in the 3D models and dark renders we’ve seen to date, or whether the reconstruction reflects the actual sensor layout of the upcoming device. Lynch speculates these may be time-of-flight sensors for hand tracking, though it may also be the laser pattern projectors Samulia claims.
Meta hasn’t given a specific release window for Project Cambria, but as recently as December confirmed it’s still on track to launch in 2022.
YouTuber SadlyItsBradley claims to have seen actual photos of the production model of Meta’s next-gen mixed reality headset, Project Cambria. Though they aren’t sharing the source photos, they worked with a 3D modeler to create a detailed rendering of what the photos showed.
SadlyItsBradley is an XR hardware analyst who has spent considerable time digging deep to track down rumors and info relating to upcoming VR hardware. Recently they claimed that Meta’s upcoming mixed reality headset, currently known as Project Cambria, reached its ‘DVT’ phase which means that it’s nearly ready for production.
In the video accompanying the renders, Bradley talked about the array of cameras on the headset, including a pod of four sensors hidden underneath the front cover. According to them, the pod contains two cameras and two non-camera sensors which are theorized to be some kind of depth-sensor:
What’s especially notable about the renders is how compact the optics and display housing is compared to current VR headsets. If the renders are fairly accurate, this affirms that Project Cambria is likely moving to a new optics system compared to past headsets (likely a ‘pancake’-style optic).
Image courtesy SadlyItsBradley
Some of this info and speculation—and even much of the look of the device—was teased by Meta itself last year. At the time the company said Project Cambria would include “high-res color mixed reality passthrough,” new optics, eye & face tracking, and controllers which do away with the tracking rings (likely moving to on-board inside-out tracking). The company also confirmed that Project Cambria would launch in 2022, though no further details on a release date or price have been announced.
Ahead of Moss Book 2’s debut on PSVR later this month, developer Polyarc reflected on what future headset technology could mean for its series going forward.
Specifically, we rasked engineer and designer Joshua Stiksma what he thought the arrival of eye-tracking in Meta’s Project Cambria and Sony’s PSVR 2, as well as face-tracking in the former headset could mean for the future of the series.
“That tech specifically is amazing,” Stiksma said. “I’m really excited to see what everybody’s going to do with that kind of technology, but I think you kinda hit it there on what’s exciting for Polyarc. The ability to try to communicate with the character through a language we can all understand.”
In the Moss games, players embody the role of a supernatural being that partners up with a young mouse named Quill. You control Quill’s movements and actions with VR controllers, but you also interact with her directly by reaching into her world or waving to her. Polyarc is looking to expand the ways in which you can connect with the character in the sequel, but future hardware innovations could hold yet more advances in this field.
“Smiling is a great example,” Stiksma continued. “That’s powerful. And as developers, that’s something that’s really exciting. And then the eye tracking, obviously, being able to know where you’re looking and she can understand, hypothetically she understands where you’re looking and can react in some way.”
Currently PSVR 2 and Project Cambria don’t have official release dates, but the latter is coming this year and PSVR 2 will hopefully arrive by early 2023 at the latest. When both are out, VR developers will have two high-profile headsets with eye tracking implemented. You can keep up with everything we know about Cambria here and everything we know about PSVR 2 here.
“If you’re having a conversation with anybody at all, those are key things that make that conversation real,” Stiksma concluded. “And with us being able to connect in that way, it’s only gonna mean that we’re able to have our experiences feel more real. And I don’t want to downplay how tough that probably will be for us to implement and pull off because there’s probably going to be a fine line between, oh, this is just a quick reaction and then skirting over it too, “Wow this is a real person or a real character that I feel is real.”
We’ll have more on our interview with Polyarc this weekend, so stay tuned.
While Meta’s quarterly earnings calls are a number fest, occasionally CEO Mark Zuckerberg gives some interesting insight or update as to its hardware plans. That was certainly the case this week when in amongst all the Oculus Store figures he mentioned that Meta’s high-end virtual reality (VR) headset (Project Cambria) is still on track for a 2022 launch.
Leaked image prior to Project Cambria announcement.
Project Cambria was officially announced during the Connect 2021 keynote – although a leak had surfaced – widely expected because had continually talked about an Oculus Quest Pro model. This was going to be more powerful, have more sensors packed into it to track your eyes and facial features. It’s assumed these are the same device, with Meta looking to corner the prosumer and enterprise market as well.
The Connect 2021 address mentioned a 2022 launch window and Zuckerberg has reiterated that fact, saying: “We’re working towards a release of a high-end virtual reality headset later this year.” It’s likely the official launch will take place during Connect which should make for quite an exciting finale to 2022 for VR fans as PlayStation VR2 has been rumoured to arrive by year-end.
Whilst there are still plenty of unknown’s regarding Project Cambria, Meta has dropped several details highlighting its desire to create a much more refined VR experience for those who don’t mind paying for it.
It’ll still be a wireless, standalone headset for ultimate freedom in VR that’ll be compatible with Quest – but it won’t be the next Quest – so it’ll likely still include AirLink or some other PC connectivity. Plus as a high-end product, it’ll cost more, probably north of £500 to differentiate it from the Quest 2’s £299/£399 consumer price point.
Project Cambria’s Pancake Optics. Image credit: Meta
As for the in-built tech, those eye and face tracking features will play a major part, thus allowing your metaverse avatar to express your actual emotions. Meta’s VR avatars actually got an upgrade earlier this week to aid with this process. Eye-tracking also allows for foveated rendering, focusing processing power on where you’re looking whilst your peripheral vision can be rendered at a lower quality.
Project Cambria won’t purely offer VR experiences either, it’s going to be a mixed reality (MR) headset with full-colour passthrough thanks to an array of cameras. This will be different to MR devices like Magic Leap because you won’t have a transparent display to look through. Instead, the real world will be displayed in the internal screens with advanced algorithms helping to add a sense of depth.
None of this will be any good if the optics aren’t amazing. So to make the visuals pop whilst ensuring a slim, light headset Meta will be employing pancake optics. These fold light several times over to maintain a thinner form factor, the lens being one of the main reasons for the bulk of a VR headset.
This pro headset might be readying for launch in 2022 but don’t forget Meta isn’t dropping the Quest product lineup. The CEO said last year that its Reality Labs division was working on follow-up devices: “We have product teams spun up now, working on the next few generations of virtual reality and what Quest 3 and 4 are gonna look like.” So consumer Quest’s aren’t going anywhere.
For further updates on Project Cambria, keep reading gmw3.
As we edge closer towards Web 3, it seems like every company wants a piece of the pie. After rebranding to Meta and laying out its plans to dominate the metaverse, Facebook has made significant waves within the last few months. Other Big Tech giants such as Microsoft, Samsung and Sony have also sunk their teeth into the metaverse space, with offerings such as collaborative software, better connectivity and more immersive user experiences.
The spotlight has also long since been on Apple, with many analysts and experts waiting for one of tech’s biggest trailblazers to introduce their own ‘mixed reality’ headset. However, recent reports have confirmed that Apple has no short-term plans to enter the metaverse with their much-awaited device, which is set to be announced later this year. Instead, the company is allegedly focusing only on providing access to gaming, communications and entertainment content for the time being.
With the metaverse being an inevitable prospect, will Apple eventually enter the market with a Web 3-compatible device? First, let’s take a look at what’s in store for both Apple and Meta’s next headset releases in 2022. We’ll then review what both Facebook and Apple are best at doing — and why we think that Apple won’t necessarily stay behind the curve.
What do we know so far about Meta and ‘Project Cambria’?
Facebook’s first high-end headset under the Meta moniker is due for release sometime later in 2022 — though an exact timeframe has yet to be confirmed.
Dubbed ‘Project Cambria’, Meta’s latest device was initially referenced last year at the company’s virtual Connect conference. This headset has been promised to be the successor to the popular Oculus Quest 2, packed with immersive features that were previously unseen in previous headset releases.
Notable features include lifelike facial communication capabilities, the ability to track users’ facial expressions, reconstruction of mixed reality objects, a special avatar personalisation engine and other advancements that are in line with bringing CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s promise of an ‘embodied’ metaverse experience to life.
In terms of its design, several defining assets were also revealed in Meta’s Connect 2021 demo. Some of the most notable ones include:
A more ergonomic design: In its current prototype form, Project Cambria will come in a sleek, all-black structure that is lighter, more compact and equipped with a much slimmer strap than its Oculus predecessors.
Tracked controllers: Project Cambria is also expected to feature full-body tracking capabilities, giving users a better sense and level of control over their virtual surroundings.
More advanced sensors and reconstruction algorithms: Project Cambria is also set to feature more superior sensors and reconstruction algorithms, with the ability to represent physical objects in the real world with impeccable perspective and depth. The sensors will also accommodate various different skin tones and facial features, making users’ experiences more immersive and lifelike.
According to Meta analyst Noelle Martin, the company: “aims to be able to simulate you down to every skin pore, every strand of hair, every micromovement […] the objective is to create 3D replicas of people, places and things, so hyper-realistic and tactile that they’re indistinguishable from what’s real.”
So far, Meta’s project appears to be off to a smooth start. Since its rebranding, the company’s share price has risen by about 5%. Meta’s plans involve hiring at least 10,000 new staff members to build out their metaverse space. And while this news hasn’t exactly been hailed across the board, Meta has even started poaching staff members from both Microsoft and Apple and recruting them to join their mission.
What do we know about Apple’s upcoming ‘mixed reality’ headset?
While multiple sources initially claimed that Apple’s upcoming headset would be set to launch in 2022, Bloomberg now suggests that we will more likely see the announcement of the new headset closer to the end of this year.
Some features that are projected to be featured in Apple’s first XR offering include:
Turbo-fast processing: Apple’s headset release is expected to wield the same level of power as the M1 processor currently found in its latest MacBook Pro lineup, with a 96W USB-C power adapter at its helm. It’s also reported to feature a lower-end processor, which will power up any sensor-related computing.
Tracking cameras: Apple’s headset will apparently feature two tracking cameras, with the ability to relay information to two 8K displays located in front of the user’s eyes.
LiDAR sensors: These sensors have been cited as a possibility for Apple’s first headset — with lasers to measure distance, allowing for the fast and accurate gathering of a space’s area. This would allow for better placing of objects in AR.
Despite ample predictions that Apple would join the likes of Meta, Microsoft and other tech leaders in creating a metaverse-compatible device, it appears that they won’t be in the ranks just yet. According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, known to be a reliable Apple analyst: “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.” Instead, he has said that the upcoming mixed-reality headset will allow users to perform shorter activity sessions — such as gaming, communications and entertainment consumption.
With Web 3 clearly on the horizon, Apple’s refusal to enter the metaverse space has prompted reactions of shock and disappointment from spectators. This news also places both Meta and Apple in very different areas of the playing field, with Apple’s upcoming vision feeling like a sharp contrast to that of Meta’s — a brand that has completely centralised its new positioning around creating a metaverse space in Web 3.
If we shift our focus back to Meta, we’re left with an important question — what kind of advantage do they have in this race? Has Facebook’s success and business model laid down the right foundation for Meta to rightfully take off?
What Facebook has done best: connecting people
From its earliest days, Facebook was created with one primary mission: to bring people closer together.
A then-sophomore at Harvard, a young Mark Zuckerberg launched The Facebook — a social media website built to forge better connections between Harvard students. This force of connectivity was then used to help students across different institutions connect with each other. Eventually, the Facebook universe would completely revolutionise how the rest of the world would connect, communicate and share personal information across a centralised database.
Now as Meta, the company’s goal is to enhance the user experience and make these virtual connections more immersive. According to Mark Zuckerberg: “the defining quality of the metaverse will be a feeling of presence — like you are right there with another person or in another place.” Moreover, he describes the objective of allowing users to feel truly present with one another as: “the ultimate dream of social technology.”
Today, it can be argued that Meta is the only Big Tech corporation with the scale and capital to create a metaverse space — with a user base of 3.5 billion people and a total of $86 billion in generated profits from within the last year. With an unparalleled number of users at its fingertips, Meta already houses the largest web of interconnected people in all of social media history.
However, will the expansiveness of Meta’s ecosystem continue to foster a safe and equitable space for users to freely connect and share information? Despite Facebook’s long history of controversies, Zuckerberg seems to have a pretty egalitarian version of the metaverse — promising a need for greater interoperability and lower fees for developers. But with the advent of virtual land on decentralised platforms such as Decentraland and Somnium Space, questions have now arisen about how Meta will govern its new internet medium, or about where communities may find ways to connect more freely in Web 3.
With this taken into account, it’s also easy to wonder: should Meta be forced to share the metaverse with these newer, blockchain-powered platforms, will the Project Cambria headset offer fair access? Or will this one day be offered by another, potentially more mainstream and user-friendly device?
What Apple has done best: innovation
Apple is often credited for revolutionising some of our most widely-used product innovations. Well-known examples include the iPod, the iPhone and, of course, the Apple Macintosh — one of the very first machines that helped make personal computing ubiquitous. To illustrate an example, let’s jump into a time machine and backtrack to the very early days of computing.
Steve Jobs, a then-aspiring tech mogul, paid a visit to Xerox’s PARC (Palo Alto Research Center) laboratory back in 1979. During this time, Xerox was the first company to have produced an operating system based on a graphical user interface (GUI) — a remarkable device called the Xerox Alto.
However, the Alto would never see a commercial release. With a price tag of $32,000 USD (the equivalent to $114,105 USD in today’s market), Xerox’s managers saw nothing but an overly complicated workstation that was far too expensive to mass-produce. Steve Jobs, on the other hand, saw much more than that. He was amazed by the GUI and believed that the Alto was the ideal blueprint for how all computers should operate.
Most analysts agree that the Xerox Alto was far ahead of its time. Before any other machine in computing history, it featured the same type of keyboard and mouse interface we still use today. It also, incredibly enough, featured now-universal concepts such as email, event reminders and word processing.
Wanting a piece of the innovation for himself, Jobs sold shares of Apple to Xerox in exchange for access to the Alto’s technology. Apple would then use their data to create a more refined, user-friendly and affordable home computing device.
The same logic can be applied to the creation of the iPhone. While Apple wasn’t the pioneer of the mobile smartphone, they were able to reinvent the handset concept and turn it into the closest thing we then had to a pocket-sized computer. To date, the iPhone’s build has served as a de facto blueprint for how future touch-screen devices would be constructed and integrated into our everyday lives.
Throughout the course of tech history, Apple has mastered the art of taking existing technology and making it better. And while Steve Jobs may no longer be at the forefront of Apple’s empire, their continued efforts (such as the M1 processor in today’s lightweight, industry-standard MacBooks, or the highly expansive App Store library) have proven that the tech giant hasn’t lost its innovation edge.
So, how does this all relate to our current technological paradigm, which is Web 3?
Well, it’s a prime example of what Apple does best: innovation. And while it might be too soon to tell, decades of Apple’s design-first trends suggest that we could very well see history repeat itself once the tech giant decides to create an innovative, metaverse-ready device. Like the iPhone or the Macintosh, it just might be the one that finds its way into the households of the masses.
So, what’s next?
With neither tech giant having released their dedicated XR headset yet, it’s still far too early to tell which path either will take. Recent reports have revealed that Meta plans to enter the NFT marketplace, though no evidence yet suggests that the company has any plans to embrace a more decentralised business model.
When we look back at the history of computing, however, one thing is clear: computers — or in this case, headsets — have never been the end goal. They’re not the thing, per se — they’re the thing that gets us to the next thing. And when it comes to getting closer to Web 3, the company that brings us towards the better, more ubiquitous user experience will win.
To keep learning more about Apple, Meta and other industry trends related to the metaverse and Web 3, stay tuned for more updates on gmw3.
