Source | 01 Blockchain
Author | Chenglin Pua (Malaysia)
2021 can be said to be the first year of the meta-universe. Metaverse concept stock Roblox was listed in the United States on March 10, 2021, and metacosm began to accelerate into people's vision. Some people are very optimistic about the metaverse, calling it the "next generation of the Internet". Many giants have also laid out the metaverse, wanting to be the first to eat crabs. Meta has directly changed its name, announcing the future transformation from a social enterprise to a meta-universe enterprise.
The Google heat trend of the metacosm
Other giants also have different degrees of layout. Tencent opened the buy-buy-buy mode in the meta-universe. In April, NVIDIA announced that it would launch Omniverse, a real-time simulation and collaboration platform for enterprises, a virtual work platform known as the "Engineer's Metacosm". Giants have made big moves in the metaverse field, and competition has gradually entered a white-hot situation. Many companies are actively engaged in related business, hoping to grasp the outlet of the meta-universe.
Apple's stock has surged nearly 20 percent in the past month, bringing its market value to $2.94 trillion. The reason for the rise is wall Street's belief that iPhone sales are in short supply and that Apple's valuation model incorporates Apple cars, as well as rumors that Apple will launch AR/VR devices in 2022 to enter the metacosm.
Apple's stock movements over the past month
So what is the layout of Apple, as the number one in market capitalization, in this regard?
In fact, Apple has laid out the AR/VR industry in a low-key manner and applied for many related patents. Bloomberg reported that insiders revealed that Apple is stepping up the development of AR/VR devices, which will be available as early as 2022 or interviews in 2023. Tianfeng Securities analyst Guo Mingqi released a report that Apple will launch an AR/VR headset in the fourth quarter of 2022, and all indications show that the advent of Apple's AR/VR device is not far away.
Current mainstream product forecasts
According to Bloomberg's report, Apple currently has two devices under research: one is a VR device with an internal code name of "N301", with movie-watching, gaming, and social capabilities, which will be launched as early as 2022; the other is an AR glasses with an internal code name of "N421", which is still in the underlying technical research stage, and the release time may be in 2023.
On November 26, 2021, Guo Mingqi released a report that Apple will launch an AR headset in the fourth quarter of 2022, and the Apple AR headset will be equipped with a flagship chip with performance comparable to M1 and a Sony 4K Mirco OLED display, with the goal of replacing the iPhone within 10 years, and shipments are expected to exceed 1 billion.
The report shows that Apple's AR headset requires real-time optical processing of 6-8 lenses, and the computing power demand is much higher than that of the iPhone, so it will use a Mac-class processor. This AR headset will be equipped with two chips, one high-end (Mac-class processor) and one low-end.
At present, most of the chips used in AR headsets are mobile chips based on mobile phone SoC design, such as Qualcomm's XR series chips are used in mainstream AR headsets, and the performance of Qualcomm XR2 chips is about between Snapdragon 865 and Snapdragon 888. Once apple AR headset adopts a chip with performance close to M1, then the computing power of Apple AR headset will be significantly ahead of similar products, so the work that can be calculated or applied will be more extensive.
In addition, this AR headset will get rid of mobile phones and computers to operate independently, support all kinds of applications, no longer a large game console, and can support AR and VR functions at the same time. Apple wants to replace the iPhone with an AR headset, a goal that now seems obviously a bit far away. The main reason is that ar headsets are not popular at present, and they are far from smart phones in terms of functionality. Although the goal is far away, Apple's determination is very firm, in addition to Cook's personal statement, Apple's layout in the field of patents and investment is very positive.
Buy and buy while applying for a patent
According to incomplete statistics of the zinc industry, Apple has acquired more than 20 AR/VR-related teams, and the number of AR/VR patents that have been disclosed has exceeded 400.
The zinc industry has previously sorted out the main progress of Apple's AR products from three aspects: product forecasting, core technology and software ecology:
Gesture recognition, Apple acquired PrimeSense, a team that works on 3D motion capture, in 2013, a company that had developed the world's smallest 3D sensor. According to a patent published by the U.S. Patent Office in 2021, Apple is applying for a patent through the company to achieve eyeball and gesture tracking through 3D mapping technology, through which AR glasses can have gesture recognition functions, and at the same time, Apple has also applied for a patent to predict the position of objects in front of the eyes through fixation data.
Facial recognition, Apple has previously acquired Faceshift, Emotient, RealFace, Regaind, Perceptio and other technical teams to do facial recognition, in fact, Apple has begun to use 3D structured light solutions to do 3D face recognition (Face ID) in the front camera as early as september 2017 when the iPhone X was released, for this reason, Apple even canceled the Home (Home) button. To that end, Apple also filed a patent to identify gamers on AR devices through Face ID.
Spatial positioning, Apple has previously acquired WiFiSLAM, Flyby Media, Indoor.io and other teams, in Apple's AR/VR patent pool, there are also such as spatial audio positioning based on the restoration of 3D sound field, spatial positioning through ultrasound, multi-person simultaneous positioning and other technology patents.
Apple acquired The German AR company Metaio in May 2015. Metaio is a company focused on mobile AR applications. It developed an app that allows users to see where and what virtual IKEA furniture looks like in the user's home. In addition, users can also visit the ruins of the Berlin Wall in the virtual world.
In late 2015, Apple acquired FaceShift, a company that makes facial drawing software. FaceShift has the technology to analyze faces in real time using cameras. It can be used to create animated avatars. The special effects team in Star Wars: The Force Awakens used FaceShift's technology to make its alien masks look more realistic.
Apple has also acquired Israeli company PrimeSense. The company produced motion detection cameras, and its technology was used in the first Xbox Kinect camera. This gesture recognition is very important for AR devices because they don't have a typical handheld controller. For example, Microsoft's HoloLens can recognize gestures to navigate its user interface.
Table 1 Some of Apple's acquisitions or mergers and acquisitions in AR/VR-related fields
Source: 01 Blockchain is organized according to public information
AR/VR software ecosystem
Apple's layout in AR/VR software can be said to be the earliest, clearest and largest. As early as 2017, Apple released ARKit, an AR software development tool that supports engines such as Unity and Unreal, at WWDC 2017 (Apple Worldwide Developers Conference 2017). At WWDC 2021 (Apple Worldwide Developers Conference 2021), Apple has updated this tool to the fifth version of ARKit 5, in addition to releasing new AR features such as AR Maps, Object Capture, RealityKit 2 and so on.
Apple AR Maps
Apple officials say there are already more than 10,000 AR-enabled iOS apps. According to the understanding of the zinc industry, Apple has accelerated its layout in the past two years, both in terms of content and patents. According to incomplete statistics of the zinc industry, in 2021 alone, Apple has won more than 90 patents. According to the statistics of the incomplete collation of wisdom things, Apple has obtained 11 patents related to AR headsets in 2021 alone.
Apple obtained a summary of patent information related to AR glasses in 2021
Source: Wisdom Stuff
Cook doesn't like to talk about metaverses, preferring to call it AR/VR
Under the recent trend of metacosmology. Cook doesn't like the metaverse, but that doesn't stop Apple from investing wildly in ar. The information that Apple will launch an AR/VR headset has been fermenting in the industry for a long time, and there have been news released since last year, and the current concept of the meta-universe is hot, and Apple's release of multiple heavy information on the AR/VR headset this time undoubtedly shows that Apple is also actively deploying in the AR field.
No matter when the metaverse era comes, one thing is certain, without anyone, it is impossible to be without Apple. In the past five years, Cook has publicly expressed his loyal support for AR/VR fifteen times, believing that AR/VR will be Apple's next business growth point, and Apple has invested nearly 1,000 people in the AR/VR field.
Apple wants to lead the VR/AR industry once again
AR/VR devices may be Apple's next killer. Guo Mingqi pointed out in the report that Apple's AR head display will have 3 advantages over other competitors: it has Mac-grade computing power, can run independently, does not have to rely on Mac or iPhone, and can support a wide range of applications, rather than just specific applications.
The report also states that in addition to the AR/VR head display, Apple may also launch AR/VR headphones in late 2022 or early 2023. By 2025, AR glasses will come out. In this report, it is revealed that Apple's goal is to replace the iPhone with AR/VR devices in 10 years. There are currently more than 1 billion active users of the iPhone. This also means that within 10 years, Apple will sell at least 1 billion AR/VR devices.
Regarding pricing, there is no conclusive conclusion. Some media have said that due to the involvement of high-end technology, the cost price of the product is about 2000 to 3000 US dollars (12752-19129 yuan). Guo Mingqi said that the price of the device is very likely to be similar to that of the high-end model iPhone, about $1,000 (6376 yuan).
Apple is now behind other rivals
Now it seems that Apple missed the ups and downs of 2016, missed the second wave of AR/VR devices in 2020, and missed the meta-universe wave of 2021. During this period, other manufacturers have actively launched related products or "drawn cakes" for investors, such as Meta's meta-universe "big cake".
In 2014, Meta acquired Oculus to enter the AR/VR industry and continued to launch iterative related products. At the end of 2015, Xiaomi set up an exploration lab, focusing on new directions such as virtual reality and intelligent robots.
In 2016, Xiaomi released two VR glasses, a toy version of VR for 49 yuan and an official version of VR for 199 yuan. But these are still the early VR boxes of Google Cardboard, which need to be inserted into the mobile phone and highly dependent on the computing power of the mobile phone.
Vivo also released VIVO VR at Water Cube in November 2016, and Huawei released HUAWEI VR in April 2019. Huawei VR is priced at 599 yuan, supporting 2K resolution, with a 95° field of view (FOV), 0-700 degrees myopia adjustable performance.
In May 2018, Xiaomi released the Xiaomi VR all-in-one machine released in conjunction with Oculus, an entry-level product called VR. Lei Jun said at the time that Xiaomi and Oculus had been working together for a year and a half to have this product.
In September 2019, Huawei released a VR device called HUAWEI VR Glass, which uses a 3-segment folding optical path design and weighs only 166 grams of VR equipment, which is recognized as a true VR glasses form due to its thin and short structural design.
HUAWEIVR Glass devices
Source: Huawei official website
Meta continues to make great strides in the field of AR/VR equipment. After Facebook acquired Oculus in March 2014 for $2 billion in cash and stock, Oculus released the Oculus Rift CV1 in 2016. In October 2020, Oculus released the Oculus Quest 2 for $299. Once the product was launched, it received a lot of praise. In addition to its relatively very affordable price, the upgrade of software and hardware, smooth picture quality and very little sense of vertigo have become its selling points. Many VR/AR device websites rank Oculus Quest 2 as the number one VR/AR device available today.
Source: PC GAMER website
Meta's investment in VR/AR has also paid off. Meta's revenue in virtual reality-related industries continues to grow, whether it's hardware, software or gaming revenue. Meta sold a total of 1.4 million Oculus Quest 2 devices in the fourth quarter of 2020. At its $300 price tag, the Oculus Quest 2 generated a total of $420 million in revenue. Meta generated a total of $28.1 billion in revenue in the quarter, and Oculus Quest 2 accounted for about 1.5% of Meta's total revenue for the quarter.
Source: Cantor Fitzgerald, in millions of dollars
Meta revenue, black for advertising revenue, gray for other income
Source: Meta's 10-K submission to the SEC
In terms of opportunities, Apple has fallen behind a lot. But Apple has always released confident and mature products. Let's look forward to whether Apple can surprise us and become a big shark in the vr/AR device field.
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