Why is Apple reluctant to call its AR products meta-universe products?

Knife horse

At a time when the whole world is crazy about the metaverse, only Apple is "alone", talking about the concept of metaversity, and is not willing to be called a metaverse product for the AR device it plans to launch this year. There is even news that the concept of metaversity is listed as a forbidden area in Apple, so why is Apple so taboo to talk about metaversity? We observe several reasons:

One is that although Apple Cook has repeatedly said that he is very optimistic about the prospects of AR, he believes that augmented reality is a very good development direction and an important support for helping people better achieve application expansion, for which Cook believes that AR is a very important development outlet in the next decade, which is promising, and is also "the next epoch-making product in the next decade". But this is only built on the basis of augmented reality, not to open up a whole new virtual world.

The concept of a binary universe is very popular, but Apple does not think that this newly opened up virtual space, that is, a full virtual world that allows users to escape, is a trend. In other words, Apple doesn't want to create an all-virtual world that allows users to escape. In fact, Apple is not willing to let users escape from reality and enter a fully virtual world, and it also has its own plans. That is, in the mobile terminal market, Apple's product line is still very rich, from the iPhone, iPad to Apple Watch, MacBook Air, AirPods and other series of products, are the largest share of the market, but also has a huge user base, if users are "hiding" in the virtual world, then the application of these products will be greatly restricted, which is obviously Apple does not want to see a development direction. Naturally, they are reluctant to advocate this concept of development.

The third is that Apple developed AR devices in order to augment reality, that is, to allow users to enjoy a new experience brought by better technological products and technological advances in the real space, rather than allowing users to escape from the real world and enter a virtual space to escape. Apple's AR devices mainly bring users "games, communications and content consumption." It can be said that this is still an extended application built in Apple's own ecological circle, and it is a technological extension that meets the existing ecological environment, rather than subversive. That said, Apple doesn't want users to be addicted to the virtual world all day. Naturally, it is also unwilling for AR devices to become an all-weather product, which is the biggest difference from the iPhone.

The fourth is that people are worried that Apple's concept is too conservative. As we all know, at the beginning of the launch of mobile phones, who could have imagined that in just a decade or so, such earth-shaking changes had taken place? From Motorola to Nokia, to Samsung, HTC, and later because of the advent of Apple's iPhone, a new era of development was created. Today's iPhone has also entered a bottleneck period of development, and the emergence of the metacosm is considered to be another leapfrog development opportunity to subvert the former. But Apple is reluctant to think so, which may also be a manifestation of conservatism. Just as Nokia was reluctant to accept the touch screen, it was naturally the party that was eventually eliminated with backward concepts.

The fifth is that Cook still retains the attachment to the existing equipment system in his bones, and is not willing to break this balance, maintain the rhythm of the development of existing equipment, and to a certain extent, continuously enrich the user's habits through applications, which is another level of effort. Cook has also said that technology should enhance the efficiency and experience of human life, rather than isolating people and providing a window for people to escape from reality. In fact, the market also once had news that Cook wanted to leave Apple for an important new product category, which was AR, not Apple Cars. It should be known that the current development of new energy vehicles and driverless vehicles has almost reached a critical point, and once the technology has made further breakthroughs, then the future development will be unlimited. But even so, Cook is still most optimistic about AR, not Apple Cars. This also shows that Cook is more fond of the development of AR, and he is more in line with this development needs and the reconstruction of application scenarios.

Sixth, although the concept of metaverse is very hot, but the real application expansion is still in a big divergence, some people think that VR/AR equipment is a stepping stone to the metaverse, and some people take the opportunity to sell the corresponding VR/AR products, hoping to catch the express train of the metaverse, but perhaps the matter is willing. The metacosm is obviously not a small VR/AR device that can pry one side of the market. For the metaverse concept, it is just getting started, and there is still a lot of time for future development to be paid attention to and observed. The progress of science and technology is very rapid, and it seems that it is still too early for the metacosm to attract the birth of new outlets with what application scenarios or ecological architecture changes.