In recent days, the focus of attention in XR circles has been Meta. A few days ago, Meta announced that it is changing the name of its Quest software platform to Meta Horizon OS, and the news that it is being opened to third-party headset manufacturers such as Asus, Lenovo and Microsoft has become a "thunderbolt" in the XR circle.
In this regard, Meta boss Zuckerberg said that this cooperation will reproduce the competition between Android and iOS in the smartphone era, but this time the battlefield is in the field of virtual reality headsets.
In fact, the news that Meta is opening up the Quest operating system to third parties is no less than throwing a "king bomb" into the XR field. This move more or less also means killing a comeback gun for Apple's Vision Pro, which is seeking to supply to many countries around the world.
However, at present, industry insiders have mixed opinions about Meta's move. Some are optimistic, and some are not. But whatever the future, Meta may not be able to replicate the success of Android in the smartphone space in the short term.
In the future, how many hardware manufacturers will join the Meta Horizon OS camp, and whether Meta's "wishful thinking" can make a shocking sound? It remains to be seen by time.
01.Meta began to "stake the race"
In recent days, the breaking news in the XR community has been none other than Meta's announcement that it will open its Quest operating system to third parties. All of a sudden, Meta wants to be Android and Microsoft in the XR industry, and the XR industry is going to change.
Now that it's open, whitewash the "line". Along with the opening, Meta has also officially renamed the operating system of Quest to "Meta Horizon OS". The move is also known as the result of a decade of Meta's efforts to build a next-generation computing platform.
With the stage set up, Meta naturally can't just let itself sing a "one-man show", otherwise how to attract other hardware manufacturers to enter the game. The current Meta Horizon OS already has hardware giants such as ASUS and Lenovo as its "platform".
It is understood that ASUS plans to use Meta Horizon OS to develop a headset focusing on "high-performance games" to meet the market's demand for a high-quality gaming experience.
Lenovo, on the other hand, is focusing more on the "productivity, learning, and entertainment" area, and plans to launch new headsets to provide a more immersive and diversified experience.
In this regard, Zuckerberg, the boss of Meta, said that in the XR field, the competition between Android and Apple iOS in the smartphone era will be reproduced. He said that this cooperation will recreate the competitive landscape between Android and iOS in the smartphone era, but this time the battlefield is in the field of virtual reality headsets.
He explained that Apple's virtual reality product will undoubtedly maintain its high-end positioning, being expensive and highly integrated, but it will face the challenge of a series of hardware devices running Meta OS at different price points.
"In every computing era, open and closed models always coexist. In the smartphone space, Apple's closed mode finally gained the upper hand. Mobile phones are tightly controlled, and users are often locked into the functional range set by the manufacturer. However, this is not the only path forward. ”
Obviously, as Zuckerberg meant, what Meta wants to build is that Android in the XR field, cooperation with Lenovo and Asus may only be the first step, and more manufacturers may join the Meta OS camp in the future to build a huge Meta Horizon OS empire in XR.
In the future, what will be done for Meta Horizon OS is to attract more hardware manufacturers.
02. "The dragon slayer boy will eventually become a dragon"?
"The dragon slayer boy eventually became an evil dragon. The metaphor of this sentence means that even if a new force with achievements and dreams succumbs to desire, the original "dragon slayer boy" will become a "dragon" that everyone hates.
In fact, it is necessary to insert a past story of Google and Meta on the XR operating system. Once upon a time, Google also wanted to win over Meta to join its Android XR camp, but as you can imagine, Meta did not agree. Now, Meta is turning its head to build the XR operating system landscape.
At the beginning of March this year, many domestic media quoted foreign media The Information as reporting that Meta decided not to cooperate with Google's parent company Alphabet, which was originally intended to promote the mixed reality headset product Quest to be equipped with Google's Android XR platform.
The media pointed out that the news was revealed by people who had participated in the negotiations. He said Google had suggested that Meta work with it and use the new software platform that Google is developing for virtual reality, augmented reality and mixed reality headsets.
However, such a collaboration could hinder Zuckerberg's plans to "have a next-generation AR, VR, and mixed reality computing platform." Notably, media reports indicate that currently, Meta's Quest devices run a modified, open-source version of Google's Android operating system.
However, Google doesn't allow Meta to offer the full suite of Google apps in the Quest headset. Media reports say that if the two parties can establish a more "formal" partnership based on Android XR, the Quest headset will be able to use Google apps.
Business warfare is as simple as that. If Meta doesn't join the Android XR camp and establish a partnership, Google won't let Meta use the full suite of Google apps in the Quest headset.
It is not difficult to see that once Meta joins the camp of Google's Android XR, it may not be able to dominate it, which means that it may also have to act according to the face of others in the system. Meta, which is also a giant company, may not want to be a "little brother".
However, at present, less than two months after the above revelations, Meta has opened its own Meta Horizon OS installed on Quest to third parties, which is quite a "dragon slayer boy will eventually become a dragon".
03.Can it become an Android in the XR field?
A key question is, can Meta make Meta Horizon OS an Android system in the XR space?
First, let's take a look at the history of Android. Originally developed by a startup founded in 2003 by Andy Rubin and others, Android was acquired by Google in August 2005.
In November 2007, Google and 84 hardware manufacturers, software developers, and telecom operators formed the Open Handset Alliance to jointly develop and improve the Android system. In September of the following year, Google released the Android 1.0 system, and the first Android smartphone, the HTC Dream, was also released in the same year.
Since then, with the gradual maturity of the Android system, the market share began to soar, and in the first quarter of 2011, Android's global market share surpassed the Symbian system for the first time, ranking first in the world. Today, Android has become one of the most widely used mobile operating systems in the world.
There is a background here is the popularization of smart phones, the arrival of mobile Internet, and the superposition of smart phones themselves are closely related to people's life, work, socialization, and entertainment, and have a high degree of soil. At the same time, with the advantages of open source and free, Android occupies the market is actually the general trend under the "time, place, and people".
Similarly, Meta Horizon OS also needs "the right time, the right place, and the right people" to develop. Meta Horizon OS also faces a lot of challenges if it wants to be Android in the XR field.
On the one hand, according to market sources, at present, Meta has simply opened up the system authorization of Meta Horizon OS, which is not open source like Android. In other words, if you want to use it, you have to obtain authorization, and it is also under the leadership of Meta, presumably every manufacturer who wants to develop into a top-notch XR device does not want to be "controlled by others".
Meta, on the other hand, is itself a giant in the XR headset space. This kind of practice of being both an athlete and a referee is very easy to make participants worry.
It is worth noting that although the current XR headset is developing rapidly, it is far from the moment of popularization, and the use of XR headsets is still mostly gamers, and there is still a long way to go to achieve the popularity of smartphones.
In addition, Meta also needs to ensure the stability and security of the operating system to maintain user experience and data security, and the cooperation with partners also needs to establish an effective cooperation mechanism and benefit distribution model to ensure that all parties can benefit together, and Google's layout on the XR operating system all affect the popularity of Meta's XR headset operating system.
In other words, in the short term, it will be difficult for Meta to make Meta Horizon OS Android in the XR field.
03. Mixed reviews in the industry
At present, there are also many industry insiders who have made comments on Meta's third-party opening, and they have mixed reviews.
John Carmack, the former CTO of Oculus, doesn't think Meta's move is a good idea. Carmack noted that since Meta ignores development costs and sells hardware at cost price, third-party pricing will have to be higher than Quest. Carmack has repeatedly called for the launch of low-cost headsets to open up the VR market to more people.
While he said Meta's strategy will enable "boutique" headsets to drive development in areas such as resolution, field of view or comfort, he said this "brings a sense of tension" that Meta will no longer have the "shine to manufacture industry-leading high-end devices", which will force Meta to focus on pursuing new hardware systems in the high-end systems research pipeline and will lead to poor decision-making.
Oculus founder Palmer Luckey said that opening up the platform to third-party headset manufacturers was "a clear plan we had more than a decade ago, but Facebook later removed Oculus from that plan."
He noted that in a 2014 interview, then-Oculus CEO Brendan Iribe argued, "If we really wanted to get 1 billion people to use VR technology, we wouldn't sell 1 billion pairs of glasses ourselves." We're talking openly with any partner who wants to get into VR, and there's a lot of interest in us right now. ”
In fact, Oculus was actually pursuing the said strategy at the time. In 2015, Oculus partnered with Samsung to release the Gear VR, a VR box that works by inserting a Samsung phone into the device to act as the brain and display of the headset, the software platform for which the headset was made.
Over the years, Samsung has released several iterations of the Gear VR, but in the end it didn't find a product-market fit, and the official eventually discontinued the devices.
Today, Luckey said, "I've always been a firm believer that Oculus should strive to build a technology platform that will power/power every headset, even a competitor like the HTC Vive. It's always the right strategy, and hopefully it's not too late. ”
In addition, some industry insiders said that Meta's opening up of its operating system to third parties is of great significance, which is an important milestone and watershed in the industry, and some executives of VR manufacturers are optimistic about this, which is good news for developers.
However, it is undeniable that Meta's announcement of opening the Quest operating system to third parties has many positive impacts, which will help promote the ecological prosperity of the XR industry, the popularization and application of technology, the improvement of market competitiveness, technological innovation and progress, and the improvement of user experience and satisfaction.