Tim Cook Addresses Apple’s Metaverse Plans, Avoids the M-Word

Deafening chatter about the theoretical hellscape that’s the metaverse has seemingly inspired each exec to offer their take, however notably lacking from the scrum is a sure Cupertino-based firm. On Thursday, we lastly heard from Apple CEO Tim Cook who gave a restrained endorsement.

When requested about the metaverse throughout Apple’s newest earnings name, Cook gave acquainted responses, stating “we’re an organization in the enterprise of innovation” and “we now have over 14,000 AR apps in the App Retailer.” He went on to say that Apple sees “quite a lot of potential” in the house and is “investing accordingly” (through Apple Insider).

None of this could come as a shock contemplating Apple has lengthy been bullish on augmented actuality, with Cook as soon as calling himself “AR fan primary.” What’s maybe most notable about the response is that Cook by no means used the time period “Metaverse.”

Metaverse, first coined in Neal Stephenson’s 1992 sci-fi traditional Snow Crash, is used to explain a future the place the bodily and digital worlds meld collectively via the use of AR, VR, and combined actuality—the place digital objects seem in the actual world and the digital world seems extra like the bodily one. Lately, metaverse has change into a favourite matter amongst the tech elite after Facebook rebranded to Meta.

As invested as Apple is in the expertise—each the {hardware} and software program—that might allow what some think about “the way forward for the web,” the firm has but to drop the buzzing time period. However then, Apple isn’t an organization to swiftly bounce on fads and prefers to attend for issues to mature. It additionally likes to do its personal branding (AppleVerse, anybody?) and isn’t on the best terms with Zuckerberg and Co.

The metaverse is a enjoyable idea to contemplate in literature or movie, however the actuality of this fanciful new actuality is that we’re a few years away from the objective of a metaverse the place every thing occurs in real-time and is persistent throughout platforms. In truth, an Intel lead said last year that the metaverse will want a 1,000-fold enhance in computational effectivity than what is accessible as we speak, and that “the whole plumbing of the web will want main upgrades.”

Apple is alleged to be working on a VR headset that may very well be launched later this yr, however don’t actual any “metaverse” speak when it arrives. Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, a dependable Apple analyst, says the firm’s upcoming AR headset will likely be for shorter exercise periods, to not convey us nearer to the Oasis in Prepared Participant One.

“Right here’s one phrase I’d be shocked to listen to on stage when Apple publicizes its headset: metaverse,” Gurman wrote in his Energy On e-newsletter. “I’ve been instructed fairly instantly that the thought of a very digital world the place customers can escape to — like they’ll in Meta Platforms/Fb’s imaginative and prescient of the future — is off limits from Apple.”

That stated, the headset would mark the first main step towards constructing a extra seamless bridge between worlds, which might take the shape of glasses or contact lenses.