Facebook stole the show this Christmas season when it comes to the metaverse – the Oculus VR app was the most popular app on Apple’s App Store on Christmas Day.
Since you need the app to use the headset, it’s a likely indicator that the Quest 2 headset was probably the most popular tech gift over the holidays. Meta doesn’t release sales figures, but it accounted for 75% of the market in 2021, according to IDC.
The other tech giants aren’t slouching. Here is a quick summary of their efforts to build in the augmented reality/virtual reality space which is now more commonly referred to with the buzzword metaverse:
Google Glass. Google was actually the first in the craze for augmented reality back in 2013 when it launched Google Glass, which flamed out as tech too early for its time.
New division. More recently, the company acquired North, a startup that is working on AR glasses that can be viewed as the successor to Google’s own failed efforts with the Google Glass. According to a blog post from Marc Lucovsky, he is leading the “Operating System team for Augmented Reality at Google” and formerly worked in a similar role at Oculus.
Apple
Apple has been quiet about its plans in AR/VR but analysts expect a high-end headset that combines virtual reality and augmented reality which reportedly could be launched in 2022.
Not the metaverse. Tim Cook won’t even use the buzzword metaverse to describe Apple’s plans in the space. “I’ll stay away from the buzzwords. We just call it augmented reality,” Cook said in September.
Microsoft
Hololens. Staying in character, Microsoft’s efforts in the metaverse are focused on enterprise, which means selling headsets to businesses that can stomach the $3,500 pricetag for their Hololens product, a full-featured AR headset that was first launched as a prototype in 2016.
U.S. military biggest client. The biggest client for the HoloLens so far is the U.S. military – Microsoft won a $22B contract in 2021 to sell 120,000 custom units to the government so soldiers can use them to “increase lethality.” They are expected to undergo field tests by the military in 2022.
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