Apple’s newly revealed mixed-reality headset, the Apple Vision Pro, turned both tech-enthusiast heads and raised eyebrows after it was unveiled at WWDC on June 5.
However, there was one glaring omission from the launch – a single mention of the word “metaverse.”
The tech company appears to have taken deliberate steps to call its technology the first “spatial computer.” It will launch in the US in early 2024, for a hefty retail price of $3,499, and it will roll out to other countries shortly after.
The announcement is a solid step up from the launch of Microsoft’s Hololens and the Meta headsets, both of which notably used the term generous in comparison.
Instead, Apple’s marketing focused on the words “spatial” and “spatial computing,” as opposed to words like “metaverse,” “AR” and “VR.”
“Creating our first spatial computer required reinventing almost every aspect of the system,” said Apple’s vice president of technology development, Mike Rockwell.
“By tightly integrating hardware and software, we designed a standalone spatial computer in a compact wearable form factor that is the most advanced personal electronics device ever,” he said.
In January 2022, Bloomberg’s Apple tech reporter Mark Gurman suggested, via Twitter, that the company has no intention of approaching the sector in a similar vein to Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta, specifically related to the notion of the metaverse.
“I was told directly that the idea of a completely virtual world where users can escape – like the Meta Platforms tin/vision of Facebook in the future – is not limited from Apple,” said Gurman, added that the company will put its focus on providing a mixed-reality headset intended for use in short bursts for work, gaming, communication, etc.
Apple’s Vision Pro has both augmented reality and virtual reality capabilities, as it can look like apps projected out into the immediate physical space around the user or provide a fully virtual experience through modes such as Immersive Environments.
“Featuring visionOS, the world’s first spatial operating system, Vision Pro enables users to interact with digital content as if it were physically present in their space,” the announcement said.
Related: Tim Cook said Apple will weave AI into products as researchers work on solving the bias
The anticipation of Apple’s new headset has some investors hoping that the tokens associated with the metaverse will see a meteoric rise; however, a new Securities and Exchange Commission lawsuit on the same day appeared to dampen optimism for tokens associated with the metaverse.
According to CoinGecko, top-ranked metaverse token Internet Computer (ICP) is down 9.5% in the past 24 hours, while second and third The Sandbox (SAND) and Decentraland (MANA) are also down 12.7% and 11.2% each. .
Further down the list, there were no projects of note with positive price action during that time, with the total market cap for metaverse tokens down 10% to $7.7 billion over the past 24 hours.
Magazine: Web3 Gamer: Illuvium controversy, Aurory Prologue review, Fornite CEO salty, Assassin’s Creed NFTs
