Meta Is Teasing The VR Hype That Apple Will Start in 2024.
2024 will be the year where everyone's wearing a VR headset. Get ready.
Too busy? Here’s a TLDR summary for this 5 minute read:
∞ Meta released a new version of the Ray-Ban Smart Glasses. Zuck himself is advertising it by using it to help his daughter.
This comes at the end of the year, while Apple is expected to launch the Vision Pro early next year.
🕶️ Apple‘s customer adoption and retention will create a VR push that will result in hype. Those benefiting from this hype will include Meta and Snap, as they‘re working heavily on AR.
🌌 The concept of Apple Vision Pro or Meta‘s new headset will result in workplace evolutions. Don‘t be surprised to see a full “work from the virtual office” with your headset as a new system.
New Ray-Bans, Good Timing.
If you‘re releasing a product, timing is critical. For instance, what if you started a new video-calling service like Zoom just before the pandemic?
You‘ll end up with a product seeing a spike in usage like this.
But there‘s no way you could‘ve foreseen the pandemic. However, big companies have departments that only focus on such predictions. What are people going to be doing next year? Such a question is something almost all smart companies wonder.
Now, if we took a trip to the past (one year ago), then you‘ll notice that people are starting to talk about a new generative AI tool called ChatGPT. At that moment, companies would start to predict that AI is going to hype up. Product adoption of AI is going to increase tenfold, and so on.
The exact numbers are unknown to even the smartest of analysts. But the trend of decline or incline is what they‘re being paid to foresee.
Meta is a company focused on virtual and augmented reality, even if they tell you otherwise (they‘re just trying to please those investors out there.)
They have purchased one of the best hardware VR companies (Oculus) and have been working on VR ever since.
Then, all they had to do was wait for the perfect moment to start heavily promoting VR and AR. This moment is coming soon in the shape of an apple.
Once an Apple, always an Apple.
How many people you know switched from an iPhone to an Android? This number has to be quite low. Steve Jobs innovated products. Tim Cook, however, perfected the art of customer retention.
He took those people who believed in Steve Jobs and increased the quantity of them and the revenue coming from each person. That‘s a challenge that we don‘t know if even Jobs himself could‘ve done.
He‘s certainly one of the main reasons Apple is the most valuable company.
But they‘re getting an iPhone saturation. Ever since the iPhone 14-ish, people have been saying that the iPhone is the same thing.
They‘d add a color and name it in a cool way with a few new features.
Tech websites would say that Apple is not innovating much and that they‘re approaching doom.
The truth is, you‘d probably do the same exact thing if you were in Tim Cook’s shoes. The iPhone is a flagship product that results in billions each year. You can‘t make radical changes if you want to maintain those customers of yours. But you also eventually need to. So what‘s the solution? Build something new.
They‘re doing that in the name of Apple Vision Pro, a mixed-reality headset, early next year. But could the world shift into a VR Zombieland?
If it‘s practical, then it‘ll be used.
People started objecting to getting back to the office after the pandemic. It‘s just more comfortable and productive working from home. So, nowadays, many companies offer a hybrid working agreement. They‘d tell employees to work some days in the office and some days remotely.
The truth is, this is a huge cost being saved for corporates. Office rent is something that has always been a big part of the balance sheet. Go ahead and ask any startup.
So, if a concept shows up of an all-virtual environment office where the team members have to use mixed reality headsets, that would spike the demand for mixed reality.
How would you know if this would work out?
You can try convincing people company after another. But that‘ll take years.
You could innovate and create a wonderful mixed-reality product. But it will still take years for people to adopt it. Old habits die hard.
Alternatively, the world‘s most valuable company, and the one with extremely high customer retention, could introduce a good-quality product. Then, the objective is achieved.
Thousands of people will start using it. If it‘s a good product, which Apple constantly produces, then applications for it will be numerous.
It‘ll be expensive, though, so other options will have to do. The next option on the table is Meta‘s Oculus, which is a top-notch VR product.
Apple‘s doing Meta a favor, and both parties know that quite well. But that‘s only the start. If people really adopt mixed-reality headsets, then it‘ll be a new hype with a new fierce competition.
They just have to make it comfortable, not heavy, and not make us look like zombies. That reminds me of an interesting product I‘ve seen.
See, it‘s getting smaller; but still zombie-ish.