Apple’s newly revealed mixed-reality headset, the Apple Vision Pro, turned heads and raised eyebrows among tech enthusiasts after it was unveiled at WWDC on June 5.
However, there was one glaring omission from the release – a mention of the word “metaverse”.
The tech company seems to have made a deliberate move to call its technology the first “spatial computer.” It will launch in the US in early 2024 with a whopping retail price of $3,499, and will be rolled out to other countries soon.
The announcement is a definite step up from Microsoft’s HoloLens releases and the Meta’s headsets, both of which used the word liberally in comparison.
Instead, Apple’s marketing focuses on the words “spatial” and “spatial computing” as opposed to words like “metaverse,” “AR” and “VR.”
“Building our first spatial computer required innovation in every aspect of computing,” noted Mike Rockwell, Apple’s vice president of technology development.
“Through tight integration of hardware and software, we have designed a fully spatial computer in a compact wearable form factor, the most advanced personal electronic device,” he said.
In January 2022, Bloomberg’s Apple technology reporter Mark Gurman suggested via Twitter that the company had no intention of approaching the field, specifically related to the concept of the metaverse, similar to Mark Zuckerberg’s meta.
“I was told directly from Apple that the idea of a completely virtual world that users could escape to, like the meta-platforms/Facebook’s vision of the future,” Gurman said. It will focus on providing a mixed-reality headset for use in short bursts for work, gaming, communication, etc.
Apple’s Vision Pro has augmented reality and virtual reality capabilities, as it can make applications appear to appear in the near physical space around the user or provide a full virtual experience through methods such as immersive environments.
“Featuring visionOS, the world’s first spatial operating system, Vision Pro enables users to interact with digital content that feels like it’s physically present in their space,” the announcement reads.
Related: Tim Cook says Apple will back artificial intelligence products while researchers work on solving bias
Anticipation over Apple’s new headset led some investors to believe that MetaWare-related tokens would see a meteoric rise; However, a new Securities and Exchange Commission lawsuit on the same day seems to have dented hopes for Metaverse-related tokens.
According to CoinGecko, the top-ranked Metaverse Token Internet Computer (ICP) is down 9.5% over the past 24 hours, while second- and third-ranked Sandbox (SAND) and Decentraland (MANA) are down 12.7% and 11.2%, respectively. .
Going further down the list, there were no significant projects with positive price action during that time frame, with the total market cap for Metaverse tokens down 10% to $7.7 billion in the last 24 hours.
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