Zuckerberg: Apple and Meta are in ‘deep philosophical competition’

According to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s comments to The Verge, Meta and Apple are entering a period of “very deep philosophical competition”that will determine the future of the Internet.

Both Apple and Meta plan to invest heavily in mixed reality over the next decade, but they have diametrically opposed views on how the AR/VR/XR landscape should ideally look like.

“I think it’s very clear that Apple will be our competitor not only as a product, but also from a philosophical point of view,” Zuckerberg said. “We’re approaching this openly and trying to build a more open ecosystem.”He noted that Meta, along with other companies such as Microsoft, co-founded the Metaverse open standards group with the goal of establishing a certain level of compatibility or portability of assets between virtual spaces. Apple didn’t join in, and Zuckerberg said, “I don’t think it’s a surprise.”

He continued:

This is a competition of philosophies and ideas where they believe that by doing everything themselves and tightly integrating, they create the best consumer experience. And we think there’s a lot of work to be done to specialize different companies, and [it] will allow for a much wider ecosystem to exist.

One of the things that I find interesting is that it is not entirely clear in advance which ecosystem is better – open or closed. If you look back at PCs, Windows was clearly one that had a much larger scope and became the standard and norm that people used. The Mac was fine, but I think PC and Windows were the main ecosystem in this environment.

On mobile, I’d say it’s rather the opposite. There are more Android devices than iOS devices, but I think in developed countries and places like the US or Western Europe it’s kind of high-end, [and] a lot of culture makers and developers, I think it’s pretty misrepresenting a little more towards iPhone and iOS. So I would say that Apple is really in a pretty good position with regards to mobile devices and that is why they are the most valuable company in the world or maybe one of a couple of the most valuable companies in the world.

Both Zuckerberg and Apple CEO Tim Cook have stated in the past that they believe either augmented reality, virtual reality, or mixed reality will be the next big computing platform after the desktop and mobile age.

And Zuckerberg’s quotes suggest that while Apple is predictably following the same closed ecosystem it’s done before with the Mac (desktop) and iPhone (mobile), he sees Meta taking on the more open role of Windows or Android for mixed reality.

But he also said, “I just don’t think the future for the metaverse is already written here,”admitting that he doesn’t know if the strategy he’s staked his entire company on will ultimately be the right one.

He ended his speech with the words:

Apple will compete. I think it’s pretty clear, but it’s actually a very serious competitor. It’s not just that they have a device that has more features than we do. It’s a very deep, philosophical competition about where the Internet should go. And I’m proud of the investments we’re making to help move the open metaverse forward in this and hopefully make the next version of computing a little more open.

According to leaks and analysts, Apple is close to being ready to release its first mixed reality headset, a hybrid AR/VR device that will be built on the company’s latest advances in chip design and sell at a premium. An augmented reality headset will appear in the next few years.

And Meta already more or less owns the VR market after acquiring Oculus with the popular Quest headset. Meta also plans to release a mixed reality headset soon, and later also plans to introduce AR glasses.