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Apple’s recently unveiled Apple Vision Pro mixed reality headset caught the attention of tech enthusiasts and raised eyebrows after its unveiling at WWDC on June 5th.
However, there was one glaring omission at launch – a single mention of the word “metaverse”.
Apple Vision Pro is everything we hoped for and then some.
But at $3,499 you’re either an early adopter or an AR/VR developer.
Yet two things change after today:
1. “Metaverse” will stop being a bad word (even though Apple didn’t use the word) – sparking a resurgence in… pic.twitter.com/x8FcGsKTbj
— Bilawal Sidhu (@bilawalsidhu) June 5, 2023
The tech company seems to have taken deliberate steps to call its technology the first “spatial computer”. It will launch in the US in early 2024 for a high retail price of $3,499 and will roll out to other countries shortly thereafter.
The announcement is a solid step away from the launch of Microsoft’s Hololens and Meta headsets, which used the term particularly heavily in comparison.
Instead, Apple’s marketing focuses on the words “spatial” and “spatial computing” rather than words like “metaverse”, “AR” and “VR”.
“Building our first spatial computer required ingenuity in almost every aspect of the system,” said Mike Rockwell, vice president of Apple’s Technology Development Group.
“Through the tight integration of hardware and software, we have developed a standalone spatial computer in a compact, wearable form factor that is the most advanced personal electronic device ever,” he said.
Back in January 2022, Apple’s Bloomberg tech reporter Mark Gurman suggested via Twitter that the firm does not intend to approach the sector in the same vein as Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta, especially with regard to the concept of the Metaverse.
“I’ve been told quite bluntly that the idea of a fully virtual world where users can escape — like a bank in the Meta Platforms/Facebook vision of the future — is off the table for Apple,” Gurman said, adding that the firm would focus on providing a mixed reality headset designed for using short pulses for work, games, communication, etc.
Apple Vision Pro has both augmented and virtual reality capabilities, as it can make it appear as if apps are being projected into the nearest physical space around the user, or provide a fully virtual experience through modes such as Immersive Environments.
“With VisionOS, the world’s first spatial operating system, Vision Pro allows users to interact with digital content as if it were physically present in their space,” the announcement reads.
Related: Tim Cook says Apple will weave AI into products as researchers work to remove bias
In anticipation of Apple’s new headset, some investors had hoped that metaverse-related tokens would see meteoric rise, however, a new SEC lawsuit that same day appears to have tainted optimism for metaverse-related tokens.
The most popular token in the Internet Computer metaverse (ICP) has fallen 9.5% in the past 24 hours, according to Coingecko, while The Sandbox (SAND) and Decentraland (MANA), which placed second and third, also fell 12. 7% and 11.2% each..
Further down the list, there are no noteworthy projects with positive price action over this time period, with the total market capitalization of metaverse tokens down 10% to $7.7B in the last 24 hours.