Mixed Reality Showdown: Apple vs Meta

Meta’s recent release of the much-anticipated Meta Quest Pro has signaled the race for Mixed Reality dominance. Apple has long been rumored to be working on an MR device that would be its iPhone-like signature product of the virtual age. As Apple’s first-ever MR/VR device comes nearer to release, the competition between these two major tech companies could hit an all-time high.

Giving It Away

Meta may well have blown its chance at producing the first MR device to receive widespread adoption. Meta Quest Pro, though impressive, may not boast technology ambitious enough to truly convince consumers to take the $1500 plunge. Now that Meta has well and truly entered the MR sphere, it can only refine its accomplishments. Being the first is never an easy task, and many are already saying Meta has failed to capitalize on being the first major tech company to push out a powerful MR device, offering consumers only limited uses for its technology. Though more software and online platforms are sure to arrive tailored for Quest Pro use in the future, Apple is more likely to have a fully functioning ecosystem to support its MR debut at launch.

Value at What Cost?

Apple is now worth nine times more than Meta, which saw a loss of more than $70 billion in 2022. Will Meta’s massive gamble on its touted “metaverse” actually pay off, or will it sink further and be forced to shift gears once again in a considerable way? The Washington Post has positioned Apple as the winner of the forthcoming MR war, citing the huge advantage of Apple’s enormous sales figures in the “wearables” market as key. Apple has traditionally done extremely well by biding its time and only releasing a piece of hardware once the market has been established. Both the iPod and iPhone were arguably late to the game but beat all competitors for many years. The same could be true of its eventual MR device debut. Meta is banking on brand recognition and arriving before its biggest competitor: a risky gamble when that competitor is one of the most popular, most consumed, and most revered brands in history.

The Prospects for Porn

Meta may have made VR almost ubiquitous with the mega-selling Quest 2 – and, some might say, led the revolution in virtual porn – but it pays to remember just how important the iPhone has been in bringing porn to the horny adult masses. It’s not only the huge influx of popular search terms – “iPhone porn” and “porn for iPhone” being the most obvious – that indicated porn was on millions of iPhones worldwide; it was the use of iPhones to actually record and distribute porn.

Without the iPhone, would 2D porn streaming sites have become so well-known` and often visited? It can easily be argued that whoever makes MR ubiquitous for porn-viewing will become the dominant MR entity. The future is, as yet, untold. Place your bets.