iPhone company Apple is not necessarily a fan of The Metaverse, but it’s still chasing the tech trend. Despite CEO Tim Cook openly bashing the virtual world, it seems that the Mac company has plans for the technology.
Over the past year, the idea of The Metaverse has been tied to Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta, formerly Facebook. The tech giant has lost billions on Metaverse development resulting in 11,000 layoffs and worried investors.
On the other hand, Apple has been hard work on mixed reality technology. For the past half-decade, development has gone ahead on both VR and AR headsets at the company. Nevertheless, they’ve been vocally against The Metaverse.
Despite this, new job listings show an interest in the idea of a “Metaverse”. Via CoinGeek, 30 new virtual and augmented reality tech positions have been discovered from the company. As it turns out, some of them point towards the virtual world.
In particular, one job listing asks for an AR/VR network engineer. This role aims to have someone create a “connected experiences in a 3D mixed-reality world.” (Hmm, that sounds kinda like a Metaverse.)
Unsurprisingly, Apple likely won’t call its virtual world a “Metaverse”, or anything close. As usual, Apple’s naming conventions will skew towards memorable, friendly terms, allowing the service to be easily marketed towards everyday consumers.
It will be interesting to see just how Meta and Apple’s virtual worlds compare. With Meta’s version ridiculed for terrible visuals, will Apple’s alternative blow “Horizon Worlds” out of the water? Honestly, it’s very likely that it will!
Even with Apple on the prowl, Meta isn’t planning to back down on Metaverse development. The tech giant is aiming to spend considerably more than the billions it’s already lost to secure its virtual world.