Weekly Metaverse #125: Did Meta intentionally leak the Quest Pro?
Join me for some wild speculation!
I’m late this week! I’m sorry! Things have been just bananas around here.
Anyway, here’s my theory - Meta leaked on purpose after Apple didn’t announce anything at their event. Millions of disappointed AR/VR enthusiasts were desperate for something, and Meta filled that void with some pictures of a Quest Pro that was allegedly left in a hotel room. In case you missed it:
If you’re traveling with an unreleased headset, why is it in a box with all the branding on it? People are comparing it to that time an iPhone prototype was left in a bar, but that was in a special case that was designed to make it look like a regular iPhone, not a box that said THIS IS AN IPHONE PROTOTYPE.
Anyway, all signs point to the Quest Pro being launched in October followed by the Apple headset in January. That means 2023 is really going to be a banner year for AR/VR.
That said, I think the thing that’s more interesting than either of the headsets is Apple’s software strategy. We’ve heard plenty about the hardware specs, so it’s unlikely there will be big surprises there. On Meta’s side, we obviously have a great deal of insight into their software strategy, both in terms of what they’re producing and how they’re handling third party developers creating apps for Quest.
Apple’s got ARKit, which certainly gives us a peek into what they’re doing, but developing AR applications and content for a phone is very different from doing the same for a headset. And of course we know very little about full VR tools and capabilities.
While Apple could launch with some solid AR apps and a VR development kit, that frankly seems a bit underwhelming for what will be one of the biggest announcements in years. It was one thing when they launched the iPhone without a solid developer ecosystem in place, because that was a brand new, innovative product that had no immediate competition.
However good Apple’s headset is, the reality is that it’s not going to be the same level of innovative leap as the iPhone was relative to the rest of the market. That means the launch needs to be impressive not only on the hardware side, but also on the software side.
So that begs the question… are there some lucky developers working on VR apps for launch? If so, are they chained to a desk and/or under NDAs that require them to give up their firstborn if breached? Or maybe Apple’s got internal folks building out the first set of VR apps - that would give the company the greatest degree of control, which they do love to have, particularly when it comes to launching new stuff.
I find it hard to believe that Apple will drop the ball on this launch, so I’m certainly looking forward to seeing what they come up with.
There are other headsets!
If you don’t follow this sort of thing too closely, it’s easy to forget that there’s more than Meta and Apple in the headset game. HTC’s Vive is by all accounts an excellent brand, and they’ve just released a couple of new accessories.
They’ve got a facial tracker (sorry, upon reading the article more closely, that’s actually the official product name, so… Facial Tracker) that, as you might suspect, tracks the movements of your face, jaw, lips, etc., so they can be mimicked on your avatar. They’ve also got an Eye Tracker, which uses two cameras to track not only the direction of your gaze, but also your pupil size. If you’re doing drugs and entering the metaverse, HTC will know.
They’re basically pitching them as improvements for virtual social settings, but they’ll also be enabling developers to use the data they collect in VR applications.
So will people be okay with big tech monitoring their most basic physical movements and stimulus responses?
Yes. I’m just gonna say it. Yes people will. People are willing to give up their privacy, at least if it’s in a theoretical sense (i.e. big tech is collecting their information, but they don’t actually know if anything’s being done with it), in exchange for free products/neat features.
If videogames can use gaze tracking to help make interactions with NPCs more compelling, people will be fine with it. If they can use pupil dilation measurements to make horror games even more scary, people will love it.
The one place where these things are actually the most useful is, at least as I see it, the likeliest to get pushback from users - VR for work. Gaze tracking could really help make the metaverse a better place for meetings than Zoom, where you’re never quite looking at the other person. On the other hand, your job telling you that you have to use a headset that really takes away every last ounce of privacy is probably going to be way more objectionable to people than video game companies using it to make your gaming experience better.
A Neat Tweet!
Metaverse Activity of the Day
Sadly, most fantasy football leagues can’t do trips to exotic places for their drafts. My league did ours over Zoom. Certainly seems like a nice thing to get together for in the metaverse.
News About the Metaverse
Disney+ releases its first AR-enabled short film, ‘Remembering,’ starring Brie Larson: I’m too cheap/lazy to get Disney+ on top of all the streaming services I already have (I just counted… it’s five! Five!), but if you’ve seen this, I’d love to hear how it was.
Starbucks finally enters the metaverse: Starbucks is doing a thing with NFTs, and look, you know how much I hate when brands do things with NFTs, but hear me out - they’re introducing NFTs and part of their loyalty program, and they’re really, really smart when it comes to their loyalty program. There’s over $1.5 billion dollars just sitting on Starbucks cards, because you have to have money on yours to get rewards. That’s effectively over a billion dollars of interest-free loans from customers. I wouldn’t bet against Starbucks here.
Facebook parent Meta launches startup accelerator with India’s IT ministry in metaverse push: Meta will work with 40 early-stage startups in India plus provide grants of $25,000.
Chipotle launches a new menu item in Roblox’s metaverse: Is this a good way to introduce a new kind of food? Honestly I don’t know.
Samsung launches weeklong metaverse and NFT activation: Seems like they’ve invested some real effort into this one - it’ll be interesting to see if these sorts of events yield dividends from a marketing perspective.
Varjo, an early mover in building XR headsets and software for enterprises, taps $40M: Never sleep on AR/VR/XR for the enterprise.