Reuters reports that leading tech giants have formed a new “metaverse standards body” which does not include Apple.
Metaverse refers to a virtual reality world in which consumers live and socialize through avatars of their physical selves, transported by a VR headset. The concept gained even more popularity when Facebook rebranded itself as Meta to lead the metaverse industry.
In pursuit of delivering a metaverse experience to consumers, Meta, Nvidia, Microsoft, and other tech companies have created a group for the development of industry standards that would make their digital worlds compatible with each other.
Meta, Mircosoft, and others exclude the dominant player in the “metaverse race”, Apple
According to the report, the chairman of Metaverse Standards Forum, Nvidia’s executive Neil Trevett said that the aims to facilitate communication between a variety of standards organizations and companies to offer “real-world interoperability” in the metaverse. However, he did not mention the impact of excluding the dominant player, Apple.
The Cupertino tech giant is expected to launch a mixed reality (AR and VR) headet and AR Glass by 2023- 2024 time frame. Unlike Meta, Apple has opposed the idea of disconnecting users from the real world and said that its AR/VR headset will be designed for short-term use.
Niantic’s CEO John Hanke, creator of popular AR Pokémon GO games, shared the same ideology that it is human nature to be outdoors and socialize with one another to combat health issues like depression and anxiety. Rejecting the concept of the metaverse, he said, “it takes us away from what fundamentally makes us happy as human beings.”
Therefore, Niantic and Roblox were also not included in the metaverse standards forum.
Conspicuously missing from the member list for now however is Apple, which analysts expect to become a dominant player in the metaverse race once it introduces a mixed reality headset this year or next.
Apple has been heavily involved in creating web standards such as HTML5 in the past. For three-dimensional content in the metaverse, Apple worked with Pixar on the “USDZ” file format and with Adobe to ensure it supported the format. – Reuters
