Zuckerberg: Apple and Meta are in "deep and philosophical competition"

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Facebook

Meta and Apple are entering a period of "very deep philosophical competition" that will define the future of the internet, according to comments from Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg obtained by The Verge.

Apple and Meta both plan to invest heavily in mixed reality over the next decade, but they have diametrically opposed visions of what the AR/VR/XR landscape should ideally look like.

The Verge obtained an audio recording of a bare-knuckle employee meeting at Meta, in which Zuckerberg answered in detail an employee's question about the company's future competition with Apple. His comments have informed how Meta, at least, sees the rivalry.

"I think it's pretty clear that Apple is going to be a competitor for us, not just as a product, but philosophically," Zuckerberg said. "We are approaching this in an open way and trying to build a more open ecosystem." He noted that Meta co-founded the Metaverse Open Standards Group with other companies like Microsoft, with the goal of establishing some level of interoperability or asset portability between virtual spaces. Apple didn't buy in, and Zuckerberg said "I don't think that's a surprise."

He continued:

This is a contest of philosophies and ideas, where they believe that by doing everything themselves and integrating tightly, they build a better customer experience. And we think there's a lot to be done in terms of specialization in different companies, and [that] will allow a much larger ecosystem to exist.

One of the things I find interesting is that it's not really clear from the start whether an open or closed ecosystem will be better. If you look at PCs, Windows was clearly the one that had a lot more scale and became the default standard that people used. And Mac worked fine, but I think PC and Windows were, I think, the first ecosystem in that environment.

On mobile, I would say it's quite the opposite. There are more Android devices than there are iOS devices, but I think in developed countries and places like the US or Western Europe at the high end, [and ] a lot of culture makers and developers, I think it skews quite a bit more towards iPhone and iOS. So I would say that on mobile, Apple has really carved out a good position for themselves, and that's why they're the most valuable company in the world, or maybe one of the two most valuable companies in the world.

Both Zuckerberg and Apple CEO Tim Cook have said in the past that they believe augmented reality, virtual reality, or mixed reality will be the next big computing platform, following the desktop and mobile eras.

And Zuckerberg's quotes suggest that while Apple predictably follows the same closed ecosystem it had before with the Mac (desktop) and iPhone (mobile), it sees Meta taking on the more open role of a Windows or an Android for mixed reality.

But he also said, "I just don't think the future is written here for the Metaverse yet," admitting that he doesn't know if the strategy he's bet his whole company on will ultimately be the one. good. .

He ended his remarks with:

Apple is going to be a competitor. I think that's pretty clear cut, but it's actually a pretty serious contender. It's not just [that] they have a device that has more features than us. It's a very deep philosophical competition over which direction the Internet should go. And I'm proud of the investments we're making to help move the open metaverse forward on this and hopefully make the next version of computing a little more open.

According to leaks and analysts, Apple is set to launch its first mixed reality headset, a hybrid AR/VR device that will be built on the company's recent breakthroughs in the design of chips and sold at a premium, and the company also plans to release an AR headset at some point in the next few years.

And Meta already more or less owns the virtual reality market following its acquisition of Oculus with the