It was never a pioneer in the tech-evolutionary aspect of it. But it has developed a framework to turn consumers into customers and into fans. Apple has created fandoms across product categories, turning men and women to take a day out of work, and spend bi-monthly wages, in a severe winter morning, just to be among the first people to touch the next big thing. Most times, the main accomplishment is to tweet. “Friends, I have the latest iPhone in my hand”, and the friends will respond, “You are the real dude: way to go”. The guy had camped since 4 am under a challenging weather, losing the day’s wage, but determined to experience the immersive unboxing of the iPhone. He is a fan.
From music (iPod for Walkman) to smartphone (iPhone for Blackberry) to smartwatch (Apple Watch for Pebble), Apple has a playbook: wait for others to try, learn from their mistakes, and then arrive and change the ordinance in the market. Apple rarely goes first. That playbook has worked, profitably. In the world of Apple, the first mover advantage does not exist! Because Apple does not usually aspire to be the first.
Ladies and gentlemen, Apple is coming for virtual reality/ augmented reality. It is acquiring NextVR. Now, expect the next big thing in virtual and augmented reality. With Covid-19 pandemic ushering the world of everything virtual, VR/AR would be the expected destinations. If you are in this domain, the moment has come. Yes, the mass diffusion of this technology category will begin in the coming quarters because Apple will make this tech simple and cool.
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Apple Inc. is said to have bought virtual reality startup NextVR, for an undisclosed sum, Bloomberg reported.
NextVR provides content ranging from sports, music, and entertainment for virtual reality headsets. This also includes watching live events on VR headsets from PlayStation, HTC, Facebook Inc.’s Oculus, Google, Microsoft Corp, and others. The startup has deals with sports leagues including the National Basketball Association and entertainment networks such as Fox Sports, according to Bloomberg.The news of the acquisition comes after website 9to5Mac first reported the deal in April putting its value at $100 million.Apple has been on a buying spree this year with the purchases of Voysis, an Irish startup that focuses on voice technology, and Dark Sky, a popular weather app.Shares in Apple have rallied 37% in the past two months and were trading at $307.71 as of the close on Friday.
The Great Recession brought the sharing economy, birthing companies like Uber and Airbnb. Covid-19 will seed entities that will improve how people work remotely across industrial sectors. AV/VR is the most positioned technology, anchoring on the computational engine of cloud computing and the unbounded distribution systems of mobile internet. I see AV/AR to emerge in the consumer technology world because the solution to the post Covid-19 world will go through the fusion of meatspace and cyberspace.
Understand the classification of these technologies
The Franklin Institute explains it clearly.
Augmented reality (AR) adds digital elements to a live view often by using the camera on a smartphone. Examples of augmented reality experiences include Snapchat lenses and the game Pokemon Go.
Virtual reality (VR) implies a complete immersion experience that shuts out the physical world. Using VR devices such as HTC Vive, Oculus Rift or Google Cardboard, users can be transported into a number of real-world and imagined environments such as the middle of a squawking penguin colony or even the back of a dragon.
In a Mixed Reality (MR) experience, which combines elements of both AR and VR, real-world and digital objects interact. Mixed reality technology is just now starting to take off with Microsoft’s HoloLens one of the most notable early mixed reality apparatuses.
Extended Reality (XR) is an umbrella term that covers all of the various technologies that enhance our senses, whether they’re providing additional information about the actual world or creating totally unreal, simulated worlds for us to experience. It includes Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR) and Mixed Reality (MR) technologies.
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