Will the term “metaverse” be replaced by “spatial computing”?
In October 2021, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg unveiled his vision for what he called the “Metaverse,” which he described as “a set of interconnected digital spaces that enable us to do things we can’t do in the physical world — especially the sense of being with other people, no matter where you are in the world.”
He was so passionate about this vision that he changed the company’s name from Facebook to Meta and committed $10 billion to the project to transform it into a leader in advancing VR and XR technology.
Between the fall of 2021 and the spring of 2023, the term “metaverse” was touted at nearly every major virtual tech conference and event.
The leading show on the subject is the Augmented World Expo, and the June 2022 event will feature dozens of sessions focused on the metaverse, attempting to elaborate on the concept from every angle.
On June 5, 2023, Apple unveiled one of its widest visions of virtual worlds at the Worldwide Developers Conference. At the show, the company unveiled Vision Pro, its most powerful headset to date, integrating VR, XR, MR, and AR in a single device.
However, at the launch of the Vision Pro, Apple didn’t use the term metaverse to describe the capabilities or features of the headset. In fact, Apple used a different term, spatial computing, to describe its vision of virtual worlds and the focus of its overall vision for mixed reality.
On February 2, 2024, Apple’s Vision Pro became available for purchase. Over one million people discovered its potential through free demos of the headset at Apple stores, showcasing its “spatial” computing capabilities.
Once you try Vision Pro, you’ll realize it’s a transformative product, with the potential to turn a 2D static world into a 3D immersive one and help Apple bring the concept of spatial computing to life.
Considering how much effort Apple has put into establishing the idea of spatial computing and showcasing it so effectively with Vision Pro, it’s no surprise that the phrase metaverse is starting to lose importance, being overshadowed by spatial computing and becoming an umbrella term that encompasses 3D virtual environments.
Apple’s Vision Pro embodies all of the current definitions of VR, XR, MR, and AR, making a strong case for “spatial computing” to become the industry term for the future of virtual worlds.
At the AWE conference in Long Beach, California, last June, the show made a big push towards spatial computing, using it in the backdrop for the main stage and in marketing materials, and the weekly newsletter was renamed “Weekly Spatial,” with the tagline “You can feel the space. We promise.”
So, does the term metaverse still make sense today?
At AWE 2024, I believe the term has all but disappeared and its use as an umbrella term as defined by Mark Zuckerberg has lost steam.
Apple is a powerful company when it comes to defining new markets, and spatial computing is an area the tech industry is ready to embrace broadly. If so, the term metaverse will be replaced with a new term to describe all aspects of VR, XR, MR, and AR in virtual worlds.
Disclosure: Apple, along with many other tech companies around the world, subscribes to Creative Strategies research reports.
