Within the virtual reality and augmented reality industry, there’s been an immense amount of speculation surrounding what Apple plans to do for their devices in this realm. Tim Cook famously denounced virtual reality, claiming that augmented reality would be far superior, leading a lot of analysts to speculate that Apple would only do an augmented reality headset and not a virtual reality headset. However, I think that everyone so far has missed the point: Apple won’t do any kind of virtual reality or augmented reality headset, the same way they didn’t build a successful PDA. Confused? Let me explain.
First, let’s understand what Apple is: They are one of the only consumer technology companies in the world. What about Google or Microsoft you ask? Well, Google’s primary business is advertisements, not consumer devices. They build their own mobile phones so they can have a say in how advertisements run on them, not to sell consumer’s devices (that’s just a bonus if they make money). The same with Microsoft: Microsoft is an enterprise solutions company, so their hardware is geared towards getting businesses invested, not to sell devices to consumers (though again, if they make money, that’s a bonus). You can see this strategy with how Microsoft approaches Hololens already, or with how Facebook is approaching virtual reality (e.g. the social aspect). At the end of the day, these companies have plans…
