Apple’s Tim Cook on Thursday highlighted the company’s plans of stepping into the metaverse and investing to explore its potential.
On Thursday, in a report by Business Insider, Cook was asked regarding the opportunities presented by the metaverse. Tim Cook gave an insight into what the future of the metaverse could hold for Apple, stating:
Well, that’s a big question. But we’re a company in the business of innovation, so we’re always exploring new and emerging technologies. And I’ve spoken at length about how this area is very interesting to us … Right now, we have over 14,000 ARKit apps in the App Store, which provide incredible AR experiences for millions of people today … We see a lot of potential in this space, and are investing accordingly.
Augmented Reality (AR) is one of the ways people can step into virtual worlds that make up the metaverse via AR headsets. ARKit is Apple’s development platform for such apps.
While the metaverse refers to the virtual worlds where people can create avatars of their own that work, play, learn, and even build.
The popularity of the metaverse began in 2021, as Facebook rebranded itself and came to be known as Meta. Since then several major corporate giants have jumped into the space, such as Samsung opening its store in the metaverse, or the Australian Open setting up the Grand Slam tournament in a virtual world that mirrored the live event.
In December, Eric Sheridan, an analyst at Goldman Sachs commented that virtual worlds could be worth $8 trillion, restating what Morgan Stanley predicted that monetization of AR consumers within the US would alone deliver such a hefty amount.
Tim Cook’s remarks came in an analyst call to discuss Apple’s fiscal first-quarter earnings report, released after the market close on Thursday. While the company reports that its revenue rose 11% year-on-year to hit $123.9 billion in Q4 2021.