WWDC22: The Metaverse Race among Tech Giants
Google, Microsoft, Meta (Facebook), Amazon, and Apple make the Big Tech Five, dominating stock market values and global tech usage. Given their size, what role are they playing in shaping the Metaverse? Let’s discover in this blog:
1. What is WWDC?
Every year, usually in the late spring, Apple holds a developer conference to announce upcoming major software updates to all its platforms. Sometimes it also previews new hardware. All the consumer-facing announcements are made during a Day One keynote that is live-streamed online, although Apple tends to hold other presentations for developers and students to watch. The idea behind the entire conference is to get developers up to speed on Apple's latest developments so that they can adequately prepare and update their apps.
Apple live-streamed its main keynote on YouTube. The video is embedded above for you to watch. Below are some additional ways you will still be able to watch it.
2. What is Metaverse
The term “Metaverse” was first coined by Neal Stephenson in the early 1990s, arising as a cyberpunk concept that depicted the polarisation of virtual reality in a dystopian human world. Paving the way towards the realization of this concept, the development of augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR), alongside blockchain technology, became the foundation of this hyper-realistic world for individuals to coexist.?
Meta (previously known as Facebook) ventured into this evolving tech trend in 2021, further popularising the integration of the virtual space into our physical world- a three-dimensional (3D) digital space for people to connect, network, and create through its technological innovation in VR, AR, and wearable technologies.?
As we enter into a new digital revolution era, Metaverse trends have experienced phenomenal growth, creating an immersive virtual reality and collaborative space to synchronise user experiences. This only further emphasises the significance of interoperable network connectivity during these changing times, from human interactions to transactions and data storage taking place on a decentralised network.?
3. 05 Emerging Metaverse Trends in 2022
1. Augmented and Virtual Reality in Gaming?
3D Technology, AR and VR assemblies, and sonic systems play an integral role in the virtual gaming industry. Amid the rise of the Metaverse, these technologies have witnessed exponential growth, strengthening their valuation and relevance to the current market. According to the International Data Corporation (IDC)’s Quarterly AR/VR Headset Tracker, in 2021, the market for AR and VR headsets increased by 60.8%, the APAC region alone accounting for 2.19 million units in shipment.?
The Sandbox, Hong Kong-based futuristic gaming platform, has developed a decentralised virtual world where users can personalise their avatars, innovate, and govern the land, as well as host events and exchange ideas. Within the metaverse, the in-game Ethereum utility token, SAND, is made available for the players to buy and sell digital assets in the form of non-fungible tokens (NFTs). For new gamers looking to traverse into the digital simulation, the shared space facilitates the monetisation of individual virtual experiences.?
2. Digital Marketplace?
The ongoing pandemic has disrupted the traditional brick-and-mortar, and the e-commerce sector witnessing a dramatic rise around this time. With digital transformation underway, retailers and brands are reimagining their businesses and are more favourable to integrating digital tools and technologies in this modern consumeristic age.?
The Metaverse is no longer limited to virtual gaming and the tech world. It foresees rapid growth as an innovative digital marketplace, bringing in a myriad of marketing and branding opportunities for fashion and retail spaces, holding the potential to be a sales channel that accelerates consumer experience, engagement, and connectivity.
Many brands have expressed their desire to dive into Web 3.0 while some luxury fashion labels, including Jonathan Simkhai, Ambush, and Nike x RTFKT launched digital wearables.?
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?3. Virtual Art Galleries
The rise of digital art comes as no surprise, considering the growing popularity of NFTs, digital assets, and blockchain technology. Virtual art galleries are labelled amongst the widely adopted industry trends of the Metaverse, as its market worth is posited at US$2.4 billion. Virtual art galleries are a new kind of immersive space where artists and digital creators can showcase their NFT exhibitions for collectors, art fanatics can experience a sensational virtual environment, and even trade their favourites.
Nevertheless, the digital sphere has opened a gateway to infinite possibilities in experiencing and experimenting in art, while the decentralised network ensures intellectual property rights and ownership of each piece.
Virtual real estate trends are breaking physical barriers, having prospered at a rapid speed in the Metaverse- sales of real estate in the digital space surpassed US$500 million in 2021, and are expected to further soar by doubling this year.?
Virtual properties are the nuclei of the digital world, where users can connect, create, and cultivate. Digitised land enables owners and creators to monetise on them by allowing access, renting, leasing, and even trading their NFT properties, in a similar process to the physical real estate industry.?
5. Social Networking Space
The Metaverse has undoubtedly unfolded its prospects of becoming the next big social networking space. Within its simulation of realities, users can network and socialise through immersive virtual experiences, without revealing any vital information, such as their photographs, identities, location, and more.?
Asian investors and developers, caught in a race against time, are looking to foray into the metaspace.?
The Metaverse offers transformative ways to engage and connect beyond the limitations posed by the physical realm, creating many opportunities and paving the way for growth, competition, and the future of how we communicate.?
4. Discussion: The Metaverse Race among Tech Giants
Apple held its annual WWDC (Worldwide Developer Conference) and the biggest story in town wasn’t what was shown, but what wasn’t – a new Augmented Reality device. At the same time, Amazon was bolstering its own capabilities in AR.
Apple’s annual showcase is probably best known for the famous Steve Jobs line: ‘one more thing…’ at which point, Apple would famously reveal right at the end of the presentation the latest and most amazing piece of consumer hardware that would spark a rush to their stores. But not this year.
Despite revealing a whole host of new tech and software upgrades including: iOS 16, iPadOS 16, tvOS 16, macOS Ventura, watchOS 9, a new M2 processor and a new redesigned MacBook Air – with white bezels no less – Apple CEO Tim Cook gave no mention of a much anticipated AR device. Furthermore, there wasn’t even really a nod towards the mixed reality future (some call it the Metaverse) that is so occupying other major technology giants at present.
So conspicuous was the absence of AR that you don’t have to search far to find devoted Apple watchers reading implications into every single aspect of WWDC 2022 – including one journalist suggesting even the stage managing of the screen at the event taking on a UI that would be perfect for a HUD type of AR / VR display.
The only real mention of AR was found in the reveal of the new iOS16, which includes ‘Live Text’ that allows you to select text from your images and then interact with it by translating it if in a foreign language or converting it if it is a currency. The iOS16 upgrade also allows you identify a subject in an image and then remove it form the background, enabling you to paste it anywhere like a sticker.
Everyone knows Apple has got something up its sleeve that will have a big impact in the AR world and make a splash in the metaverse, but clearly it isn’t ready to give us ‘one more thing’ just yet.
Meanwhile, Amazon is not being so shy, launching a new service called ‘Virtual Try-On Shoes’, which you guessed it, allows you to virtually try on shoes using AR. The feature is designed to help brands showcase their products and is an evolution of the launch of a previous ‘Virtual Try-On’ for athletic shirts in April, although that put a shirt on an avatar based on the customers measurements.
‘Virtual Try-On Shoes’ initially launches in the U.S. and Canada in the Amazon shopping app on iOS. To use the feature, customers tap on the new “Virtual Try-On” button below the product image.