the announcement of the iPhone, Apple brought bold changes to consumer technology and the results were dramatic enough to influence day-to-day life, going beyond another gadget to check messages or take a photo. The iPhone is the 'everything' device and that's the role that Zuckerberg wants Meta's AR glasses to fill, the next big thing that reshapes the world.
Not very long ago, Meta Platforms went by the name Facebook, which is one of the largest social media networks in the world and currently the strongest product the corporation owns. There's great prestige in that, but controversy over privacy breaches and the wild spread of 'fake news' in recent history might have played a role in the rebranding. The change to Meta is primarily a signal that the company intends to focus strongly on its concept of a Metaverse, expanding its virtual reality expertise with VR headsets to include augmented reality hardware and software as well.
Meta and its concept of the Metaverse were revealed about six months ago and the potential for dramatic change kicked off a Zuckerberg is ready to take that gamble with Meta, just as Facebook subsidized the cost of its $300 Oculus Quest VR headset, which should have been priced much higher, and funded developers to build enough games to make the experience intriguing.
Meta's AR Glasses & Wrist Control
Meta teased its plans for a new head-mounted display, Project Cambria, in 2021. This will be an advanced AR/VR headset that will finally break the $300 price point of the company's last two headsets. The lighter, higher performance Cambria will feature much-improved AR capabilities when compared to the Quest, which has a grainy black and white -through capability. This is not the AR glasses that may inspire a revolution in mobile technology, since the product is expected to be much bulkier and heavier than sunglasses. However, it should be a big step in the right direction and provide a platform for developers to begin testing AR solutions that will integrate with Meta's future hardware.
Meta's long-term plans for the 'next big thing' center around AR glasses and an innovative interface that uses a wrist-mounted controller to interact with the virtual environment that will be overlaid onto the actual physical environment. AR glasses are meant to look and feel like sunglasses or prescription lenses but with the ability to augment what is seen with graphics and text similar to how smartphones can show a camera view with directions overlaid. Notifications and alerts will be available without reaching in a pocket or lifting the wrist. It all sounds amazing and if Meta can manage to achieve this in a viable way, while somehow dodging the inevitable privacy concerns, Zuckerberg and Meta might actually get an 'iPhone moment.'
Source: The Verge