Meta has publicly acknowledged that it desires to be “the Android of XR.” However you already know who else desires to be the Android of XR? Android XR, after all.
Past debates about specs or options, one main issue is more likely to decide whether or not Meta can fend off rising strain from Google and Apple within the XR panorama: flat apps.
Flat apps—like Spotify, TikTok, Snapchat, and Discord—aren’t essentially the most thrilling use case for a headset. However Imaginative and prescient Professional (which helps an enormous library of flat iPadOS apps) has proven simply how a lot worth is added by fusing the XR expertise with the apps we already know and love (somewhat than fully separating us from them once we placed on a headset). And now Android XR is making the identical play by supporting all present Android apps on the Play Retailer.
Whereas Meta’s headsets excel in gaming, it’s clear that XR’s potential extends far past gaming alone.
An organization centered solely on gaming (like Nintendo) won’t ever attain the dimensions of an organization constructing a broader computing platform (like Microsoft). That’s why Microsoft is value 43 instances as a lot as Nintendo. Admittedly, this isn’t a good comparability (as Microsoft does way more than simply construct a computing platform), however hopefully the analogy is obvious.
So between Meta and Google, now we have two XR platforms:
- Meta’s Horizon OS has the most important and greatest library of immersive apps.
- Google’s Android XR has the most important and greatest library of flat apps.
To dominate XR, each want what the opposite has. However who faces an even bigger problem?
Meta, it appears, is in a more durable spot.
Immersive app builders are hungry for progress. If a well-liked recreation can achieve 25% extra customers by porting to Android XR, the choice is clear.
Against this, main flat apps (like Spotify, TikTok, Snapchat, and Discord) stand to realize comparatively little progress from porting to Horizon OS. They’d be fortunate to realize even 0.25% extra customers than they have already got on the whole thing of Android.
And also you is likely to be considering, “Horizon OS relies on Android, so porting apps needs to be straightforward!” That’s true—the technical facet of porting could also be comparatively easy. However for enormous apps with enormous userbases and fixed updates, the true problem is within the ongoing assist and upkeep, which is not any small dedication.
Consequently, Google is best positioned to draw key immersive apps to Android XR than Meta is to carry important flat apps to Horizon OS. With out a important mass of flat apps, Meta’s headset danger being relegated as immersive gaming consoles somewhat than normal computing units.
And that’s very a lot not the place Meta desires to be. The truth is, the entire cause Meta acquired into XR a decade in the past was fairly actually to manage XR because the “subsequent computing platform” earlier than Apple or Google might take over.
You could not discover flat apps to be a necessary a part of the XR expertise, however there’s little question that if one platform has each key flat apps and key immersive apps, it is going to beat out the platform that has just one or the opposite.
Even when Meta makes higher {hardware} (let’s say they only persistently make headsets which might be 20% sooner, lighter, and cheaper than the equal Android XR headset), I nonetheless don’t suppose that may matter in the long term, in comparison with whether or not or not they’ve core flat apps out there on their platform.
That is an existential danger to Meta’s XR ambitions, and one which doesn’t have any apparent options.
