Mark Zuckerberg is ready to fight his battle with Apple. And he doesn’t deny it at all. During the Meta Connect conference he stated that Apple’s unannounced VR platform will be a “closed ecosystem”, which will make it far worse than Meta’s proposal, based on an “open” system. On the other hand, Zuckerberg had already mentioned the open competition with the Cupertino company, referring to his employees that Meta is in a “very deep philosophical competition” with Apple for building the future of the metaverse. But now the war between the two companies seems to be officially declared.
Mark Zuckerberg against Apple: it’s open war
“In every generation of computing I’ve seen so far – PCs, mobile devices – there’s basically an open ecosystem and there’s a closed ecosystem.” Mark Zuckerberg comments in his speech at the Meta Connect conference, citing the examples of Windows versus macOS and Android versus iOS. “Closed ecosystems focus on tight control and integration to create unique and lock-in experiences. Although most of that value ends up flowing to the platform over time “. A methodology clearly in contrast to that of open ecosystems, in which Zuckerberg states that more people – and companies, of course – can share “the advantage of what is created”.
“I strongly believe that an open and interoperable metaverse created by many different developers and companies will be better for everyone.” He concludes with a wink at Meta’s proposal, which he undoubtedly considers better than that of his biggest competitor, Apple. “It is certainly plausible that [Apple] see this competition in the future and want to hinder us. I think one thing that has been pretty clear is that their motives for doing the things they are doing are not as altruistic as they claim they are, ”Zuckerberg reiterates in an interview with The Verge. In reality, however, it is not yet completely clear how open the Meta ecosystem really is. But it is certain that the CEO is referring to the fact that the company’s metaverse receives software from third party companies come Microsoft, Autodesk e Accenture.
On the other hand, in the past Mark Zuckerberg said he was willing to collaborate with other companies that are building VR headsets. But “at the right time”, not now. On the other hand, Tim Cook seemed relatively dismissive of the idea that people would like to relegate social interaction and professional life to virtual reality, which is the goal that Meta is working on. In this regard, he stated that virtual reality is “something you can really immerse yourself in. And that can be used in a positive way. But I don’t think you want to live your whole life like that ”. In short, the visions of the two CEOs are very different from each other. And that only means one thing: it’s open warfare.