Meta has publicly said that it needs to be “the Android of XR.” However you already know who else needs to be the Android of XR? Android XR, after all.
Past debates about specs or options, one main issue is prone to decide whether or not Meta can fend off rising stress from Google and Apple within the XR panorama: flat apps.
Flat apps—like Spotify, TikTok, Snapchat, and Discord—aren’t probably 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 (reasonably than utterly 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 size of an organization constructing a broader computing platform (like Microsoft). That’s why Microsoft is value 43 occasions 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 evident.
So between Meta and Google, now we have two XR platforms:
- Meta’s Horizon OS has the biggest and finest library of immersive apps.
- Google’s Android XR has the biggest and finest library of flat apps.
To dominate XR, each want what the opposite has. However who faces a much bigger problem?
Meta, it appears, is in a more durable spot.
Immersive app builders are hungry for development. If a well-liked sport can acquire 25% extra customers by porting to Android XR, the choice if apparent.
In contrast, main flat apps (like Spotify, TikTok, Snapchat, and Discord) stand to realize comparatively little development from porting to Horizon OS. They’d be fortunate to realize even 0.25% extra customers than they have already got on the whole lot of Android.
And also you is perhaps considering, “Horizon OS relies on Android, so porting apps ought to be simple!” That’s true—the technical aspect of porting could also be comparatively easy. However for large apps with large userbases and fixed updates, the true problem is within the ongoing assist and upkeep, which isn’t any small dedication.
In consequence, Google is healthier positioned to draw key immersive apps to Android XR than Meta is to convey crucial flat apps to Horizon OS. And not using a crucial mass of flat apps, Meta’s headset danger being relegated as immersive gaming consoles reasonably than common computing units.
And that’s very a lot not the place Meta needs to be. In reality, the entire motive Meta obtained into XR a decade in the past was fairly actually to regulate XR because the “subsequent computing platform” earlier than Apple or Google might take over.
You might not discover flat apps to be a vital 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 would beat out the platform that has just one or the opposite.
Even when Meta makes higher {hardware} (let’s say they only constantly make headsets which are 20% quicker, lighter, and cheaper than the equal Android XR headset), I nonetheless don’t suppose that can matter in the long term, in comparison with whether or not or not they’ve core flat apps obtainable on their platform.
That is an existential danger to Meta’s XR ambitions, and one which doesn’t have any apparent options.
