While shuttering an ambitious project and losing high-profile executives is big news in itself, it’s the timing of the tumultuous changes that are interesting. Apple’s Vision Pro mixed reality headset will arrive early next year, and, if analysts are to be believed, it will inject fresh life into the XR hardware market.
Even though supply and technical challenges might shrink shelf availability, and the $3,500 asking price could also be a deterrent, bullish analysts predict that the Vision Pro would finally give the push that the XR industry always needed. It, therefore, seems odd that Google is apparently abandoning the XR ship at a crucial juncture and risks losing its competitive edge.
However, it looks like Google is just following in the footsteps of Meta here. Both companies have recently laid off thousands of employees, reorganized entire divisions, and shifted goalposts to focus on the latest money-maker in the market — Artificial Intelligence.
It seems that Google, just like Meta, is scrambling to catch up with the competition in the AI race. Microsoft has scored a sizeable lead with its billion-dollar investments in ChatGPT-maker OpenAI, while Google is also racing to put its Bard AI onto as many internet-connected devices as possible.
It’s too early to predict who is eventually going to win the AI race. It would, nonetheless, be odd to see Apple lead the way in its very first attempt while Google abandoned years worth of cutting-edge XR research mid-way.
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