LG, Meta, and the State of the XR App Ecosystem
The rumors that LG and Meta are doing something together in XR have now been substantiated. The LG-Meta press release is maddeningly vague, and the way that LG suggests it might work with Meta is almost silly. This report then dives into the state of the XR/spatial computing app ecosystem landscape to try to make some sense of what’s really going on.
LG and Meta Are Doing Something In XR and It’s Not What You Think
LG got out of smartphones but it does not want to miss the next mobile computing platform. However, LG doesn't have the ability to galvanize developers, and Google is working with Samsung (and LG doesn't want to do that again). Microsoft is leaving HoloLens behind and moving to a cloud/app enablement model, so that leaves Meta or Qualcomm's Snapdragon Spaces. Sony chose Qualcomm for its high-end business-oriented headset coming out later this year; LG is choosing Meta. (More on this below.)
So far so good. But if you read LG’s press release, the LG-Meta announcement is not just vague for the sake of roadmap secrecy, it just appears rushed and confused. The press release suggests that:
LG execs first got hands-on with a Quest 3 and Ray-ban Meta smartglasses last week. I have to assume that the discussion with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg was a bigger factor in a corporate alliance than a simple tech demo of products that have been out for months. However, including that detail in the press release suggests that LG executives are not at all familiar with the industry they are entering.
LG thinks that its contribution will be webOS TV/content -- not LG Display tech and manufacturing. That's... questionable. Meta does not need ad tech and can source content itself if it wants to launch QuestTV for its headsets. The real explanation is likely about Meta being open to hardware competition if it can control the software and services. (More on this, below as well.)
Whatever these two are actually doing – if anything – we're seeing more XR movement across the industry in the months since WWDC than in some years beforehand.
XR App Ecosystem Update
Outside of China there are currently five main app ecosystems jockeying for position in spatial computing:
Microsoft should be on any list of tech giants with extensive developer pull, but it’s not actually on this one. At one point, Microsoft had both an AR headset, HoloLens, and a Windows Mixed Reality platform that extended to PC VR headsets from companies like HP and Lenovo. However, due to technical and personnel issues, Microsoft has abandoned HoloLens for anyone who didn’t sign a $22 billion contract and isn’t named the U.S. Army. Recently, Microsoft has also ended support for Windows Mixed Reality. In its place, Microsoft has chosen a software enablement strategy that is Microsoft’s hallmark in the Satya Nadella era: it is enabling its mesh positioning system across platforms and will port its Office and Dynamics apps to any XR platform, ideally for use with Azure cloud computing resources.
Meta has been investing in VR early, often, and with mind-bogglingly large amounts of cash. Thanks in part to subsidized hardware the Quest has a large installed base that is beginning to attract developers beyond small independents, and whenever indies do rise above the noise, Meta buys them. As a result, Meta has built up a library of fully immersive VR gaming and exercise titles, though the number of AR apps for the Quest 3’s passthrough is still quite small. On the productivity and computing side, Meta has Microsoft 365, Meta’s own apps – which have failed to gain significant traction – and the ability to stream from a PC. Crucially, Meta lacks a large library of existing apps that it can plug into for a full spatial computing experience. Equally crucially, the whole point of the switch from “Facebook” to “Meta” was to build a platform that it controls; it is unlikely to hand the reigns over to Google. Meta does appear willing to open up its platform to other hardware developers, and that is likely what’s really going on with LG. Of course, opening up an OS to licensing is a big, complicated undertaking and competing with your licensees adds …complexity to that effort.
Valve’s SteamVR on Windows is well established for PC-based VR with productivity utilities, adult content, and games, but the requirement to tether to a relatively high-end PC with a dedicated GPU along with outside-in tracking has hampered growth. The good news for SteamVR is that it can tap Windows PC-based apps and run them inside the headset for productivity; the bad news is that these apps are unlikely ever to be updated with spatial computing in mind.
Qualcomm launched Snapdragon Spaces in late 2021 as a set of OpenXR-compatible APIs specifically for Qualcomm silicon. By itself that shouldn’t be a liability: nearly every non-Apple standalone glasses or headset is built around Snapdragon AR or XR chipsets. However, OEMs still need to build out user interfaces, developers have complained to me about a lack of investment in squashing bugs and building out new capabilities, and there is no centralized app store for developers to target. Still, Qualcomm is the biggest beneficiary of the post-Apple Vision Pro rise in XR development, and if it invests enough in Snapdragon Spaces it could build out a viable alternative to Meta, Google, and Apple at least for immersive apps. A broader ecosystem of productivity apps will only be accessible to Snapdragon Spaces if Google opens up Android for Tablet and ports over the Play Store.
Apple has just launched the Apple Vision Pro. As of this writing, native VisionOS apps are numbered in the hundreds, with new apps launched daily. Despite the capabilities of the headset, very few of these initial apps are fully AR-enabled and interact with your environment. Aside from Facetime and conference apps like Teams, no apps that I know of are multi-user or fully collaborative. However, nearly all iPads apps work as 2D instances, giving Apple over a million apps that fill in an awful lot of gaps. They will be even more useful once Apple adds generic mouse support; the interaction model for touch-designed apps isn’t perfect with the Apple Vision Pro’s glance-and-pinch. Apple also brings access to MacOS apps, but only when running on a wirelessly tethered Apple Silicon MacBook. The chances of Apple opening up VisionOS or iPadOS to rival headset manufacturers is zero.
Due to over a decade of neglect, Google’s Android tablet apps have not been as well optimized for the tablet form factor as Apple’s iPadOS apps, but this is still a large library that would work well inside XR glasses or a headset. Google’s intentions to build AndroidXR will likely be fleshed out at the Google I/O developer conference, but it has announced that it is working with Qualcomm and Samsung on XR products. The challenge here is not just that Google is behind Meta and Apple on building a library of immersive apps, Google is simply an unreliable partner. Google not only launched and killed a dozen messaging and social media platforms, it has also launched and killed – or bought and killed – multiple XR initiatives. (RIP North.) If you are, say, Lenovo or HP, do you trust Google one more time and compete with its preferred partner Samsung? If you are a developer, do you spend incredibly limited resources for a new computing environment building AndroidXR apps for a nascent platform, target Meta’s installed base, or aim for Apple’s well-heeled base?
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