Strained Mark Zuckerberg declares ‘metaverse WAR with Apple’ as fans rage over $100 price hike to Facebook VR goggles

META CEO Mark Zuckerberg has declared war on Apple over the future of virtual and augmented reality.

Earlier this month, the Facebook CEO told his employees that Apple and his company are in a “very deep, philosophical competition”.

Zuckerberg’s choice of words suggests both companies are on a mission to dominate the world of VR and AR, The Verge .

The billionaire also told employees that Apple and Meta are in a race to determine “what direction the internet should go in.”

One plan to overtake the competition could include offering more open, and cheaper VR/AR products than Apple.

“This is a competition of philosophies and ideas, where they believe that by doing everything themselves and tightly integrating that they build a better consumer experience,” Zuckerberg said.

“And we believe that there is a lot to be done in specialization across different companies, and [that] will allow a much larger ecosystem to exist.”

Despite Zuckerberg’s announcement, Meta revealed recently that it will be raising the price of its Quest 2 virtual reality headsets by $100 next month, leaving users furious.

What is the ‘metaverse’?

The definition of the metaverse really depends on how you ask.

According to the dictionary, it’s: “A 3D virtual world, especially in an online roleplaying game.”

Billionaire Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg called it “the next version of the internet”.

He said: “This isn’t about spending more time on screens. It’s about making the time we already spend better.”

Facebook has even rebranded its parent company operation as Meta, as part of its commitment to the metaverse.

Who’s involved?

Recently, Meta helped create the Metaverse Open Standards Group in collaboration with Microsoft, Epic Games, and 33 other tech companies.

This forum is meant to enable open standards for AR/ VR, meaning people could easily move through different immersive 3D worlds.

However, Apple and Roblox did not appear to be a part of the joint effort – a fact that reportedly did not surprise Zuckerberg.

“It’s not really clear upfront whether an open or closed ecosystem is going to be better,” Zuckerberg said when speculating about Apple’s plans.

Apple’s plans

Earlier this year, the tech giant unveiled to . that it would reportedly launch its mixed reality headset sometime this year.

Apple’s new product will run on rOS – or reality operating system – according to Bloomberg and other experts.

In January, iOS developer Rens Verhoeven spotted a reference to ‘realityOS’ in App Store upload logs.

“Uh, what is Apple’s RealityOS doing in the App Store upload logs? AR/VR confirmed?” he asked in a .

The advancement of Apple’s reality operating system these past few months indicates that the headset might drop sometime soon.

With the metaverse taking over the tech world, releasing virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) headsets seems like the next logical step for major tech players, and Apple is clearly no exception.

In fact, the device would mark the company’s first major new product since the Apple Watch in 2015.