The First Open Mixed Reality Operating System Has Arrived
Meta announces Horizon OS, opening it's mixed reality operating system and further reinforcing the Android vs iPhone dynamics of extended reality
Unlike Apple, Google and Microsoft, Meta is a company who’s biggest products such as Meta (formally Facebook), Instagram and Whatsapp are run on hardware they do not develop.
The fact that these apps are run on computer hardware, smartphone hardware and operating systems built by Apple and Google make Meta’s products reliant on other platforms.
To become a platform company of their own, Meta have spent the past decade building extended reality (XR) headsets (an umbrella term for augmented reality, virtual reality and mixed reality), with their most recent products being the Meta Quest 3 and Meta Quest Pro.
In today’s article we’ll go over:
Meta gambling on XR
Meta’s journey in XR through collaborations and partnerships
Apple’s Arrival in the space
How Meta’s recent announcement may have protected themselves
Meta’s Hardware Mission
Meta are banking on mixed reality being a big part of consumer hardware technology, and Reality Labs, who are their XR division, have lost more than $45 billion since the end of 2020.
Quarterly Losses for Meta’s Reality Labs:
Meta have previously developed hardware outside of extended reality headsets, with the Meta Portal released in 2018, which was a line of smart displays and video calling monitors as well as the HTC First, also known as the Facebook phone.
Although Meta (at the time Facebook), could not break into the smartphone market, being part of a new-era iPhone vs Android rivalry can be a huge success for them.
Meta’s Journey So Far
To see how Meta’s mixed reality development has got to where it has today, we can take a step back and view their journey through prior partnerships and acquisitions.
Oculus VR
Oculus VR was a virtual reality company founded by Palmer Luckey - someone widely considered to have revived the VR industry. Luckey’s appearance on the “My First Million” podcast is one I strongly recommend listening to, for anyone interested in hardware development, startups in general and founder stories.
The Oculus Rift was the companies first headset, and a prototype for the product was demonstrated in June 2012 at E3. In August of that year a Kickstarter campaign was announced, where backers would be rewarded with a development kit. As is common with Kickstarter deliveries, the product’s delivery was late, shipping in March 2013 when the expected shipping date was December 2012.
In March 2014, Meta (Facebook at the time) acquired Oculus VR - who at the time had only released the development kit of the headset.
In March of 2016, the first consumer version of the Rift, known as the Oculus Rift “CV1” was released.
The successor to the Oculus Rift “CV1”, was the Oculus Rift S, a headset co-created with Lenovo Technologies, announced in March 2019 and released in May of that year.
Updates to the Rift included positional tracking system, an improved resolution display and a head strap - however it received mixed reviews, due to the change in audio output, and how the resolution was only slightly higher than its sibling device, the Oculus Quest.
Samsung Partnership
Oculus VR, under Facebook partnered with Samsung to develop the Samsung Gear VR headset, released in August 2015. Facebook’s Oculus VR division’s responsibilities included:
Application software
Mobile SDK
Sensor firmware
Optimised Android software
GPU drivers
The Oculus VR division’s software development for the Samsung Gear VR headset, became part of the Oculus Go released in May 2018 - the company’s first VR headset they had developed themselves and the first Oculus headset to use an Android based operating system.
Today, Oculus VR is known as the Reality Labs division of Meta.
Apple’s Arrival into Spatial Computing
If there’s one company that can change Meta’s course, it’s Apple - and in June 2023, they announced the log awaited headset project they were working on - the Apple Vision Pro.
Unlike classic XR demonstrations we have seen from companies like Meta, normally showing-off exciting, visually stimulating use-cases of XR such as gaming, and immersive viewing, Apple opted to showcase more “pragmatic”, day-to-day use-cases of XR.
The demonstrated use-cases of the Apple Vision Pro included Facetime, large monitors for working and a cinema screen for entertainment all while embracing what the technology is capable of; incorporating impressive backgrounds, putting users virtually in nature.
Instead of using terms people already associated with the technology, such as “VR”, “AR” or “XR”, Apple created the term “spatial computing” - disassociating themselves with language used by competitors.
Apple’s headset received mixed reviews (Marques Bownlee made a comprehensive review) however, it is generally agreed that the the immersive technology is impressive.
Following Apple’s announcement, demonstrations and product reviews, Meta’s next announcement, or product would be one to keep a close eye on and last week, Meta announced that the operating system will be known as Horizon OS and will be open to third-parties.
Horizon OS’s First Champions
The announcement told us that three big tech companies will be developing mixed reality hardware using Meta’s operating system, kicking off the new OS ecosystem.
ASUS Republic of Gamers
The first is ASUS Republic of Gamers, whose products include gaming laptops, desktops and handheld devices.
Gaming has always been considered a strong use-case for XR and as ASUS create top-performance hardware, it looks like their new headset will emphasise gaming performance.
Lenovo
Meta’s announcement mentioned that “Lenovo will draw on its experience co-designing the Oculus Rift S” as it adds to it’s expertise in engineering devices used predominantly for professionals, productivity, learning as well as entertainment.
Lenovo’s ThinkPad laptops, which are used widely amongst professionals as work laptops, enforces the idea that Lenovo can develop mixed reality hardware for productivity as part of the Horizon OS ecosystem.
Xbox
Interestingly, the announcement told us that Xbox and Meta will work together to develop a limited-edition Meta Quest.
Similarly to Lenovo, their partnership with Meta is not their first, and last year the two companies teamed up to deliver Xbox Cloud Gaming (Beta) allowing users of Meta Quests 2, 3 or Pro to play Xbox games on a virtual screen.
Xbox’s gaming rivals Sony, released their headset, the PlayStation VR2 in Febuary 2023. Xbox’s decision to partner with a leading hardware developer and develop on their operating system could be decisive in the rivalry within the gaming category of mixed reality.
Microsoft, who owns Xbox, have had similar struggles to Meta in smartphone development, with the cult-hero Window’s Phone.
The Windows Phone was a series of smartphones, first launched in October 2010 and included partnerships with big names in technology - namely with Nokia, who’s partnership announcement came in 2011, and is now discontinued.
The struggle came down to several reasons, most notably the duopoly of Android and iPhone in the smartphone industry left little for the Windows Phone to work with.
Regardless of whether the Windows Phone experience influenced Microsoft to have Xbox be a part of Meta’s ecosystem or not, it is a strong case-study of how to not fall victim to duopoly in technology.
Have Meta Protected Themselves?
Despite Meta being one of the companies most associated with mixed-realty technology, it is never enough to be a pioneer in an industry and secure a strong user base. As discussed in my previous article, consumers will always vote with their feet as to which device, technology or ecosystem best serves them.
Big technology companies have the resources to develop a headset that has the edge in an area or application overlooked by Meta.
Samsung and Google are reported to be developing a headset, with Qualcomm’s chip technology and when it comes to hardware development, Samsung are not a company to be overlooked.
Samsung, as of March 2024, have 23.86% of global mobile vendor market share, second to Apple with 28.46%.
By opening their operating system to third parties, Meta can position themselves as a platform company and licensing their software is a move similar to that Microsoft made with their Window’s operating system for PCs.
It also means that they may not get left behind, if a use-case-specific headset is developed with Horizon OS and becomes dominant in their niche. This could prove to be a strong response to Apple’s headset separating itself from the use-cases Meta were pushing previously, around gaming, fitness and other more “extreme” experiences.
An example of this, is if Lenovo were to strongly challenge Apple for productivity applications in mixed reality, Meta would benefit by Lenovo using Horizon OS.
Meta now have the opportunity to build on their platform, and even develop new hardware products in the process.
In March 2023, the company’s VP for AR, Alex Himel, outlined a roadmap for their hardware through to 2027, which included a smartwatch to accompany glasses that, at the time, were planned to be released in 2025.
Although this is speculation, transitioning into a platform company provides many advantages for Meta, and seeing whether or not their bullish attempts at bringing mixed reality or spatial computing become fruitful for them, is interesting in the long-run.
Additional Material
As always, while taking a deep-dive into the topics discussed, the following were fun research material:
Great video summarising the Meta announcement and more by The Mysticle
The Seattle Times reporting on CES 2016, mentioning the Oculus Rift “CV1” announcement
Interesting Hackernews thread, discussing the announcement of Horizon OS
Medium article on the Facebook Phone’s underwhelming impact by John Utz
Why did Microsoft Phone fail while iPhone was so successful? By Flynn at Apple Scoop
Marques Brownlee’s review video “Using Apple Vision Pro: What It’s Actually Like!”
Great post Greg. My personal opinion is that Meta is saving itself from not going into the "phone" race. It's trying to keep... peace? Apple, I guess, doesn't want that, creating the Vision Pro.
Very nice overview Greg, I really enjoyed it!