Apple sees a lot of potential in metaverse, CEO Tim Cook says company is investing accordingly

Apple CEO has boldly declared the company's pursuit for metaverse, stating that it is investing in the technology as it sees a lot of potential in it. Here is why this may be the start of Apple's rise to the top of the metaverse world.

Apple CEO Tim Cook recently voiced his thoughts on metaverse and related technologies. Speaking at the company's earnings call for the first quarter of 2022, Cook told investors that Apple sees a “lot of potential” in the metaverse. To stress this belief, Apple is also investing in the technology accordingly, Cook said.

Cook's remarks come as one of the very few indications of Apple's stance on the metaverse. Yes, the company is trying to come up with its first-ever mixed reality headset later this year. However, Cook highlighted the wide use of Apple’s ARKit framework among iOS apps as the groundwork for Apple's metaverse attempts.

In response to Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty, and as noted by 9to5Mac, Cook explained that Apple is "always exploring new and emerging technologies." Metaverse, in particular, is an area of high interest to the folks at Apple, as per Cook. "We have 14,000 ARKit apps on the App Store," which help provide AR experiences to users. "We see a lot of potential in this space and are investing accordingly," Cook rounded off.

He also shared how the company, renowned for its innovations, decides to enter a new market. As per Cook, Apple looks for an area "at the intersection of hardware, software, and services." He cleared that there are specific areas that have "more than piqued" Apple's interest and that the company is investing in those.

Sharing an example, Cook mentioned that Apple has increased its expense on Research and Development. "There’s quite a bit of investment going into things that aren’t on the market at this point," Cook noted to investors and analysts.

To think of it, Apple is one of the most well-suited technology majors for pursuing the metaverse dream. The company already has part of the enabling hardware in place with its iPhones, iPads, MacBooks and even its own chipsets. As it progresses to bring its own mixed reality headsets to life, it will have the complete ecosystem ready for a metaverse, at least on the hardware side of things.

For software, Apple already has immense pillars to build its metaverse on top of. It has its own operating systems with the iOS, iPadOS and like. Then it has its own plethora of apps, which can quite easily be tweaked with technologies like ARKit to suit a world of augmented and virtual reality. For example, Apple's mapping of Earth through Apple Maps will prove to be an immense help for scaling any sort of metaverse.