​Race to the Finish Line – Apple vs. Facebook in AR Wars
Aug 1, 2017

​Race to the Finish Line – Apple vs. Facebook in AR Wars

The tech industry of today is a modern day battlefield, times are as competitive as they could get and every big name is ready to pounce on the latest innovation to get a hold of the first mover advantage or come out with the ‘next big thing’. With the progression of AR technology in recent years, it is not surprising at all to witness tech giants from different spheres of the industry combatting for the number spot.

The tech industry of today is a modern day battlefield, times are as competitive as they could get and every big name is ready to pounce on the latest innovation to get a hold of the first mover advantage or come out with the ‘next big thing’. With the progression of AR technology in recent years, it is not surprising at all to witness tech giants from different spheres of the industry combatting for the number spot.

However, the top two contenders for this position are definitely Apple and Facebook. It is rather obvious to a common reader that Apple surpasses Facebook in almost every domain, the former has creative, technical and marketing expertise that go a long way back and have withstood the test of time. Even in the most complex and gloomy scenarios, Apple has managed to rise above, but as the market for its main products such as the iPhone becomes a red ocean amidst the announcement that the company will be finally discontinuing the production of its beloved iPod Shuffle, the question arises what’s next?

It seems that Apple has definitely shortlisted a couple of destination where it wants to spend its big bucks and one of them is – augmented reality. On the other hand, the knight of Silicon Valley has held this vision for some time now. As it entered into the realm of augmented reality, Facebook vowed to enhance the availability of this experience to developers with one catch – it had to ‘live’ within the Facebook app for the masses to fully benefit from it.

Unfortunately, Facebook is not the one to learn from its mistakes. Compare the mobile apps market that both companies championed and you’ll realize the difference. Facebook’s move to develop its own HTML5 gaming platform was a bust because it was integrated into the native application. However, Apple adhered to the exact opposite move and saw its project flourish. Perhaps, the point where Facebook lost this battle was that it was not able to comprehend the psyche of developers who did not want their efforts to be overshadowed or buried under a load of Facebook’s app which is something that Apple realized and understood in due time. The results for both, companies are open for everyone to see.

The breakthrough for Facebook in this arena came with the success of its Camera Effects platform which makes use of the phone camera to give a taste of augmented reality to users – it is a fun experience, to say the least, but in no way is it life changing or revolutionary. Furthermore, users have already been getting a flavour of Facebook’s existing technology with Snapchat albeit, with a lower value of innovation, it is still insanely popular and captured the hearts of a huge market in the form of teens and young adults. Facebook cannot expect to take over their minds unless it comes up with something that can at least surpass the experience of Snapchat. Some would even say that time is running out fast on this one…

Apple, however, is known for its disruptive innovation. Which comes with a storm and takes over the market. The company knows where its success lies – let the developers thrive and so will your platform, is their motto. If they begin to restrict the creative freedom of developers then this decision can come back to bite you. With its ARKit, Apple has re-integrated the approach it held with its mobile app market and offered developers to benefit from its technology and connect AR technology within the applications.

In this way, there are no limitations placed on where developers want to take their applications. The set of regulations and guidelines that may discourage individuals to enter into the world of Facebook’s AR become less and less appealing because of this factor. No doubt, Facebook’s AR campaign started out with a bang with big names such as Nike and NASA coming on board, however, Apple’s learnings from residing within the industry for decades and actually witnessing the ruthlessness of the market have allowed the company that it is the masses that matter the most.

Apple has already moved on to step two by showing the world how AR technology reacts with its mobile operating system. In addition to how flexible it can be, the company has essentially displayed its usability. Nonetheless, both companies have the ability to hold their own in this battle, but Facebook faces the bigger challenge with having to encourage users to experience AR on both mobile operating platforms but within the native Facebook application.

The biggest stakeholder in this combat are the developers and their decision will decide the fate of both companies when it comes to the capitalization of AR and leveraging on their technologies to build the ultimate experience and help this vision reach the epitome of success. If developers prefer to go with Apple’s decision which allows them greater flexibility and embed AR within their applications, then Facebook would definitely be at a loss. Nonetheless, the company still has the benefit of already having millions of users on board who will try the applications whenever they are released by default simply because they are Facebook users.

What we need to wait for now, is the verdict of developers – at this point, the decision seems to be leaning in favour of Apple and based on past trends. This is not surprising at all. What Facebook needs to do now, is to act fast and either change the course of its current decisions or have enough faith in the power of their users.

It is definitely an interesting development in the field of AR and something that industry watchers will keep a close eye on. One thing is for sure though, whoever wins this battle will have tapped a technology that has potential to become the ‘next big thing’ and isn’t this what the tech industry is all about?

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