The Entry of a New Player and What it Means for the Augmented Reality Industry

With Apple’s recent entry into the VR/AR market, it is helpful to take a step back and see what this means for the overall market.

Morgan Stanley predicts AR/VR will be an $8T+ industry by 2030+ between hardware and software components. Other market studies also indicate the same. This shows the potential of the market and that there is ultimately room for many players.

In this aspect, the VR/AR market can sometimes be compared to the automobile market: just as you wouldn’t use a Ferrari for something a pickup truck should do, there are different types of products for different use cases. Companies like Apple/Facebook are more focused on the B2C market while other companies make more unique products focused on B2B. Here are some other differences:

1. B2B vs B2C: Apple, and Meta fall into the B2C group where their apps are more focused on fitness, gaming, etc. Companies like ThirdEye, Microsoft, and others are primarily focused on B2B AR/AI solutions.

2. Android Open Source vs Closed OS: The most popular debate among software developers is open source vs closed OS. Both have their advantages and disadvantages. Apple has always chosen the closed OS approach while others prefer Android open-source.

3. End-to-end software solutions: Companies usually focus on either the hardware or software aspects. At ThirdEye we build end-to-end solutions that entail both hardware, firmware, and application development, giving the user a total package solution.

Ultimately it remains to be seen how the AR market will play out - all we know for sure is there are tremendous opportunities in both consumer, business, and government use cases and many players will coexist to use this tech to change the world.