Why did Apple buy NextVR?

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At face value, this acquisition seems a little strange for Apple. Apple has been pushing full throttle on mobile AR, largely eschewing public activity or interest in the VR world, leaving that domain wholly in Facebook’s hands. Late last year, The Information reported that Apple had informed employees that it may be shipping a device in 2022 that combined AR and VR capabilities in a form factor similar to the Oculus Quest. That, teamed with this acquisition, suggests that Apple may have deeper plans for VR than they’ve previously indicated.

…Releasing a “mixed reality” headset in a couple years and continuing to push developer innovation on AR content while relying on a broader base of VR content satisfying users makes practical sense for a gen-one AR device.

9to5Mac pinned the NextVR deal price around $100 million, a price… that would be a lot of money for Apple to pay for something for which they don’t have meaningful plans…

The main problem with all of this is that VR-optimized content doesn’t translate very well to augmented reality. NextVR’s solution leverages the full field-of-view of existing VR headsets, putting users in a wholly 3D environment. There’s no technical reasons that AR headset users couldn’t eventually experience this content in the same way, but there aren’t any AR headsets with the field-of-view to leverage this type of content, and advances here have been pretty slow. Existing AR devices might not be optimized for VR and vice versa, but Apple might already be organizing itself with the assumption that that won’t be the case for long.

To read the rest of the TechCrunch article, click here: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/why-did-apple-buy-nextvr-203935725.html