Apple Gets Deeper Into Metaverse Business With Acquisition of Spaces

Another recent move by Apple in its steadily emerging XR strategy:

Spaces, a VR startup that got its start as a DreamWorks Animation project, has been acquired by Apple, Protocol has learned. Apple confirmed the acquisition after this story was first published. "Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans," a company spokesperson told Protocol via email, using the company's usual boilerplate statement to confirm startup acquisitions.

Spaces spun out of DreamWorks Animation in early 2016, and developed a range of location-based VR experiences... [During the pandemic] Spaces then pivoted to build a VR add-on to traditional video conferencing solutions like Zoom, allowing Zoom users to take part in meetings with an animated avatar. 

I haven't tried Spaces before this, but to judge by demo videos (as below), the avatars and interaction with VR controls seems surprisingly rudimentary. (Compare them, for example, with the functionality and fluidity of NeosVR.) But I suspect Apple cares less about Spaces' VR features,  and more about how it integrated with Zoom etc.

The next question, of course, is what Apple plans to do with Spaces in relation to its XR-based smartglasses. (Expected in 2022, the inside whisper goes.) In any case, it's a strong and deeper move toward the metaverse -- and yet another reason to take Tim Sweeney's concerns about the metaverse's future yet more seriously.

Comments

[Iggy 1.0]

As much as I love Apple hardware and the Mac OS (iOS I can live with...for now) I find that they botch applications. They also haver a history of ruining very good ones. I will never forgive them for pushing us into Final Cut Pro from iMovie Pro, a robust and fast video editor for novices, with so many features for exporting video.

I just don't trust Apple to run a multiverse. Even on my Macs.