Meta that was earlier known as Facebook has shut down the development and research of an operating system for its AR and VR devices. The AR ad VR sector is one of the promising segments that a number of tech giants are looking forward to. For the Oculus, the company will now continue to use the modified version of Android. On an internal basis, the project was known as XROS and was under development for a number of years and also saw hundreds of employees working on it.
Moreover, CEO Mark Zuckerberg had also spoken about its potential a few months back. The actual reason of shutting down the project is not yet publicly known for the time being. But the decision surely looks like a major set back for the competition that was earlier seen between Meta and other giants including Apple and others. Talking about Apple, its VR and AR headsets will be working on the custom-made operating system that has been designed to have a good integration with the hardware for a better performance along with a stable experience.
And for Facebook, it would become tough for it to compete with other giants without the presence of its own software. With the current situation, there are all the chances that Facebook and Apple might end up targeting different uses for its AR and VR and their strategies also continue to remain a mystery. Facebook was recently renamed as Meta while hinting about is focus on providing a more immersive experience. The change had also suggested that it sees the mixed reality or XR as the future of the company.
So it comes as a surprise that Meta has decided to call off its work on XROS but there are also possibilities that the project could be revived in future. In recent times analysts had predicted that the first mixed reality headset by Apple is expected to be launched in the market in 2022.
Photo Credits: The Verge
