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Tim Cook is the most recent CEO to contest the existence of the “metaverse.”

Tim Cook is the most recent CEO to contest the existence of the metaverse.

Tim Cook is the most recent CEO to contest the existence of the metaverse.

While Meta funnels billions into CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s pitch for the metaverse, Apple CEO Tim Cook thinks most people couldn’t even define the metaverse, let alone spend long periods of time living their lives inside of it.

“I always think it’s important that people understand what something is,” Cook told Dutch publication Bright (via Google Translate). “And I’m really not sure the average person can tell you what the metaverse is.” In other words, despite persistent reports of Apple’s interest in building all manner of AR and VR hardware, Cook isn’t ready to claim that the company is working towards any so-called “metaverse.”

Mark Zuckerberg has a different view. Earlier this year, the Meta CEO told his employees that the company is in a “very deep, philosophical competition” with Apple to build the metaverse. “This is a competition of philosophies and ideas, where they believe that by doing everything themselves and tightly integrating that they build a better consumer experience,” Zuckerberg said, contrasting what he says is Apple’s closed approach with Meta’s more interoperable development. 

Read more about this at theverge.com