Inside Meta’s Struggles to Gain an Edge on Apple in AR Race

Before Meta Platforms released its Ray-Ban camera-equipped glasses last September, the team spent months trying to get them to work with Apple’s iPhone. Meta wanted photos taken on the glasses to automatically download to users’ phones without requiring them to open Meta’s app. But because of how Apple’s software operates, the team couldn’t get the automatic download to work when the phone was inactive. At the last minute, they had to change course, leading to a chaotic scramble ahead of the product’s launch.

The episode demonstrates the challenge for Meta as it vies to lead the burgeoning market for augmented reality and virtual reality. While Meta already sells VR headsets, AR glasses promise to be a bigger market because they’re lighter weight and could be worn for much longer. But AR glasses are so technically complex that they’re expected to need to pair with another device, such as a phone, to operate at full capacity—at least until the technology advances.

And Meta, unlike Apple, doesn’t make lots of different hardware devices. If Meta were to rely on an Apple-made device as an accessory for a future AR product, it could run into problems, as the Ray-Bans episode shows. For Apple, meanwhile, its ecosystem of devices could give it a big advantage over Meta in the AR market.