CUPERTINO, CALIFORNIA - JUNE 05: The new Apple Vision Pro headset is displayed during the Apple ... [+]
The future will be social.
That statement might not resonate with every person on the planet, especially those who work at Apple. You might argue the future is all about AI or other innovations.
That said, I’m surprised Apple has never created a social media app similar to Twitter or Facebook by now. The iPhone completely dominates every corner of society, and we run social media apps on our phones all day long. Yet, as a leading tech company, social media does not seem to be a serious focal point.
That became even more obvious when Apple announced the Vision Pro headset this last week. In almost every demo, and for those who tried the new device hands-on, there’s a sense that you wear the headset alone — sitting down — and use it almost like a computer.
That makes sense from the company that invented the MacBook (and in many ways the personal computer itself, with apologies to IBM). Yet, when you watch a demo of the Meta Quest VR headset, people are almost always engaging with each other, both through the interface and also in groups. That’s intentional, especially considering some comments Mark Zuckerberg made about the new Apple headset last week at a company event.
It’s a long quote but it bears repeating here: "Our vision for the metaverse and presence is fundamentally social. It’s about people interacting in new ways and feeling closer in new ways. Our device is also about being active and doing things. By contrast, every demo that they showed was a person sitting on a couch by themself. I mean, that could be the vision of the future of computing, but it’s not the one that I want. There’s a real philosophical difference in terms of how we’re approaching this. And seeing what they put out there and how they’re going to compete just made me even more excited and, in many ways, optimistic that what we’re doing matters and is going to succeed. But it’s going to be a fun journey."
Social interactions will be part of our future, because technology always mirrors the needs of society. We were made to be social. It’s one of the main reasons why, when you are on Facebook or Instagram, you are constantly cycling through a feedback loop, waiting to see comments and likes. There’s a human need for connection in all of us. That one fact has made Mark Zuckerberg incredibly rich.
Apple seems to focus on the human need for productivity and creation, and that compels us almost to the same extent. When we use a laptop, it’s highly personal — we are creating first and foremost, and sometimes we are interacting. On a phone, interaction seems to be more of a critical driver (even if most of us don’t bother talking on the phone anymore by voice).
The late Steve Jobs, when he first introduced the iPhone, emphasized how the device was like an iPod used for listening to music that also happened to help us connect. The history of computing and many of the gadgets we use started with the foundation of personal productivity. I’ve written about this topic extensively. Only in the last decade has technology switched to become “social first” as a priority.
What this means for Meta and Apple is that we will have to decide which paradigm wins in the end. We do have a desire to be social, to interact both in the real world and online. Some have argued that we are not more socially connected than ever before. Apple is emphasizing productivity and creation.
We’ll have to wait and see which company wins the future.
