Series 7 watch and a slew of health and fitness devices. Accordingly, the company is also surprising its staff with huge bonuses in a move to retain talent as it confronts increased direct competition from Meta in wearables, virtual reality, and augmented reality.
Meta is planning to introduce its own smartwatch in the beginning of 2022 and has hired Apple engineers as it expands its hardware presence. In the recent past, Facebook’s parent firm has also enlisted about 100 engineers from Apple.Meta’s watch has multifunctions such as phone, camera, and a fitness tracker with added features such as heart rate monitoring.
While Meta has officially embraced virtual reality and augmented reality, most notably with its Oculus Quest headset, Apple is said to have hundreds of staff working on a virtual reality/augmented reality headset and interfaces with its current gadgets. Earlier this summer, an Apple engineer discovered code in the Oculus system that indicated Facebook was exploring merging data from its Oculus Move virtual reality fitness program into Apple’s Health app.
According to Apple CEO Tim Cook, the company’s biggest contribution will be in the field of health and wellbeing. Apple is awarding incentives ranging from $50,000 to $180,000 to its expert engineers from its augmented reality, artificial intelligence, software, and hardware engineering departments in response to growing competition and a metaverse industry that might grow to $800 billion by 2024. Apple’s stock has risen more than 38% this year, as it nears a market capitalization of $3 trillion.
