A very obvious component of AR glasses is mapping/GPS and businesses. That is where immense profits lie – basically McDonald’s offering you two hash browns for $2 when you walk by. It will literally pop-up on your glasses. Next level marketing.

Google and Apple already have mature maps operations. The upside of AR is so great that if a partnership forms between Meta and either of those, then it is very win-win.

However, Apple and Google own the phones. It is more profitable to buy staff from Meta and make their own AR glasses, and then use their own maps infrastructure.

There will be three plays, and a market for two. Apple and Google will be ready to pounce, with both quite possibly having products ready to launch ASAP. Meta is the runt in this scenario. No maps app of their own. No phone operating system. They are already spending mega-bucks on other things (metaverse, AI), and this could ruin them if they proceeded. But in theory they could create their own maps app, or buy some weird 3rd-tier app from Germany. They could potentially venture into the phone space, getting a Chinese company to manufacture the phones in the US, with a Meta-owned fork of Android. It would primarily be a brand play, hoping to leverage the brand equity of something that has already peaked, by combining it with the trust and assurances of an old friend. No tracking, nothing foreign. A solid phone (sold at a discount because AR advertising will be bank), with minimal branding. More like a Lexus made by Toyota than a “Facebook Phone”.

Apple will win. They will avoid the gimmicky miss-steps by being last to launch.