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- What's Appening: Apple Makes Metaverse Mark 🍏
What's Appening: Apple Makes Metaverse Mark 🍏
Apple Vs Meta? Apple Vs Epic ✅, 1Password Passkey, Canva AI, Mr Beast, Ronaldo NFTs
News in apps delivered weekly to your inbox on 🌮 Tuesday.
LOOK OUT, MARK: JOB LISTINGS SHOW APPLE MIGHT BE BUILDING A METAVERSE
👀 TLDR:
In this week’s What’s Appening, we cover rumors on Apple’s metaverse plans. We were told that Apple didn’t like the ‘M-word’, and at best it would be offering an AR metaverse-lite. But job listings suggest it wants VR engineers to build something a bit more substantial. Should Meta and Mark Zuckerberg be worried? Elsewhere, we have news of a passwordless future, some cool AI imagery from Canva, and the latest from Twitter. Our Stat of the Week looks at how Mr Beast ‘won’ YouTube. And What’s dAppening is at the FIFA World Cup, with news of Ronaldo NFTs.
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Takes 🎬
🍏 📽️ Apple – Jobs Listings Point to Metaverse Experiences with Reality Pro
Up until recently, most observers felt that Apple was lukewarm on the idea of a metaverse. After all, the company had avoided joining the other tech giants in the Metaverse Standards Forum. Of course, we did know that Apple was pursuing AR/MR experiences, thanks to patenting of terms like realityOS (presumably its AR operating system) and Reality Pro (its hardware). But now, things seem to be going further into the VR side, with job postings suggesting that Apple may be keener on the metaverse than first thought. Most notably, the company is looking for engineers to build a 3D world linked to its forthcoming AR/VR headsets. Call it what you want – iVerse, AppleVerse, Don’tCareVerse – but it is, for all intents and purposes, a metaverse. Well, presumably. Apple knows how to build anticipation for its future products, and it sometimes does that by telling us nothing at all. The company is averse (😉) to using the word “metaverse”, but these job listings and other rumors (from credible sources) put it squarely in competition with Meta in the race to create the hardware, software, and infrastructure for these virtual worlds. It’s a case of watching this space, though, until Apple finally reveals what it has been plotting in this area. In other Apple news this week, we saw the company return to court to take on its old foe Epic Games. We covered some of the particulars in our latest What’s Appening video, which you can check out here. Also, there was some news for those who hope Apple truly embraces crypto after the announcement of the integration of Apple Pay on the crypto stablecoin network Circle. #AppleIVerse Read more here.
🔐 🌍 1Password – Embracing of Password-less Future with Universal Sign On
“Where we are going, we don’t need any passwords”. It’s long been known that we are heading to a future without passwords, and the big players like Apple and Google have all signed up to join the FIDO Alliance, which advocates passkey (for example, access via biometrics on your smartphone) as a better alternative. The password management service, 1Password, thinks it can take things a little further, though. By launching Universal Sign On (expected in 2023), the company believes it can outpace the competition by offering passkeys that are truly multiplatform. The concept seems like a runner to us, given the limitations to, for example, using an Apple passkey that only really works within the Apple ecosystem. Multiple devices and cross-platform syncing, and not having to remember a gazillion darn passwords? Sign us up, please. 1PaswordNoPassword Read more here.
✍️ 🖼️ Canva – AI Generation Tools Convert Text to Image with a Click
The success of Open AI’s DALL-E 2 image generator has really been one of the most underrated tech stories of 2022, with many insiders believing that the machine-learning tools will have a massive impact in the future. Anyway, Canva is also getting in on the game by launching its own free-to-use AI image generator. As with DALL-E 2, all you need is to enter the text, and – boom – you’ve got yourself the image of a panda 🐼 hitting a home run ⚾ at Yankee Stadium. The AI is a bit more limited than DALL-E 2, but it’s another neat feature added to Canva, one of our favorite graphic design platforms. #CanvaAI Read more here.
🥸 🔵 Twitter – More Shenanigans from the Elon Musk Circus Show
Every week, we forlornly hope that it will be the last we have to cover the hijinks at Twitter, but there’s just so much going on that we can’t give it up. Anyhow, here’s what happened: Elon Musk got into a public spat with a Twitter engineer over how to improve the platform, fired him, and then seemed to take him up on his advice regardless. There were also new statistics on Twitter usage, which saw an increase of over 1.5 million daily active users. Elsewhere, CBS decided to leave the platform, then seemed to return again with its tail between its legs. Finally, there was the news of the reinstatement of certain accounts, including the former President of the United States. Mr Trump’s account has been unlocked, but – for now – he has yet to tweet. Will he return? #WeekInTwitter Read more here.
🧐 Stat of the Week: 111,847,079 Subscribers
📈 💰 YouTube – Mr Beast Is Now the Most Subscribed Account on the Platform
It took a while, but Mr Beast, AKA Jimmy Donaldson, crossed the threshold of 111,846,079 subscribers on November 14th to become the most followed YouTube account in history, overtaking PewDiePie. Mr Beast, who is famous for videos featuring elaborate stunts and theatrics (he once recreated Squid Game), has made a hefty fortune from the platform. But the real moolah might be in how he has created the Mr Beast brand – something he values at $1.5 billion. #NO1YouTuber Read more here.
🕸️ What’s dAppening?
A dApp is a decentralized app. Here’s the latest in web3, NFTs and blockchain apps.
⚽ 📸 World Cup – Good Timing as Cristiano Ronaldo Launches NFT Collection
With the eyes of the world on the FIFA World Cup in Qatar for the next four weeks, it seemed a good time for Cristiano Ronaldo to launch his NFT collection. Partnering with Binance, the collection offers fans a chance to join Ronaldo’s web3 community and “own” historic moments from his storied career. The announcement provoked a mixed reaction from fans, and it plays into other analysis that suggests soccer fans aren’t just as ready to embrace digital collectibles as some might assume. However, there was perhaps bigger news for NFTs and sports last week when we received news that Nike would be launching the .Swoosh web3 platfom next year. Built on Polygon (a blockchain network we have been reporting on a lot lately), the .Swoosh project seems hugely ambitious, allowing users and creators to buy, design, create, and swap digital apparel. The first .Swoosh NFT is expected to drop in January 2023, and we think that Nike’s iconic branding and loyal army of followers make it the perfect fit for this kind of web3 project. #RonaldoScoresNFTs Read more here.
Meanwhile at 3Advance...
The World Cup officially started on Sunday, and our Office Sweepstake is in full swing! Our #world-cup-2022 Slack Channel is getting heated 🔥. If you are running your own World Cup Sweepstake with our Notion template - we want to know! Send us an update over at [email protected] - and you may be featured in an upcoming newsletter 😉. Can’t wait to hear from you and enjoy the Footie! ⚽️
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