We finished the year strong. Yesterday’s announcement of Android XR by Google and Samsung is two things. The first, a confirmation that mixed and augmented reality are experiencing a new sweet moment. The second, a declaration of war on the two companies that until now dominated the market.

Apple and Vision OS. The first competitor is, of course, Apple, which launched its long-awaited and striking products at the beginning of the year. VisionPro with the visionOS operating system. This platform will only be available in Apple solutions, thus maintaining the same duality that exists in the world of smartphones.

At the moment the high price and the absence of a “killer app“clear for glasses has made its success very limited and even Apple has lowered his ambition. Rumors point to the development of a more affordable version to mitigate the first big problem with the Vision Pro. Not only that: also look for alternatives.

Meta and HorizonOS. The Mark Zuckerberg bet for the metaverse is being an absolute disaster in economic terms, but of course you have to admire his tenacity. He continues to bet on a future full of augmented and mixed reality glasses, and among other things he sees his Meta Ray-Ban as a product that we will all end up “wearing” and using even more than the mobile.

The Goal Approach It’s dangerously similar. in fact to Google’s with Android XR. The company announced in April opening your Horizon OS operating system to other manufacturers, so basically Meta wants to offer the Android of mixed/augmented reality glasses. Microsoft (which curiously left this market recently), Lenovo and Asus have already joined the bandwagon, something that is especially striking.

The Android XR challenge. Google’s joint announcement, which included the promising glasses of the Samsung’s Project Moohanfocuses precisely on offering the advantages of Android, but in the segment of mixed and augmented reality glasses. All the demos shown by Google in fact presented an experience almost identical to the one we have on our smartphones, something that can certainly be an important advantage to promote its solution.

But Google already abandoned that idea in the past (twice). One of the problems with this announcement is that Google already bet on this market and ended up abandoning the bet. He did it first with the fascinating Google Glassand later with the surprising Google Cardboard and his Project DayDream. one after anotherdespite the expectation and the promising that everything seemed, Google was killing those projects.

This makes it difficult to fully trust the future of this – we do not deny it – interesting initiative. Google has plenty of resources to stand here with guarantees, but Apple and Meta seem equally determined to win this particular technological war. The best of all? That these battles benefit us, the users: the greater the competition, the greater the pace of innovation.