Apple scales back immersive video as Meta keeps commissioning it
Apple and Meta made opposite bets on immersive video in the same two weeks.
Apple and Meta made opposite bets on immersive video in the same two weeks.
On August 21, Apple cut more than 200 jobs across its Siri, Vision Pro and gaming teams — roughly 100 of them from the Vision Pro group. Its in-house Immersive Video unit was scaled back, not shut down: Apple says it will still produce a smaller slate itself and lean more on third-party creators. The reason given was cost. Each video needs multiple production crews, a single episode can run several million dollars, and Vision Pro's installed base has stayed limited.
Thirteen days later, Meta added Kacey Musgraves' Middle of Nowhere to its own immersive concert library on Quest — a 49-minute set filmed at Billy Bob's Texas in 3D VR180, joining previous releases from Coldplay, Sabrina Carpenter, BLACKPINK and Charli xcx.
Same format, same two weeks, opposite conclusions. One platform decided the per-episode cost of shooting immersive video the traditional way doesn't clear the bar yet. The other keeps commissioning it.
That is the real question sitting under every immersive-video headline: not whether headsets are good enough, but whether producing what plays on them can ever get cheap enough to be routine instead of an occasional prestige bet.
