Facebook is all in on metaverse technologies. In fact, in 2021, it changed its name to Meta Platforms to reflect the company’s new focus.

Meta has a lead over its Big Tech rivals: It’s currently manufacturing and selling VR hardware, and accounted for 75% of the market in 2021, according to IDC.

On Christmas, the most popular app in Apple’s U.S. App Store was the Oculus virtual reality app needed to use a Quest 2 headset, an imperfect but meaningful sign that a lot of people found virtual reality gear under the tree.

Meta hasn’t released sales numbers for its Quest. But Qualcomm, which makes the chip at the heart of the Quest, estimated that the company had shipped 10 million units by November. Those aren’t smartphone numbers, but they are significant — and boosted by major TV ad campaigns flogging the hardware.

Meta is planning to release another virtual reality headset this year that it’s been calling Project Cambria. The device, according to Facebook, will have hardware that makes it better for “mixed reality,” or using cameras on the outside of a VR headset to pipe the real world in to the viewer. Meta says it will also include face and eye tracking, which will make the device more responsive to the user’s commands.

Meta’s early foray into the market has given the company an early look at what software users want to boot up on their headsets. This month, it launched a social platform called Horizon Worlds, where people can attend comedy shows and movie nights inside Facebook’s virtual world.

Meta has acquired several companies that make popular apps for Oculus headsets, most notably Supernatural, a workout game in which users hit floating blocks in time with a beat.

This strategy may come under antitrust scrutiny. The Federal Trade Commission has opened an in-depth probe over the $400 million acquisition, The Information reported.

Apple has never confirmed it is working on a headset, but it has been prototyping approaches inside its Technology Development Group for years.

Apple has been laying the groundwork for a major new product category. Its newer iPhones come equipped with Lidar sensors, which can measure how far away an object is — critical for location-based applications. Recent iPhones and iPads have software installed called ARkit, which allows developers to create apps that use the iPhone’s sensors for precise room mapping and localization.

These technological building blocks are creating the foundation for an entirely new product, expected to be an Apple-made high-end headset that mixes virtual reality and augmented reality, which reportedly could be launched in 2022.

Unlike Meta, Apple doesn’t discuss new hardware products until they are ready to be revealed. When Apple does release a headset, it is likely to shake up the entire market and provide a new approach for many challengers, like the iPhone did for smartphones and the Apple Watch did for smartwatches.

Apple’s competitors will watch closely to see what Apple CEO Tim Cook touts as the biggest advantages and selling points for its headset.

Content and how Apple integrates its services will be crucial to the device’s appeal. Will Apple introduce a new app store for virtual reality apps? Will the Apple headset have exclusive content or VR-based sports or music stemming from its purchase of NextVR?

Investors and market analysts are starting to wonder if future sales from headsets or other reality-based gadgets should push Apple’s stock even higher if it does release its first major new product category in seven years.

“Apple’s current market value does not reflect new product category launches,” Citi analysts wrote in December. “This will change with the launch of the new AR/VR headset in 2022.”

Apple won’t call it “metaverse,” though. “I’ll stay away from the buzzwords. We just call it augmented reality,” Cook said in September.

Google kicked off the headset craze in Silicon Valley when it introduced Google Glass in 2013. The experiment wasn’t well received, but Google didn’t give up. To this day, Google sells Glass headsets to businesses, but they aren’t generally available to consumers.

Now there are signs that Google is getting serious about augmented reality again, although it doesn’t have as many products or publicly announced technologies as its rivals. Since Glass first came out, newer AR headsets have been introduced with more sophisticated displays, better sensors and more powerful processors.

Google, whose Android operating system is the most popular smartphone software in the world, has among the most to lose if headsets and metaverse devices supplant the smartphone with a new operating system.

In 2020, Google bought North, a well-capitalized start-up working on lightweight AR glasses that were a spiritual successor in terms of functionality to Google Glass.

Google now has a new team focusing on operating systems for augmented reality, according to a post shared by senior director Mark Lucovsky in December. Before joining Google, Lucovsky worked at Meta’s Oculus.

According to job listings, Google is hiring heavily for this team, which is working on an “innovative AR device” and is adding products “to the AR portfolio.”