Apple's Tim Cook believes Augmented Reality will be far larger than Virtual Reality

A year ago, after launching the iPad Pro, Tim Cook called the Surface Pro “deluded“. I hate to hear what he will call the HoloLens after the company launches their own solution.

In an interview with Good Morning America about VR Tim Cook said that AR is much more interesting.

“My own view is that augmented reality is the larger of the two, probably by far, because this gives the capability for both of us to sit and be very present talking to each other, but also have other things visually for both of us to see,” Cook said. “Maybe it’s something we’re talking about, maybe it’s someone else here that is not here, present, but could be made to appear to be present with us. So there’s a lot of really cool things there.”

Apple is believed to have a secret team of hundreds of employees working on a mixed reality solution.

“Virtual reality sort of encloses and immerses the person into an experience that can be really cool but probably has a lower commercial interest over time,” he said. “Less people will be interested in that, but there are some really cool areas there for education and gaming that we have a lot of interest in.”

Microsoft holds the same thoughts as Tim Cook, betting that collaboration and productivity will be a much bigger market than the isolationist fun and games of VR, but with their Windows Holographic platform Microsoft plans to cater to both and profit from the efforts of 3rd party OEMs at the same time whether they make AR or VR headsets.

Of course Apple is particularly good at joining a market late and steam rolling competitors, and Microsoft has in recent years been particularly bad in taking early innovation to eventual success and also in recruiting partners.

Which company will our readers bet on? Let us know below.