Yes. Apple could be building AR/VR hardware, but if you’re convinced they are, then you’ll start to mentally force everything they publish as a building block for said hardware.

It is a kinda fancy / highfalutin way of saying that. Partly because the article is intended to be somewhat pithy. But splitting it into layers (say, substrate) helped me think about the parts involved, how they needed to build upon the layer below, and work together to have a chance of pulling it off.

And is the "AR ecosystem" the "metaverse" or the "metaverse substrate?"