After the presentation of the Apple Vision Pro in the keynote opening ceremony of WWDC 2023, one of the most anticipated opinions was that of mark zuckerberg. And we didn’t have to wait too long to meet them. Meta’s CEO held a meeting with his employees and made it clear that, in his opinion, the new product not so revolutionary as those of the apple say.
The Verge He had access to the statements of Zuckerberg, who did not miss the opportunity to punish the Apple Vision Pro for its price. But he didn’t stop there. He also took the opportunity to point out that those from Cupertino have not found “magical solutions” to limitations that Meta has tried to address before.
It is clear that Zuck’s intention has been to mark territory and make it clear that, although the Apple Vision Pro may be on everyone’s lips today, they have not arrived to rock your world. In addition, he argued that the vision that both companies have for the application of mixed reality in everyday life is very different.
“From what I’ve seen initially, I’d say the good news is that there isn’t any kind of silver bullet solution that they have for any of the constraints of law and physics that our teams haven’t explored and thought of yet. They went with a screen of higher resolution, and between that and all the technology they put in there to power them, they cost seven times as much and require so much power that they need a battery and a cable attached to use them.They made that compromise in the design and it might make sense for the use cases that they chase”.
Mark Zuckerberg, about the Apple Vision Pro.
When Mark Zuckerberg talks about the Apple Vision Pro “costing 7 times more,” it’s clear that he’s comparing it to the new Meta Quest 3, which was announced last Friday and costs $499.99. In addition, the businessman did not miss the opportunity to highlight who have sold “tens of millions of Quests”and that its mission is to innovate so that its products are as accessible as possible.
How could it be otherwise, the CEO of Meta spoke about the benefits of the metaverse. And he assured that his push for said technology aims to promote new ways of socially bonding and interacting. In addition, he stated that, unlike the Apple Vision Pro, the Meta Quest promote physical activity and “do things”.
“Every demo they showed was a person sitting alone on a couch. That might be the vision of the future of computing, but it’s not the one I want. There’s a real philosophical difference in terms of how we’re approaching this,” he said.
Mark Zuckerberg’s words carry a tone that, in a way, was expected. And with good reason. Regardless of how shocking the launch of Apple’s glasses was, it was logical that Meta would go out to present arguments for having explored the technology first. Or that he would show off his strategy of building a virtual, augmented or mixed reality ecosystem, starting from affordable hardware. After all, they were the clearest points of attack against the Apple Vision Pro.
It is also true that Meta’s bid for the metaverse has not been particularly successful so far. Horizon Worldsthe virtual platform of those from Menlo Park, has drastically failed to capture the attention of users. And retention issues affect both software and hardware.. Although the Meta Quest 2 is the best-selling VR headset in the world, exceeding 10 million units, in 2022 it became known that more than half were no longer used just 6 months after they were purchased.
It is unlikely that Apple will respond to Mark Zuckerberg’s statements about the Vision Pro. Let’s not forget, even, that during the presentation of the glasses those from Cupertino did not make any reference to terms such as “virtual reality” or “metaverse”. What is clear is that Meta and Apple are going to feed each other in a very interesting dispute in the years to come. Call it metaverse, VR or space computingthe tour promises to be very entertaining.