Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg with the new Meta Quest 3 on his face. © Facebook / Mark Zuckerberg
Meta will not follow in Apple’s footsteps. This is essentially what Mark Zuckerberg told his teams during a meeting at the group’s headquarters. The boss of Meta did not hesitate to tackle the Vision Pro mixed reality headset, presented earlier this week by Apple during WWDC. Beyond finding this product way too expensive ($3499), he feels it highlights the differences between Apple and Meta in their respective approaches to virtual reality.
In front of his employees, Mark Zuckerberg thus declared that the Vision Pro, which embeds two OLED screens displaying 23 million pixels, “costs seven times as much and now takes so much power you need a battery and a cable plugged in to use it”reports The Verge. From his point of view, the helmet made in Cupertino does not offer “magic solution” to the laws of physics.
Even more than the device itself, it is the strategy adopted by Apple in the AR / VR sector that challenges Mark Zuckerberg. According to him, this approach has nothing to do with that of Meta. “We innovate to make sure our products are as accessible and affordable as possible for everyone, and that’s at the heart of what we do”, said the leader. A tackle that aims to denounce the high price of the Vision Pro.
The boss of Meta also explains that his Quest headsets are intended to encourage interaction between users and not to remain static, a point of differentiation from Apple. “Each demo shown was of a person sitting alone on a couch. What I mean is that this could be the vision of the future of computing, but it’s not the one I want”he assures, admitting to himself “even more excited and in many ways optimistic” in front of the next deadlines of Meta in virtual reality.
This will include the launch of Meta Quest 3 next fall. It is also the boss of the parent company of Facebook who was responsible for revealing the new mixed reality headset, just a few days before the presentation of Apple’s Vision Pro. There are unmistakable timings. Admittedly, the launch price of this new product (€570) will be much lower than that of Apple’s technological jewel, but the uses and ambitions of Apple and Meta in this area are clearly different. As to which will bear the most fruit, time will tell.