During a companywide meeting at Meta, CEO Mark Zuckerberg expressed his views on Apple’s recently announced device, stating that it did not bring any significant technological breakthroughs that Meta hadn’t already explored. He also highlighted the disparity in their visions for user interaction and pricing. Zuckerberg emphasized that Meta’s upcoming Quest 3 headset, priced at $499 compared to Apple’s Vision Pro at $3,499, would allow them to reach a broader user base.
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Zuckerberg addressed Meta employees gathered at the company’s Menlo Park headquarters, remarking on the differences in values and vision between the two companies. He stated that the Quest was about people engaging in new ways, fostering a sense of closeness, and being active, whereas Apple’s demos depicted individuals sitting alone on a couch. While acknowledging that Apple’s vision could be a potential future of computing, Zuckerberg made it clear that it was not the direction he desired.
Although Meta can now breathe a sigh of relief, the company had been on edge prior to Apple’s announcement. Meta had recently unveiled the Quest 3, scheduled to ship in the fall, in an attempt to position itself as a leader in virtual and augmented reality. With significant investments pouring into the sector, Meta’s ambitions have raised concerns among some investors. Apple’s entrance into the market with its headset poses a considerable competitive threat.
While Meta has achieved success in VR gaming and fitness, it has struggled to penetrate the higher-end and general computing market targeted by Apple. The Quest Pro, released last year, was largely regarded as a disappointment.
Here is Zuckerberg’s full statement regarding the Vision Pro:
“Apple finally announced their headset, so I want to talk about that for a second. I was really curious to see what they were gonna ship. And obviously I haven’t seen it yet, so I’ll learn more as we get to play with it and see what happens and how people use it.
From what I’ve seen initially, I’d say the good news is that there’s no kind of magical solutions that they have to any of the constraints on laws of physics that our teams haven’t already explored and thought of. They went with a higher resolution display, and between that and all the technology they put in there to power it, it costs seven times more and now requires so much energy that now you need a battery and a wire attached to it to use it. They made that design trade-off and it might make sense for the cases that they’re going for.
But look, I think that their announcement really showcases the difference in the values and the vision that our companies bring to this in a way that I think is really important. We innovate to make sure that our products are as accessible and affordable to everyone as possible, and that is a core part of what we do. And we have sold tens of millions of Quests.
More importantly, our vision for the metaverse and presence is fundamentally social. It’s about people interacting in new ways and feeling closer in new ways. Our device is also about being active and doing things. By contrast, every demo that they showed was a person sitting on a couch by themself. I mean, that could be the vision of the future of computing, but like, it’s not the one that I want. There’s a real philosophical difference in terms of how we’re approaching this. And seeing what they put out there and how they’re going to compete just made me even more excited and in a lot of ways optimistic that what we’re doing matters and is going to succeed. But it’s going to be a fun journey.“
