On the off chance that you missed Mark Zuckerberg’s opinion about the Apple Vision Pro, he says that the Quest 3 is the better product, period. It has to be, right?
After all, Meta has had several cracks at developing a compelling headset for the AR/VR market. If you go all the way back to the Oculus Rift which was introduced by Reality Labs (formerly called Oculus VR), the Quest 3 has been over a decade in the making.
Circling back to Zuckerberg’s review of the Vision Pro, it has come not long after a report surfaced that Meta feels the Apple headset is good for business. The company is allegedly pinning their hopes on the Quest becoming the main rival to the Vision Pro in an Android vs iOS-style war.
Back in June 2023, Mark Zuckerberg told Lex Fridman that Apple’s entry into the AR/VR segment validates Meta’s efforts towards the next generation of computing using mixed reality, and the Quest would be a primary beneficiary of this renewed interest among consumers.
I’ve been wondering whether Zuckerberg’s Instagram Reel, which describes the Quest 3 as the superior product, was released to paint over this picture of Apple’s Vision Pro being the savior of the Quest (and thus the metaverse). But then, I’m a suspicious person.
In his review of the Vision Pro, Zuckerberg notes that it’s seven times more expensive than the $499 Quest 3. Therefore, the latter is bound to offer more value to most consumers. He says that even though Apple’s device has a higher resolution screen, the new Quest has a brighter display and a wider field of view. He points out that the Meta headset is more comfortable to wear as compared to the Vision Pro. Zuckerberg even rubs in the fact that the Quest Pro has YouTube in its large library of apps.
Meta has poured about $50 billion into the metaverse so far. The Quest was supposed to be the hardware that went along with the new iteration of the Internet. However, the buzz around the metaverse quickly lost to the excitement surrounding generative AI.
It took the official announcement of the Vision Pro to revive the enthusiasm for mixed reality headsets. Comparisons between the two devices were inevitable. But the Quest 3 needs to have a better reason to exist other than as a cheaper alternative to the Vision Pro, or as a provisional introduction to the world of mixed reality headsets.
