Mark Zuckerberg thinks Apple's Vision Pro is for rich, lonely people

Apple announced its Vision Pro XR headset this week, coming with a $3,499 price tag, impressive specs, and a focus on both computing and media consumption. Now, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has reportedly given his thoughts on Apple’s new headset.

Zuckerberg shared his thoughts on the Vision Pro in a company-wide meeting today (h/t: The Verge), and he reckons that Meta has already considered Apple’s solutions to technological challenges.

“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,” he explained.

Zuck takes a dig at Apple’s pricing

Zuckerberg added that Apple’s decision to ship with a higher resolution screen and other technologies means it “costs seven times more [than the Quest 3 – ed] and now requires so much energy that now you need a battery and a wire attached to it to use it.”

The Facebook founder acknowledged that these design choices might make sense for the Vision Pro’s use cases. But he added that Meta innovates to “make sure that our products are as accessible and affordable to everyone as possible.”

Zuckerberg also noted that Meta’s Quest devices are focused on being active:

By contrast, every demo that they (Apple) 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.

Apple Vision Pro versus Quest 3?

It’s interesting to see Zuckerberg compare the $3,499 Vision Pro to the $500 Meta Quest 3 rather than the company’s $1,500 Quest Pro. That’s not exactly a fair comparison, akin to comparing a $1,500 smartphone to a $200 phone. Nobody needs to buy a $1,500 phone, but you do get a better screen, more horsepower, better cameras, more storage, and other perks. But it’s still a pretty penny for sure.

Apple does seem to be taking a drastically different approach to XR than Meta and most rivals, though. The company is focused on this as a computing platform (it has a Mac-based M2 chip, after all), although it’s also thrown in some social features and VR-based entertainment options. But it’s worth noting that the Vision Pro doesn’t come with controllers like conventional VR headsets, suggesting that this isn’t a product for the hardcore VR gaming niche.

Meanwhile, Meta is focused on the entertainment and experiential side of things, although efforts like Horizon Worlds and other “metaverse” services show that the company wants to carve out a niche in the social and productivity spaces. Nevertheless, Meta isn’t positioning Quest headsets to be a potential computer replacement.

Either way, there seems to be room for both approaches to XR headsets for now. But we’re curious to see which strategy ultimately wins out.