At WWDC 2023 on Monday, Apple unveiled Vision Pro, its long-awaited augmented reality headset.
With the Vision Pro officially a reality, it’s not a leap to wonder what Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg thinks about Meta’s new VR headset competition.
Unlike the Meta Quest and Meta Quest Pro, the Vision Pro is controlled by eye movements and hand gestures without the need for controllers, has a see-through display, and is lighter. But all this advanced technology comes with a cost. Apple’s Vision Pro starts at $3,500 compared to the Meta Quest Pro — its most expensive headset — which starts at $1,000.
In an all-hands meeting watched by The Verge(opens in a new tab), Zuckerberg addressed the Vision Pro announcement.
First, he shared his reaction to the technical aspects, saying that the price of Vision Pro is due to a “design trade-off” that prioritized costlier technology and required more computing power.
“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 and physics that our teams haven’t already explored and thought of,” said Zuckerberg.
The Meta CEO then went on to talk about philosophical differences between Apple and Meta that contrast the companies values and mission. Of course, this led to Zuckerberg talking about the metaverse, which wasn’t mentioned at all during the WWDC keynote.
“Our vision for the metaverse and presence is fundamentally social. It’s about people interacting in new ways and feeling closer in new ways,” he said. “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.”
So there you have it. To Zuckerberg, the Meta Quest is a tool for building virtual communities and being active, while Apple’s Vision Pro is for sitting and being alone. And that is certainly a take.
