Please excuse me for using a few cricket analogies in this article about Mixed Realty headsets.
When Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg responded on Instagram to the launch of Apple’s Vision Pro, was it a front foot cover drive or back foot late cut to the boundary? Both are skilful shots in the game of cricket but the front foot drive is about power, grace and confidence – taking the sting out of the attack.
The late cut is a wait-and-see approach without the aggressive power and flair. So did Zuckerberg play off the back foot or front foot against Apple’s impressive delivery? I think Zuck got onto the front foot after letting the first Tim Cook delivery go through to the keeper. And that Instagram video above, is a nicely executed response through the covers for four.
Cricket terms aside, I believe Zuckerberg was right to publicly back his Meta Quest 3 headset by addressing the massive price difference.
“I expected that Quest would be the better value for most people since it’s really good and it’s like seven times less expensive,” Zuckerberg said.
“But after using it, I don’t just think that Quest is the better value. I think that Quest is the better product, period. “
He didn’t mess around. If you want to dip your toes into the VR world then the Quest 3 is the best place to start. It has a rich ecosystem of apps and games but the main drawcard is its price.
“So when I look around, it seems like there are a lot of people who just assumed that Vision Pro would be higher quality because it’s Apple and it costs $3,000 more,” added Zuckerberg.
“But honestly, I’m pretty surprised that Quest is so much better for the vast majority of things that people use these headsets for with that price differential.”
And here’s the kicker.
“Now, look, I know that some fanboys get upset whenever anyone dares to question if Apple’s going to be the leader in a new category,” Zuckerberg also said.
“But the reality is, that every generation of computing has an open and a closed model. And yeah, in mobile, Apple’s closed model won. But it’s not always that way. “
I’ve used many VR/XR headsets and the Quest 3 is excellent. I’m going to get a Vision Pro for review purposes but at around 7,000 Australian dollars, is it really that much better than the competition?
Time will tell.