" By contrast, every demo that they showed was a person sitting on a couch by themself."
Wait, I thought an Oculus does the same thing too. Its a blindfold on your face, and it doesnt matter if they are alone or in a crowd.
Mark has got to be terrified. The power of Apple is the tight and efficient integration of hardware and software.
Regarding battery power, I woukd not rule out versions that stream the video and outsource the computing to a mac or a standalone box, like Apple TV.
Regarding the experience, Apples seem to be far more coherent and natural rather than Oculususs. Imagine watching a movie, and mid way, trying to fumble around to get and orient the controllers. Absurd.
FB should be in panic mode. The 10 billion over 10 years is now a high risk spend.
Pretty sure Mark was actually counting on it. It doesn't make it a good idea, but Apple tends to set the bar for status symbols. Smartphones existed before the iPhone. PC laptops existed before MacBooks. Portable digital music players existed before iPods.
While not always successful, they actually add legitimacy to many of the markets they get into. Time will tell if it happens here; I'm not holding my breath.
>Smartphones existed before the iPhone. PC laptops existed before MacBooks.
You make a good point and I'd like to add to it. What is interesting is that all modern phone design grew out of the designs of the original iPhone and all modern laptops grew out of the design of the original Powerbook. If you scroll down on the second link below you'll see that the Powerbook is the first one that looks like a modern laptop.
I don’t think smartphone adoption was held back by the lack of a sufficient status symbol. Apple didn’t bring a revolutionary status symbol to market to make smartphone adoption explode. It brought a really good product that was valued because of how useful it was. Apple’s headset will take off if it proves to be actually useful, otherwise it won’t.
It will certainly have to be a strong product to succeed in the market, irrespective of whether it's a status symbol, I agree.
And if this is a product to be used on your couch at home alone, who cares how it looks?
But some people imagine this being used by world travellers to translate signs in foreign languages, by laptop users in coffee shops to have a huge screen, by parents to take hands-free video of their kid's first steps, by mass transit passengers to watch movies, and so on.
If the product's success relies on being worn in public - people will have to want to be seen wearing it.
While true, Apple has long made products people view as stylish and mainstream. VR advertised by Zuck isn't taken seriously (by most), but Apple will be. At the end of the day, there will be more consumer eyeballs on the devices now that Apple has entered the fray, and likely consumers that weren't even looking at VR devices before. That's probably a net win for everyone in the space.
Of course these devices existed but every time Apple raised the bar. MP3 players existed before Ipod but with limited storage. The first Ipod was really usable with its HDD. Smartphone were a thing but touch interface is what made the Iphone something unique. Let see if Apple is really bringing something new here, the jury is still out.
Facebook isn't a hardware company, all their similar ventures are essentially duds. They will like the market legitimacy but they are more likely in the position of Palm when the iPhone was announced (ie, have been in the market with tepid success for years, then eclipsed by Apple).
Apple's core strength is the hardware/software vertical integration, but another strength is that they know how to partner with others, even competitors (Intel/MS/Google/Netflix/IBM/you name it) if it makes their product more cohesive in a way they couldn't do alone.
The first thing I did after watching the demo was sending congrats to a friend working in a competing company. Apple entering the market and selling is a great validation point.
Facebook is not in panic, they're relieved that they're not the only fools betting on VR anymore.
None of this will be relevant soon to consumers, except maybe games, and then it will be console makers who will push it and cash in. For Facebook and Apple it's just shareholder porn.
But it doesn't look like Apple is betting on a Metaverse where you have your little virtual houses and objects, but rather putting monitors right in front of your eyes with an entire ecosystem where work and entertainment is the main focus, with the ability to include communicating with others.
Apple just skipped the 3D world-thing which is what Meta is focusing on and being pathetic at it.
To me this reads as if Mark is scared of what his employees are thinking of him, where what they have been working on is this toy, while Apple now presents a real device with some sensible use cases.
Also Apple's is see-through AR to blocking VR, while Meta's is blocking VR. His statement about the couch doesn't make sense at all.
He seems to be ashamed that they are not the leader in this space by a long shot, since this is what his company is supposed to be about.
The oculus products have the same "AR but it's actually VR" thing going on. It just sucks on the quest 2 and seems half baked on the pro. They claim that a better version of passthrough will be the biggest upgrade on the quest 3, but of course remains to be seen if they can pull it off for $500 a pop.
Apple’s implementation appears years ahead of anyone else. Just the way iPhone was when introduced.
Back in the day Nokia, Siemens, Blackberry, Palm and Ericsson had smartphones that you could do everything that iPhone could do or even more.
These were devices that only those who have to use it or those who are techno nerds used it.
When Apple introduced their implementation of smartphone, those who were using the devices from the established companies dismissed the iPhone as gimmick or inferior. Fast forward, the regular people queued for iPhones and the other smartphone makers are all gone.
Is it really the same though? I can see how this is proposing a different approach on how to present VR but apart from tech folks nobody seems to care. Where on iPhone case from day 1 one could tell it was actually really really useful. And you also have to consider the price tag as well, I can think about many things that I would spend money on first even if I had those 3500 dollars.
Maybe I'll change my mind when I see people working or joining meetings in one of these but at least for now it looks like this is a product searching for a mass market.
On the contrary, this is the first time that non techies are actually interested in it and debating its implications on the society.
And about the price tag, a quick search tells me that %18 of the American individuals and %34 of the households are making over 100K and there are over 5 million millionaires and 770 billionaires in the USA.
Even if pricey, it is within the reach of so many people's income levels which means if it is good enough and people will buy it.
The price anchoring effects are strong but Apple is capable of creating its own anchors. Consider the iPhone, the iPhone 14 pro costs less than %25 of the monthly pay check of an average American and you say it's expensive. In the other extreme - Turkey, the iPhone 14 Pro costs about 5x the average salary(iPhone 14 pro is 2350$ today and the average salary is less than 500usd) and people still buy it. It was never THIS bad, but even in the good times an iPhone would cost more than the average salary and everyone bought one and the Apple's market share is over %20.
Moral of the story, if you make something that people want badly they will find a way to get it.
> but apart from tech folks nobody seems to care. Where on iPhone case from day 1 one could tell it was actually really really useful
This was exactly the same when the iPhone was introduced. Only tech folks could tell it was actually really really useful. Other people were just like "So browsing the internet o a phone is better now. But why would I need to browse the internet one a phone?"
It's less about making marginally more money, and it's more about retaining Meta's grip on attention as it shifts from one medium (mobile/web) to the next (AR/VR/SC).
He's probably not going to make more money by having a bulkhead in the new personal computing paradigm (unless the ads are 10x as valuable, IDK). He's more importantly aiming to defend the current "proportion of attention spent on personal computing".
If other cos shift consumer attention to mediums where Meta has no presence or is excluded from, there goes his market cap.
"Implementation appears year ahead" does not mean anything. What matters is whether the product can gain enough attraction to be a successful business, which we don't know yet.
FB should absolutely be in panic mode. They bet everything on VR because they wanted to own an entire ecosystem and not be reliant on Google/Apple.
No matter how good Oculus is, Apple will be the VR experience everyone will want to have. Apple will sell it vastly better and make it far more desirable than anything Meta can manage.
If I have to strap on an invasive device to my face, what company am I going to trust more - the one that has been hammering in its “privacy” credentials for years, or the one that incites riots and whose founder is memed to be a humanoid?
Yeah... Meta is now at risk of going the way of other "first movers" when Apple chose to enter their market. Companies like Rio and other makers of MP3 players before Apple came around with the iPod. Or companies like Blackberry, Nokia etc. that built smartphones long before the iPhone. Or companies like Pebble who introduced the first smartwatches. The list goes on and on...
Maybe the Vision will be what everybody want, but there is always space for “almost what you want but cheaper”. Mid range android phones are very popular worldwide. Mid range laptops too. I’m skeptical of VR promises, but if the industry grows Apple is likely to be the high end expensive option, but there will be great opportunities for other companies in the space. And oculus can offer very compelling products for a seventh of the price.
Not that I want to see Facebook succeed in their goals. I personally find a cheaper option like the quest more interesting than the vision, at least on paper, but won’t ever use a product that forces me to have a Facebook account.
I doubt there is ever going to be a budget headset with mass market appeal because they'd be incredibly nausea inducing.
The Oculus quest is a perfect example. It's basically manufactured e-waste which is only getting bought because of the fantasy it ultimately doesn't live to.
I believe I used 3-4 times an occulus headset. Not a quest, and that was years ago, I don’t remember the model. I haven’t really been interested by VR products, the only reason I find the quest kind of interesting is for beat saber, seems like a fun game to play. I cannot see myself using a headset more than 1h, and outside of gaming.
There is no reason to be worried about Apple monopolizing the market. They've never been interested in anything but the luxury segment, and meta is going the other direction. If anything this should help meta by growing mind share of VR/AR products. A $3,500 product is immediately off the table for probably 99% of people.
First Apple Watch Edition series 0 was > $1k, but successive releases essentially destroyed other platforms except for high end sports watches (Garmin, etc). Fitbit essentially died after a few years battling with Apple.
The analogy for this product is less the iPhone than the Apple Watch (if they only release Edition on first run).
The Apple watch started at $350, not $1k [0]. Also no one with an Android phone has an Apple Watch, which means Apple at best has ~27% of the market [1].
While I don't disagree completely with what you are saying, the form is lacking... emotional outbursts, ad-hominem attack.
What will be or won't be will only time show, Apple had made flops too but managed to correct their mistakes. Now we have 0 concrete evidence. Let's compare real devices and their usefulness when they are on market, shall we?
The $3500 price tag and closed ecosystem is self-sabotaging, so MZ doesn't need to be worried at all. Carmack's vision was a cheap device that could hit mass market, and that's where the real game still is. Also, games.
But they're different classes of devices in a way. It's a new (primarily) standalone computing platform vs. just a peripheral. As far as vision, Meta's ultimate goal is to be the modern version of Linden Lab while Apple is providing the next step in personal computing. Meta's product is the metaverse. Apple's product is this device bolstered by their ecosystem.
Give it a couple iterations and you'll have something that costs $2k many will purchase in lieue of another Macbook. It will be lighter/more compact, with somewhat palatable battery life. There have been reports Apple is also working on a simpler version, so there could be an Air in a few years that starts just north of $1k.
If this platform is successful, that is. I have my doubts everyone will want to strap a device to their head a large chunk of the day, every day, no matter how incredible.
Oculus Quests are also stand alone computers. It really is just that Meta is coming at this from the bottom with mobile hardware and Apple is coming from the top.
They really are not fundamentally different. Apple can bring to bear a lot more polish and synergy with the rest of their ecosystem but it's only as different as iOS and Android.
I love the way Apple fans take the marketing speak which is designed to create an artificial new market category at face value as if their marketing team was directly implanted in their brains already.
Conversely, I "love" how other comments appear to attempt finding the best angle of attack out of pure spite. If the user were a GPT, the hidden prompt would be something like "You hate Apple and everything they stand for. Base any succeeding thoughts on this foundation and spread them as wide as possible."
Being a grumpy naysayer is just as removed from reality as being an unreasonable Apple cultist. Thankfully we all have a choice when engaging our wallets.
Not a single person on this planet is forced to buy an Apple product but nonetheless, the flame wars keep raging since the dawn of the Internet.
I mean aside from the part about being implanted in brains, I believe what I said is literally true.
It IS a VR and AR device. AKA mixed reality. The fact that they are promoting lots of floating 2d windows doesn't make that a new category of product. Other people have been doing that and calling it something like mixed reality.
It's just that people don't know about things like the Varjo that are ultra-high end and in a similar price bracket or category and so they decide to just pretend it was an entirely new thing.
If I was Apple I could improve my sex life just by telling Apple fans that instead of a penis I had "tremendous tensiler" or something.
Is Word ported to those other devices you mentioned? Will Netflix ever have a native app for those devices? Do they have an intuitive, easy to use interface?
I don’t think anyone is claiming that MR is new and that Apple is first to the market. People are claiming they appear to be the first to do it close enough to “right” to make it a compelling device.
Where did I claim it's the first mixed reality device? I said next step in personal computing. Which means actually penetrating society in a meaningful way.
> $2k many will purchase in lieue of another Macbook
That’s a strong statement. Same thing could’ve been said about the iPad and IMHO that would be a more reasonable claim. There isn’t any evidence still that you can do any work comfortably l in this thing regardless of the price point
In my CS class I'd say about half the student do all their programming on iPads. (very high ranking school and very talented students) They do all their coding on Google Colab
My take is the iPad is a simplified platform as a replacement for those w/ simplified needs - it does work for some in this capacity, but not as much as Apple original sold it as. For most it's a supplementary device for content consumption. This is expansive, a 'next step', designed to replace everything. Time will tell and I'm similarly cautious.
But they have been clear in the presentations that this is the same. It's running a handful of apps, it's not some full laptop-like experience. I would bet it's anyway using most of its computing power just to draw on the displays and to do realtime image recognition to blend the 3D windows into the image of your own room. You'd need far more computing power to actually get a full laptop experience in addition to all this.
Sure, it will have that locked in experience to start and lack the computing power to compete with a traditional machine. It doesn't mean it has to remain that way. They've tried to push the iPadOS further in that direction for years.
There is no intention that Apple might ever make iPadOS fully(ish) open like macOS is. I don’t see any reason to believe that their VR devices will not stay locked down forever too.
The technology is incredibly compelling - which is the main thing, that people are exciting about it - but there are definitely things about it that area creeping people out... I've noticed these pop up in discussions
- The isolation aspects of consuming TV/movies (Mark has a point here IMO)
- The whole taking 3d images/videos of your children with a headset on
- The uncanny valley Facetime avatars
- The external screen that gives a window to your eyes in AR mode
Agree with all of those. I think the interaction between people with headsets on and no headset on is one of the things we'll really need to see play out to see how it works in a real social context once the device itself isn't a novelty. At the moment it seems incredibly distopian at best. Apple is the first attempt to actually try to address that it seems (eg by fading people who are in your periphery into the picture in the headset so you at least see them and fading an image of your face onto the outside of the headset so they at least sort of see you). But it's still weird af, no question.
I was specifically speaking about the interface, which when meta introduced theirs had all these weird things "Why has nobody got legs? Why does it look like absolute arse? etc". It didn't have those. It looked slick, like you would expect from Apple.
You underestimate Apple fans throwing ungodly amounts of money at new products. The early-adopters always generate FOMO among the not-quite-so-early adopters and it snowballs from there.
$3500 is pretty cheap for the HW it provides. An iPhone 14 Pro Max starts at $1100 and has nowhere near the HW that this device has, let alone the economics of scale.
lots of technologies in those vision Pro are similar components as in those iphones and ipads. If you take 2 iphone 14 pro (total cost 2x$1000=$2000) you get:
They already have crazy profit margin on iphones. I think if they would price it at $2500 this would make more sense.
If they would allow to run full MacOS on this thing and I could use it just as Mac Mini replacement and attach physical external display via hdmi out then I could easier stomach $3500 price.
Not quite the same ballpark, is it? iPhone 14 Pro resolution is 2556×1179 at 460ppi. Vision Pro is believed to have 3800x3000 at 3400ppi. That's almost an order of magnitude improvement in density over the iPhone screens (and 3x the density of the Quest Pro or the PSVR2.)
So then take the price of ipad pro 11. Even cheaper than iphone 14 pro and has most of those components I mentioned above (excluding 3g/4g/5g). 2x ipad pro 11 == 2x $800 = $1600. Does it really cost apple ~$1000 or even $500 per such 3400ppi screen to justify such price?
And regarding screen resolution very old Sony Experia 1 (from 2019) had 4k resolution (1644 x 3840 pixels at 650dpi):
> Does it really cost apple ~$1000 or even $500 per such 3400ppi screen to justify such price?
I can easily imagine that for a relatively new technology with a ppi much higher than anything commercially available (as far as I can find through searching) that they are getting on for $1k each at the moment, yeah.
I kind of think having the compute power combined with the external battery would have been pretty slick. An AR head unit combined with a portable Mac mini would be pretty compelling at $3500. Give it the ability to be a MacOS desktop when plugged into a regular monitor and I would buy one for sure!
It seems that they nailed the hardware. Sure, the battery life can be improved, the price can be reduced through mass production. It is now mostly a question of people will accept/like carrying a head set.
I am mildly optimistic, even the initial Vision Pro won't be much more expensive than a well-spec'ed MacBook Air plus 5k display. So at least I think Vision is attractive to pro Mac users as a very portable workstation with a lot off screen estate.
The only things missing for Pro users (especially Devs) are tools - ipad is useless for Software Dev as main machine. They can't force other companies to port Intellij or VSCode to iOS/iPadOS but you would expect they provided Xcode to iPad by now.
Even if IDE is there then how about Python and Nodejs modules in such restricted environment.
I Hope Meta will switch to Linus and Valve will stick with Linux where you can run any legacy software currently available including many Pro tools.
Sure but this looses appeal for me. I still need macbook nearby and both devices need to be charged. If I'm in plane i dont want to remove my laptop from hand luggage or draining both batteries.
This is just slightly better than someone connecting ipad to external monitor and logging with remote desktop to cloud computer and pretending ipad is good for software development.
I think Apple are much better at UX and platform building than Meta, this weeks WWDC visionOS videos(1) show impressive depth in their research and thinking for all types of users of spatial-based computing.
Regardless of the differences in how these 3D platforms are approached, apple's commitment to their platforms along with iterative improvement is the secret sauce to giving 3rd parties the confidence they need to invest time and money developing apps.
On the other hand I keep hearing that enthusiasm for the Metaverse is waning amongst Meta staff, that's usually my sign to not get involved, or have all of my efforts/revenue suddenly vanquished should Zuckerberg change his mind.
On the topic of battery power: While I think that the battery power of "up to 2 hours" is not a long time in comparison to how long I use my computing devices, I also think this gen 1 device isn't really a mobile device where that matters, also we've seen apple take laptops from a few hours of charge to 20+ hours.
Why should they be in panic? They already iterated on 3 headsets, they definitely have the advantage (weren't people complaining that they spent too much $$ in VR? Now they should be terrified?)
Thats what I am saying. They had 3 iterations, yet, are technologically behind Apple.
I mean, just pure technology wise, the screens, number of sensors, processing power itself is mind boggling.
I am sure that all their hadware decisions regarding oculus were constrained by the compute hardware. Apple has the moat of world class custom silicon that means, the constraints on its designers are far less.
One is priced at $300 and the other is more than 10x that. I don't understand why people keep comparing the two as if they were designed with the same objectives.
Yes, Apple is priced quite premium but that is also their strength Apple can price at this level and still command enough sales , Meta or any other company cannot .
Even at the same price point (HoloLens 2 costs the same) as Apple it is hard to imagine another headset competing.
Also none of the concept headsets MZ has shown so far come close to this
For Apple, I don’t think it’s about sales. It’s about introducing something new to the mass market. So they want to sell this to developers (price doesn’t really matter). And early adopters/fanboys (for them it matters a bit more).
Apple is using these two groups for development of new software and for marketing. The fanboys will carry this thing around for a year or two and familiarize the general public.
It's more like saying that Ferrari is going to compete head to head with Toyota next year. Apple are experts in making all sorts of hardware at scale, directly and through partners. Now it's on display that they've always been ahead of Facebook which acquired a much smaller hardware maker and has had its own hardware products which flopped.
They’re constrained by price: they haven’t trained the market to accept a $3500 piece of hardware from Facebook.
Apple has.
The “people with $3500 to spare” market knows that it’ll be polished and likely worth the price tag due to the “sparks joy” factor that Apple regularly delivers.
Apple "has"? Hey the device is not even released and there is nothing like a preorder number that can tell a story. Please just be more mindful of the facts here. Your own speculation is simply meaningless.
Exactly. Apple has a track record and fanbase that means they can sell a $3500 device. Meta know that even if they could build this device, there is zero chance anyone would buy it. They have to start with the low price point to make up for the lack of branch cachet.
I disagree on the tech part. I suspect much of the raw onboard power is going straight to keeping those high density displays fluid with pixels. Ambient awareness is a nice trick, but really? A bunch of flat apps floating in front of you? I had that shit with my GearVR adapter for my phone. I also think they may have a disadvantage on some the actually useful features of the Pro, like facial tracking for avatars, due to patents.
I'm also going to call it on the dedicated floating eyes screen: it will be a joke once it hits market, and everyone will turn it off to eek out a few more minutes on the battery pack.
Don’t confuse targeting a lower price point with being behind. We have no evidence that Meta wouldn’t have arrived at the Vision Pro if they also targeted a base price of $3,500 + tax.
I don't get this comparison BTW. Apple needs an external battery, doesn't have controllers, doesn't seem fit for gaming. There's nothing interesting with their device. IMO the Quest 3 is objectively the superior device here.
While I think Apple throwing their hat in the ring with a super-high end device is great for the market and should light a fire under Meta (and everyone else's butt), I think that the idea that Apple has a super-advanced technology lead isn't totally true for those that have been paying close attention to the XR space.
I mean yes, Apple is the best hardware company in the world, and they've assembled/polished best in class hardware and most importantly, have been willing to commit to the volumes for production for bleeding edge parts (eg, companies like eMagin have been demoing 4K micro OLED display for years [1] but no one's ever committed for an $X billion order - already we're seeing the "Apple" effect though as suppliers now have customers to chase [2]).
You can go down anywhere down the stack, from spatial audio and custom HRTFs [3], haptics [4], avatars [5], FRL (or whatever it's called now) has done it all [6] but most of the cool stuff has only trickled into the market while Meta has focused on selling $300 consumer headsets and despite obstensibly being a "software" company has never figured out how to build a platform beyond a barely passable VR game launcher. Reading the visionOS docs [7] has been a breath of fresh air and is much more impressive to me than the hardware (which is great, but the biggest accomplishment on that end IMO was committing to launching such a high price-point to reach a baseline experience they were happy with; also their passthrough appears SoTA).
Still, I'm most excited that this will give the "courage" to others to launch high-end consumer experiences. Let's see true retina-resolution (60PPD+) varifocal HDR displays and actually seamless passthrough.
(Funny note, looking through old notes, back in 2015, I expected 4K/eye displays to be in an HMD by 2020, which was far too optimistic. [8])
FB does not appear to be attracting young people. Apple appears to be a magnet for them. FWIW, Apple does PR and presentations a lot better ( I honestly can't remember FB VR rollout, but I was interested in Apple's toy ).
If FB is not worried, their CEO may not be doing his job.
Snapchat, Discord and Instagram. Mostly Snapchat. It's really strange for me. I'm 41 years old. Seeing the birth of the Internet and all, I always assumed that kids will grow up with stuff and be great with everything. But most of them don't even know how to create an email account. (or they don't want to invest time into it)
They don't watch movies. Or Netflix. Most of them just use Snapchat and Instagram and Tictoc.
I know that but tell this to my students. For me it also doesn’t make sense that they prefer watching tictoc for hours instead of tv series on Netflix… but they do.
yup. Instagram is more used by the sports guys to show of their stunts... I have a kid who jumps into public water fountains with his bike.
And girls with beauty stuff which may be a cliche but as a language teacher we often talk about their weekends and their hobbies...
The girls, the skaters and bikers. The others just use snapchat most of the time. One of my students was complaining about battery life on his new iPhone. I told him that snapchat just uses a lot of battery because all of the shenanigans. He didnt believe me till I showed him the battery function of the phone where you can see what app uses how much percentage. :)
No, I actually think he has it spot on. While they're both headsets, I think the Vision is more a replacement for the Mac + Displays + maybe iPad line.
Just like I have a PlayStation in the family+friends living room and a multi-monitor Mac setup in my study, I'm going to have an Oculus in the living room and a Vision Pro in the study. These are complementary things.
> Wait, I thought an Oculus does the same thing too.
As excited as I am about Apple Vision, Mark is right about this. Most of Apple’s demos don’t show the user being active, and the Vision’s price is anything but demographic even though it’s fair, given that it’s a miniaturized MacBook with magic powers
On other hand, the Quest and its apps make you move. Most of the apps on Quest are low key cardio workouts, though it’s not initially apparent to most users when they’re fighting ninjas or dodging bullets.
Do I think Apple Vision is incapable of what the Quest is capable of in terms of helping their users be active? Definitely not. Anything the Quest can do I’m sure Vision can do and then some. I’m also sure that future Apple Vision spots will highlight this. However, Apple is not showing anything at the moment.
> Mark has got to be terrified. The power of Apple is the tight and efficient integration of hardware and software.
I’m sure he is to a degree, but meta needed Apple to enter the market. It would be much worse for meta if Apple didn’t validate the often criticized and ridiculed AR VR industry.
While meta has been able to make a revolutionary product at a great price point, it’s been hampered by
1. meta’s poor past reputation,
2. meta’s terrible marketing & messaging. The Super Bowl ad was nonsensical to normal people,
3. the intimidating form factor of most VR headsets including the Quest aka face buckets of isolation. Many normal adults refuse to put it on their faces without a lot of coaxing, and
4. not being able to market the Quest to children. They are the largest demographic who just intuitively understand VR AR. They also have the highest retention. (There is one old study that shows that it may be harmful to children, but many people have criticized its methodology.)
Now that Apple has fixed the messaging for the industry, Apple can dominate the high end while Meta can take everything else. People who are buying Vision likely would not buy a Quest and vice versa
Meta won’t have a real fight until Samsung & Google re-enter the space.
No need to panic the oculus is doing well and is very easy to chat and connect with friends and new people. And with the quest 3 there is complete pass through so finding a controller should be easy even though I can tell you it already is.
I’m not a Zuck fanboy but I have enjoyed the quest 2 thoroughly and plan to get the 3 when it releases.
I do think the Apple vision pro looks amazing but the second I heard the price it was laughable. Obviously I am not the target audience. I’m not sure who is to be honest.
> " By contrast, every demo that they showed was a person sitting on a couch by themself."
> Wait, I thought an Oculus does the same thing too. Its a blindfold on your face, and it doesnt matter if they are alone or in a crowd.
I found this hilarious too. The HTC Vive was the "walking around your virtual space" headset, and Meta deliberately marketed the Oculus as couch-based, because they didn't think people actually wanted more than that.
> Regarding battery power, I woukd not rule out versions that stream the video and outsource the computing to a mac or a standalone box, like Apple TV.
I imagine wireless latency would be too high here. I think they mentioned a 12 ms number to avoid motion sickness.
Wait, I thought an Oculus does the same thing too. Its a blindfold on your face, and it doesnt matter if they are alone or in a crowd.
Mark has got to be terrified. The power of Apple is the tight and efficient integration of hardware and software.
Regarding battery power, I woukd not rule out versions that stream the video and outsource the computing to a mac or a standalone box, like Apple TV.
Regarding the experience, Apples seem to be far more coherent and natural rather than Oculususs. Imagine watching a movie, and mid way, trying to fumble around to get and orient the controllers. Absurd.
FB should be in panic mode. The 10 billion over 10 years is now a high risk spend.