What Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg Thinks Of Apple Vision Pro Headset

Meta Platforms CEO and Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg has offered his opinion about Apple’s recently released Vision Pro headset.

CNBC reported on Zuckerberg’s video posted to Instagram, where he called Meta’s Quest 3 headset “the better value” and “the better product, period.”

It perhaps no surprise that Zuckerberg deciced to back his own product, but he did offer a few concessions about the Apple’s new mixed reality headset, which retails for an eye watering $3,500, compared to the £480 to £620 for Meta’s Quest 3 headset.

Quest 3 vs Vision Pro

The defining feature of Meta’s new headset is its “passthrough” mode, which is the ability to quickly see the world outside the headset.

Apple’s headset offers similar functionality, and even the ability for users to insert prescription glass lenses, which unfortunately has led to warnings in the US, after videos circulated showing drivers wearing the Apple Vision Pro headset, while allowing Tesla vehicles to pilot themselves.

The fact that Zuckerberg opted to make a video in which he talked about a competing product, demonstrates the increasing competition between Apple and Meta in this field.

Both Meta and Apple are attempting to sell consumers on the idea of mixed reality headsets that overlay digital content over the real world, or offer an immersive virtual reality experience.

According to CNBC, Meta has taken a lower-cost approach while Apple has focused on sharper screens, more powerful processors and higher-end materials.

Zuckerberg, in the video posted on Tuesday, reportedly said he thinks the Quest headset is “a lot more comfortable,” its immersive content library is deeper, its field of view is wider, its hand tracking is more accurate and its screen is brighter compared to the Vision Pro.

One of the main complaints about Apple’s Vision Pro headset is the bulk and weight of it, which has led some to question its comfort of wearing it for long periods of time, considering its battery life and power tether.

Noted Apple leaker Mark Gruman last year flagged neck strain reports due to the heavy weight, with early iterations of the Vision Pro headset.

But Zuckerberg did reportedly have some nice things to say about the Vision Pro headset, after he noted that Apple’s screen has a higher resolution and that its eye tracking is “really nice.”

“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, 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,” Zuckerberg was quoted as saying.

Metaverse, Oculus

In the video, Zuckerberg reportedly said he knows some “fanboys” get upset when people question whether Apple will dominate in a new category, but he said he thinks Meta’s open model for its headsets will win.

“The future is not yet written,” he said.

Meta of course has been heavily investing in the so called Metaverse for a number of years now, and it also has years of in-house VR expertise, thanks to its 2014 purchase of Oculus, for $1.9 billion in cash and common stock.

The founder of Oculus, Palmer Luckey, even famously has developed a one-off virtual reality headset, called NerveGear, that can actually kill the wearer in real life if their avatar dies in an online computer game.