Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg hit out at Apple’s Vision Pro headset over the weekend, stating that the social networking firm’s Quest 3 was the superior product. The Meta Co-Founder and CEO was responding to a post on Threads by an analyst claiming the Vision Pro was up to five years ahead of Meta’s offering. This is the second time that Zuckerberg has criticised Apple’s first mixed reality headset, which is priced at $3,499 (roughly Rs. 2.89 lakh) — the Quest 3 costs $499 (roughly Rs. 41,300).
Analyst Benedict Evans stated in a Threads post that Apple’s Vision Pro was “pretty much the device Meta wants to reach in 3-5 years,” adding that he was “genuinely baffled” by Meta’s VR engineers claiming the headset was “basically just the same thing” as the Quest 3. Evans also said that the Apple Vision Pro was the device Meta would want to sell in 3-5 years, while Apple would want to sell its devices at the same price as the Quest 3 in the same time period.
Zuckerberg responded to the analyst’s post, stating that the Quest 3 was better than the Vision Pro. “If our devices weigh as much as theirs in 3-5 years, or have the motion blur theirs has, or the lack of precision inputs, etc, then that means we’ll have regressed significantly,” the Meta CEO said, adding that Apple had to make many compromises in order to provide a higher resolution than the Quest 3.
Evans later suggested that the higher resolution on the Vision Pro could help the company offer more than just a gaming device, while Zuckerberg responded stating that three out of the top seven apps for the Quest 3 — Horizon, VR Chat, and Rec Room — were all social apps. He also said that the Quest’s resolution was “also quite good”, adding that a higher resolution should not come at the cost of ergonomics and motion blur.
Both the Meta Quest 3 and Apple Vision Pro are equipped with pancake lenses — the Quest 3 has LCD displays with a resolution of 2,064×2,208 pixels and a 120Hz refresh rate, while the Vision Pro has a resolution of 2,160×3,840 pixels with a total of 23 million pixels, according to Apple. The latter also offers both hand and eye tracking, while Meta’s headset offers hand tracking and the company’s Touch Plus controllers. The Quest 3 and Vision Pro weigh 513g and up to 650g, respectively.