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Meta Debuts $500 Quest 3 as Apple Prepares to Launch $3,500 Vision Pro Headset Next Year
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Can you elaborate? Quest seems like it’s 80% gaming with some other things bolted on each revision.
AVP, while having gaming capability, seems to have a different *focus* for the product.
The Quest and AVP are both passthrough AR with roughly equivalent FOV.
The HoloLens is low-FOV see-through AR.
With passthrough AR, the user is primarily focused on the digital content.
With see-through AR, the user is primarily focused on the real world.
Just to take one activity as an example, watching a movie in the Q3 and AVP would be roughly an equivalent experience, with the only significant difference being that the picture on the AVP is sharper and high contrast. Maybe like the difference between watching a 1080P LCD and a 4K OLED of the same size.
The HoloLens is like watching a much smaller transparent TV. Who would want a transparent TV, even if it were sharper than the 1080P TV?
I'd like to try a HoloLens, but I have no desire to own one, because its capabilities don't really line up with what I'd want from an AR headset. Both the Q3 and AVP are interesting to me, often for similar use cases.
The Quest 2 has supposedly shipped 20 million units, so if Apple is only producing 500,000 next year, it will take a while to sell better.
Blackberry was selling millions of their devices up to 2010, last I checked, RIM is not even in the phone business anymore.
While true, Blackberry shot itself in the foot by resting on their laurels and underestimating new smartphones from Apple and Samsung that offered more features, bigger screens, large app stores, and new models each year (or months in Android's case). I don't think Meta and the Quest 3 are in the same boat as RIM.
*Intel is more like RIM in that they underestimated ARM and the shift to power-efficient processors and SoCs. Intel is clearly still around but never recovered to be a player in the smartphone market.
Meta is still missing the idea of making AR/VR general purpose removing the idea of being disconnected from your world. Apple's approach is a better compromise and you can still have the best of both worlds. I think Vision Pro will surpass whats already on the market. I follow a lot of third party developers on Mastodon who are excitedly building apps for Vision Pro that range in games, productivity, entertainment. Thats astounding how much is already being built out for a platform that is still months away.
That is encouraging to learn because I haven't seen enough mainstream examples to persuade me to remotely consider a Vision Pro. I usually adopt new tech before most others but I'm definitely in the wait-and-see camp on this one.
I’m not rushing to get it either. Will see what becomes of it at the end of the decade. I didn’t own an iOS device until 2009.
I agree, but the iPhone was a mainstream hit. I just found it strange that you think it won’t be a mainstream hit, yet will still sell more than seven million a year soon. I guess my measure of mainstream for AR/VR is just low, but I would think that is pretty much “mainstream hit” level for AR/VR. Maybe I’m underestimating the total demand, but even as pretty big fan of VR, I figure if people thought glasses for 3D were too much of a pain, a headset is a whole extra level of inconvenience for most people.
I’m not sure what you mean by the disconnected from the world part, other than the Vision Pro’s virtual eyes feedback feature? The Quest 2 only had greyscale passthrough, but the Pro and 3 have colour passthrough for AR. I expect the Vision Pro to be a nicer headset, and I’m sure I will much prefer Apple’s interface, but their basic “AR through VR” concepts don’t really seem that different.
You're right, my lack of confidence in Apple's vision doesn't have to mean they don't have one. They don't though.
Mainstream success means 250 million a year like the iPhone. I don't see Vision Pro at 3.5k not to mention some accessories that might even push over four grand and just the setup experience. Remember, an iPhone can be had for $429, you can buy one not just from Apple but anywhere in the world guarantee it will work out of the box without any fuss and not put a dent in your checking account. That said, it will have a market, but I don't think it will be on the same level for while compared to Apples more established businesses, but its not gonna be loss leader either.
And that's it, Meta's scramble for a pass through solution just came with the Quest 3 announced this week. At the same time, Vision Pro is about delivering a no compromise experience as best of possible. Look, I wouldn't wear this thing in public. But in an environment where I can still feel immersed and connected with my physical environment, does a nicer job. The gestures alone are a great sell. And lets not forget the ecosystem play with Mac and iPhone.
Cool. We pretty much agree, then, I just wasn’t thinking iPhone level mainstream, because that seems unrealistic to me.
But as far as Meta scrambling, though, the Quest Pro came out in October last year, so they’ve had that functionality in the wild for almost a year, well before the Vision Pro was even revealed. Their main scramble was dealing with the fact that too many people didn’t want to pay more for it and expected that upgrade to also be in the Quest 3 (which has been rumoured for a a while, and reasonably expected because there was a version 1 and 2), so I am pretty sure they sold far fewer Pros than they expected. I’m an Apple fan and a VR fan, and I like what I see of the Vision Pro and fully expect to be blown away by it, but, as much as I’m not a Meta fan, Oculus did a lot of the building in this field (and even Microsoft deserves some credit for pushing inside out tracking). Making it sound like they are only copying an unreleased Apple product is ignoring easily verified facts.
I expect that I will feel that Apple executed the overall experience better, and I’m sure that there will be some things unique to them, but they are not the first with the concept or execution. Fortunately, they don’t need to be, but considering VR’s history, I’m pretty sure they will need to be patient with slow consumer buy-in, but their execution with the Apple Watch gives me some hope for that. That said, I’m also a fan of 3D TV, so I’m used to things I like being discontinued.
Not really - I think you're not listening to people complaining about the dad who doesn't even see his own kid at his own birthday, it's the saddest thing there is, it's a basic human thing. A lack of humanity. A future where people live in pods and zoom call each other and try to find connection through screens.
At least Elon's going all the way with it, skipping the goggles and straight to the brain interface - he is right about that too - nobody will wear these goofy googles for any period of time or for anything outside of niche applications.
Half of humans think that "Ready Player One" is a great future. The other half thinks it's a dystopian nightmare and we'd much rather live under trees, have campfires, and hug our families and have a good time all around. Up to you to choose which one you prefer.
And it this half who would never even consider wearing googles at their kid bday, to whom it would appear an orwellian / brave new world style nightmare world where people do that.
People who compare with the iPod really have no clue - the iPod was classic Apple, enabling people to do things they couldn't do before, it was enriching people's lives instantly, it instantly added value, once you started using it, you would know there is no way you'll ever not use it. And that was true - I got the first model and I've been using it for 22 years. It was that substantial of an innovation.
Classic Apple died with Steve Jobs, and a second time with Jony Ive leaving.
That Apple was trying to sell a dystopian future nightmare scenario as something amazing in its own ad is telling a hundred stories - it's showing what has become of the company.
Why can't Meta make the Quest work with Mac?
Apple is coming out with a device that they're spending a ton of money to market and develop. But it will cost a fortune. Meta has an opportunity to sell a ton of units to Mac users who want a cheaper alternative. $500 compared to $3500 is a huge difference. I'm wondering if it's because Apple doesn't want them to. I've been using Macs and Pcs for decades and Apple has never cared if it got third party game developers and it barely cared for peripheral makers who tried to make Mac compatible stuff. The Quest is a great device at a great price. But I'd like to see it connect natively with Macs so I can work with the Adobe Substance programs.
Apple is coming out with a device that they're spending a ton of money to market and develop. But it will cost a fortune. Meta has an opportunity to sell a ton of units to Mac users who want a cheaper alternative. $500 compared to $3500 is a huge difference. I'm wondering if it's because Apple doesn't want them to. I've been using Macs and Pcs for decades and Apple has never cared if it got third party game developers and it barely cared for peripheral makers who tried to make Mac compatible stuff. The Quest is a great device at a great price. But I'd like to see it connect natively with Macs so I can work with the Adobe Substance programs.