Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg got a chance to try out Apple Vision Pro, which although seven times more expensive than the company’s Quest 3 mixed reality headset, is arguably its biggest competitor right now—at least in terms of mental real estate it’s taking up. Here’s what the Meta chief himself thought about Apple’s first XR headset.

In a video released on Instagram, Zuckerberg explains his recent experience with the $3,500 Vision Pro. To him, it was already a forgone conclusion that $500 Quest 3 would be the better deal, but the Meta CEO goes on to explain why he thinks it’s simply a better product overall.

“I have to say that before [trying Vision Pro], I expected that Quest [3] would be the better value for most people, since it’s really good and it’s seven times less expensive. But after using it, I don’t just think Quest is the better value, I think Quest is the better product period.” Continuing, Zuckerberg calls Quest “better for the vast majority of things that people used mixed reality for.”

To illustrate, he reveals the video (embedded below) was captured using Quest 3’s passthrough cameras, which Zuckerberg compares to the high-resolution mixed reality passthrough and “big screens, just like Vision Pro.”

Image courtesy Meta

Zuckerberg highlights Quest’s strength when it comes to playing room-scale games, social VR applications, and fitness apps, but also mentions the headset’s overall comfort, which despite custom in-store fittings, has been a sticking point for some Vision Pro users.

“Quest [3], I think, is just a lot more comfortable. We designed it to weigh 120g less [than Quest Pro], which makes a really big difference on your face. There’s no wires that get in the way when you move around,” Zuckerberg says.

The Meta CEO also points to Quest 3’s wider field-of-view (FOV), brighter screen, and lower motion blur as he perceives it. While he mentions Vision Pro’s higher resolution displays, which he calls “nice,” he was surprised at “how many tradeoffs [Apple] had to make to the quality of the device, comfort, and ergonomics, and other aspects of the display and artifacts in order to get to that.”

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More shots fired: Zuckerberg underlines the lack of motion controllers on Vision Pro and what he considers ‘less accurate’ hand-tracking than that on Quest 3. What’s more, he says Vision Pro’s eye-tracking is just “nice,” essentially comparing it to Quest Pro.

If it wasn’t clear by now, Zuckerberg isn’t exactly mincing words. Although Meta may not be in direct competition price-wise with Apple right now, he isn’t shy about drawing battle lines.

“Now, look. I know that some fanboys get upset whenever anyone dares to question if Apple is going to be the leader in a new category. 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. If you go back to the PC era, Microsoft’s open model was the winner. And in this next generation, Meta is going to be the open model, and I really want to make sure the open model wins out again.”

You can catch the full three-minute video below, reupload courtesy ‘Matt – BMFVR’.

https://twitter.com/bmfshow/status/1757548885960999001

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Scott Hayden
Well before the first modern XR products hit the market, Scott recognized the potential of the technology and set out to understand and document its growth. He has been professionally reporting on the space for nearly a decade as Editor at Road to VR, authoring more than 4,000 articles on the topic. Scott brings that seasoned insight to his reporting from major industry events across the globe.
  • Ondrej

    90% of what he said sounds very reasonable, but:

    1. There are only 3 companies in the world with general purpose consumer software ecosystems:
    – Microsoft
    – Google
    – Apple

    Meta hoped that by jumping into HMDs 10 years before Apple would allow them to join that group, because it was supposed to be a fresh start opportunity – avoiding the problem Windows Phone couldn’t solve. It didn’t work – 10 years later Meta has an unprofitable gaming console, but not general purpose ecosystem, which was the original goal – hence the panic mode and why this video exists: Apple has it day 1.

    The saddest part of it is that Apple will make more money by selling iPad games (played on a virtual screen with zero effort to port them) than Meta will ever make on full VR games.
    This is almost as sad as the fact this gaming hating corporation is making more money on games than any true gaming platform like Nintendo, PS or Steam.

    2. Comparing Quest to openness of PC is a shameless lie and I can only forgive that lie if it’s actually a foreshadowing of fully opening Quest in desperation against AVP (like they did with joining OpenXR when Rift became the worst selling VR headset of the first big 3 despite having the most viral branding of Oculus – forcing them to cut prices, which helped).

    Currently it’s much easier to release app on Apple Store than on Quest Store – how is that opennes? One could BS about defining their sideloading as “openness” – fine – but actually comparing it to the PC is impossible to justify. A blatant lie.

    • Paul Bellino

      Don’t you think Microsoft is being short sighted when it comes to VR. And don’t you think Meta should have left Eye tracking in the quest for quest 3. The more sensors the more to build upon.

      • … and the more money for you to play ….
        []^ )

    • scottosaur

      The Quest can pretty easily sideload apps, including alternate launchers or configuration managers like QGO. It “officially” supports an unofficial alternative storefront, allows installing apps directly from the web, supports OpenXR, and has a built-in app for filesystem access. The only major “anti-open” elements are that the Quest launcher treats sideloaded apps as second-class and that they keep adding hooks into their Worlds ecosystem. Still, I think it’s very easy to say that the platform is more open than Apple (and more open than a lot of folks expected from Facebook), even if the official app store is less so.

      • Christian Schildwaechter

        Quest can sideload due to its Android base, with adb (Android Debug Bridge) as a development tool to communicate with a device, allowing to install apps and more. The only way to get rid of it would be replacing most of the development tool chain, and Android was used to not have to redevelop everything from scratch in the first place. Meta worked on its own OS for years and finally scrapped it, probably because of the bad cost/benefit ratio.

        Sideloading is a side effect of cost cutting measures, a loophole Meta cannot close. So instead they sabotaged the business model of SidequestVR, who managed to build a consumer friendly alternative based on adb. SidequestVR allowed developers to publish apps not approved by Meta, users to publish reviews and thereby Sidequest to guide their customers to interesting apps. By opening App Lab Meta made sure that all comments/ratings/revenue would now go to Meta, while at the same time making it useless for app discovery by not including apps in search results. App Lab has multiple uses, but an important one is cutting SidequestVR off valuable user data and prevent it from ever becoming a viable alternative.

        • VR5

          You need to enable dev mode to be able to sideload though and Meta requires identification via credit card or you won’t be able to use it. So I guess they can prevent it?

          Not to mention that the sideloaded apps appear in their own section which Meta just could choose not to list at all.

          • Christian Schildwaechter

            They can make it harder, just like Google makes it harder to use other stores by forcing users to enable “unknown sources” with a warning about possible dangers, and by only allowing manufacturers to install Google apps/Play store if they also install the Google play services funneling everything towards Google.

            But just as Google, Meta cannot simply prevent/disable sideloading, while Apple can. If you want to install anything on an iPhone, you either have to go through the App Store, be a registered iOS developer or exploit bugs in the OS to jailbreak the phone, which Apple regularly stops with updates.

          • VR5

            Yeah but in either case it is by design. Apple opted closed, Google and Meta open. It is not that they didn’t have a choice.

          • Sven Viking

            You also have to be a registered Meta developer to sideload to Quest. Apparently it’s also possible to use a free Apple developer account to sideload to iOS/AVP now, but the apps you can sign expire after 7 days so you’d need to redeploy repeatedly.

            Quest is less closed by comparison to Vision Pro, but I wish there was a bigger difference. (To be fair it’s also as open as a PCVR headset if you connect it to a PC.)

        • > and Android was used to not have to redevelop everything from scratch in the first place

          Because… It’s… Open….

    • Meta attempted making their own OS,
      but sadly, the project failed and was ultimately abandoned.
      []^ )

    • Christian Schildwaechter

      Interestingly a big complaint from AVP users is the lack of social experiences. You cannot easily interact with other AVP users or share what you are seeing. If you want to show what you just saw, you cannot just pass the HMD, as the view resets when you take it off. This will probably be fixed, but for many the lack of “sharing” is a bigger issue than some of the rough edges.

      Meta’s “10 years advance” plan might have worked, if they had made social VR something more Quest owners (want to) use. And people want VR to be social. Walkabout Mini Golf is great because you can hang out with non-gamer friends/family members while having fun, VRChat is a whole universe where people invest lots of time and money to participate, and a simple “social” game like Gorilla Tag is one of the most successful Quest titles.

      Meta failed to established a potentially huge social VR user base by creating multiple social spaces and then scrapping them again, instead of improving one to fit the users’ needs. They now have the mostly empty Horizon Worlds, Horizon Worksrooms not even Meta employees like, and a glitchy multiplayer API titles like Walkabout work around to stay user friendly. Throwing money at VR for a head start was a viable idea, but they blew it by messing up the one thing the biggest social network in the world should be best at.

    • another juan

      to be fair, any corporation will become the “Open” option if the other alternative is Apple.
      it’s kind of surprising that Meta allows (and even promotes) sideQuest, which is funded by Google itself

    • GunnyNinja

      Quest Link. Virtual Desktop. PCVR.

    • Hussain X

      If you think PC is open, then by just allowing Quest to freely run on a pc depite being a standalone computer on its own, then that already makes Quest open since it inherits PC’s openness.

      Also when when comparing to Apple, Meta is a very open platform. It’s like weather being 40C is very hot but when it come to boiling an egg it just isn’t anywhere near hot enough. It’s just the same temperature measurement, and here the measurement is openness versus Apple, and Meta Quest is a very open platform.

      • Christian Schildwaechter

        If openness can be “inherited” from PC, AVP is just as open as Quest, as people already managed to stream VR to AVP via ALVR, and the iOS SteamLink app also works on AVP, allowing to stream any flat screen games to AVP and play them with a Playstation/Xbox bluetooth gamepad that Apple even offers as an accessory.

        And compared to Meta, Apple apparently never tried to block wireless XR streaming by prohibiting it in their EULA, forcing VirtualDesktop to offer a patch for their Quest app on Sidequest to re-enable that function. Meta still doesn’t allow remote XR streaming services like PlutoSphere on either the Quest Store or App Lab, clients for these have to be downloaded from Sidequest.

        No doubt the Quest is more open than AVP thanks to Android, but that’s only partly because Meta wants it to be open. They sort of have to keep it open, and they regularly try to keep it more closed through their license agreements, e.g. prohibiting any use of Quest for location based VR services.

        • Hussain X

          Apple needs to actively support PC usage, flat and pcvr, not just via 3rd party non app store released app (in case of pcvr).

          Wireless XR streaming being prohibited initially I can understand as bad , nauseating, wireless streaming XR can turn people off VR, so it had to be careful around it. Meta itself went with wired Link first till eventually offering wireless Link. Cloud vr gaming is still a bit more difficult right now and Meta could itself could’ve started a revenue stream through it, but it hasn’t and likewise doesn’t allow others as it’s being extra careful around it right now from offering such a service till it thinks it’s ok and it won’t harm VR. Associating nausea with VR during cloud vr when it is in fact an issue with internet latency will harm VR. And this nauseating cloud VR might trickle down to nauseating standalone VR as the brain adapts to VR as being just harmful.

          • Christian Schildwaechter

            Meta prohibiting wireless XR streaming was never about protecting users. They very obviously tried to keep “untethered VR” an exclusive feature of software bought on the Quest store. The wired Quest link was not a sign of openness, but necessary to allow killing the Rift S, pointing those who bought PCVR games on the Oculus store to Quest instead.

            Guy Godin working around their restrictions with an external patch, unstoppable due to sideloading, forced Meta’s hands. They allowed wireless streaming only once they had their own AirLink software. It didn’t offer superior streaming quality, so their reasoning for not allowing it before was made up, as it is today for already well working cloud streaming. AirLink followed the App Lab/SidequestVR play book with an inferior solution drawing resources/income from a potential competitor, VirtualDesktop/Steam.

            Meta isn’t playing “nice”. They keep very tight control over the Quest platform. Bigscreen probably wouldn’t have launched the Beyond if Meta hadn’t basically booted them off the Quest with exclusive deals with Netflix/Fandango in 2020, while keeping Bigscreen’s fees unsustainably high.

          • another juan

            I think I’ll trust John Carmack’s version over yours about wireless PCVR: according to him, Meta erred on the side of caution to avoid poisoning the proverbial well. When their opinion changed, partially thanks to Carmack, they acted consequently.

          • Christian Schildwaechter

            We still haven’t announced a full, like, wireless connection system for Link. And we have these interminable arguments internally about this — about quality bars — and I keep saying that … you know I love the fact that we have … I have existence proofs where whenever we argue about this I can say say right this very minute someone is using a wireless VR streaming system and getting value from it. You know, it is not as good as being wired, it is not as good as we might hope, it might not meet your personal minimum quality bar, but it is clearly meeting some people’s minimum quality bar and delivering value to them because they keep coming back and doing it so I continue to beat that drum where I know we should have some kind of an air link. And then it gets even more controversial when we say well if you’ve got an air link than you can talk to an arbitrary IP address then well what about cloud VR gaming. And that turns the knob even further there where okay obviously it’s even worse, obviously more people are going to find this unacceptable and it will be a terrible experience for more people. But still I’m quite confident that for some people in some situations it’s still going to be quite valuable.

            John Carmack unscripted live Keynote Facebook connect 2020.

            So Carmack argued for a long time that wireless streaming is good enough for people to already use it (against Meta’s wishes), and even cloud streaming would be something that would be beneficial for some users, while some others keep arguing against it pointing out quality. No doubt this happened, because that is the official story. But Carmack wouldn’t say in an official Meta video that the unusual interest from the management regarding the image quality might have additional motivations, or why Meta continued to not listen to their CTO when it came to technical questions regarding stream quality. And we are now more than three years later and they still don’t allow cloud streaming.

            I’m not claiming they never discussed quality bars. I’m claiming that the quality bars were their excuse to prohibit/delay an option that would cost them sales. And they stuck to that excuse despite Carmack repeatedly telling them that the benefits from allowing wireless steaming would be greater. People claiming they don’t have time to do sports and need to watch TV to relax from their hard job actually believe that, but it is nonetheless nonsense. Unfortunately there is no video of Carmack publicly stating that some management clowns continuously refused to allow what their costumers very obviously wanted, fully aware that what they wanted came with a reduction in quality. There are many statements about his repeated internal fights he did not always win, and finally his resignation hinting that the Meta decision process did not necessary follow what Carmack considered the right way.

            Basically, I still assume that all the discussion on quality was mostly a pretense to keep tetherless VR exclusive to Quest native titles, that Carmack argued against and was overruled, that they finally caved in because it worked fine for users in VirtualDesktop, but still balk about cloud VR streaming to this day. And I’m willing to bet that this restriction will fall the moment Meta can offer their own PCVR streaming service.

          • another juan

            The quote supports my statement, if you want to believe carmack was hiding the truth, that’s pure speculation. as stated, i trust him, and he has been very direct time and again about being against meta’s directives overtly cautious attitude. also, it doesn’t make any sense that meta would be so miopic as to jeopardize their investment in the future billion-devices-market for being stupidly greedy with the inconsequent pcvr market.
            That said, i agree that the “open vs. closed” narrative of zuck is mostly marketing bs. if meta ever finds itself in control of a duopoly, like google and apple do now, it will do just the same crap it condemns in those companies, to defend its own interests.

    • Scientism

      The openness remark was really strikingly wrong. As far as I know you can’t sideload until you get a developer account. There are some countries where you can’t get this account at all. This is strikingly different from non-laptop PCs, and even laptops after you disable secureboot by toggling an option in the BIOS.

      • ViRGiN

        What countries are you talking about?

        • Scientism

          Definitely China, Russia, because Meta’s resources are blocked there. Maybe there some other countries, if the developer programmer is geo limited.

          In principle if you can’t install a piece of software onto the device without some cryptographic network activity, say after 10 years, when they retired the servers, then such device definitely isn’t open.

          • ViRGiN

            So it’s not geo limited, Meta does not sell to Russia, neither they do to China. And in China they use VPN to bypass blocking Meta services; so sideloading is available to everyone on the planet equally.

          • ViRGiN

            So it’s not geo limited, Meta does not sell to Rus, neither they do to China. And in China they use V-PN to bypass blocking Meta services; so sideloading is available to everyone on the planet equally.

          • Scientism

            >sideloading is available to everyone on the planet equally.

            While they decide to make it available. They could rescind this decision at any time. In contrast on android phones you can get into the developer mode without any accounts. And as I said, it’s available as long as their servers are up. They won’t stay up forever. All the while factory new PCs from the 80ies and 90ies unboxed today are still fully functional and open. Meta headsets aren’t open, period.

          • ViRGiN

            Welcome to the internet-era.
            Customers who really need to sideload need to be aware of the ‘risk’ of Meta cancelling the developer mode. Just because you want something, doesn’t mean company has to do it. They sell and support their devices for number of years.
            And you know very well that sideloading is next to obsolete especially for VR. It’s super niche use case, with very little quality in it.

            Think of the billions of dollars spent on digital purchase on Steam. That money will never circulate back into economy. Meanwhile Playstation, Xbox, and tons of other consoles still have significant second hand markets.

  • Dragon Marble

    He’s right. It was a shocking realization for myself. Quest hand tracking and passthrough are actually better. You have to move around and play some active games to be able to see that.

    • MackRogers

      1. almost 1000% guaranteed you do not own both headsets.

      2. if you think the passthrough on q3 is even comparable you are blind

      • Anonymous

        It is ok we know you don’t have AVP and couldn’t even try one because your daddy doesn’t like you

        • The implication that the only reason that you own one is because your rich daddy bought you one… ?

    • Christian Schildwaechter

      Please do not judge hand tracking and passthrough based only on the 30min demo you got at the Apple store. By now there are a lot of reviews from people who have used Vision Pro for more than a week, including a lot of long hour productivity stuff, and according to them both the hand tracking and the passthrough of AVP are vastly better than Quest 3.

      • Dragon Marble

        I’ve been using AVP daily since launch. Some reviewers, like VR Oasis, point out the same issues. Golf+ dev even go as far as saying “it’s not even close” regarding hand tracking.

        • Christian Schildwaechter

          Do I interpret this correctly that you now own an AVP? If yes, would you be willing to describe your experience and answer questions about it?

          I’ve heard complaints about precision of hand tracking in games, esp. with Synth Riders that is available on both Quest and AVP due to a noticeable larger latency, but in general use the hand tracking is usually described as much more reliable, esp. since the tracking range is very large and the minor movement of the pinch is recognized pretty much everywhere, so that using it becomes second nature after a few minutes. This is of course a different application than in games, where it is mostly about precise timing.

          • Dragon Marble

            Yes, I bought an AVP on day 2 (tried unsuccessfully on day 1).

            I can understand some of the conclusions are hard to believe. It was a surprise to me — and to Zuckerberg himself, according to his video. The issues I am highlighting will remain hidden (or you could say non-issue) as long as you don’t make fast movements. So non-game experiences are generally better on AVP — due to smoother UI, not better hand tracking.

            One practical use case I thought would be much better is consuming media while doing household chores. Instead, I wanted to take the AVP off right away. Initially I wasn’t sure what was going on. The Quest 3 wasn’t great with this either, but it was fine. Then I realized it was motion blur.

            I’ll keep mine though, for one thing it does extremely well: watching 3D movies.

          • Christian Schildwaechter

            The motion blur seems to only appear in the HMD itself and not be visible on screen recordings, so there is some speculation that this isn’t due to the exposure length of the cameras, but artificially added by the AVP as a measure to reduce nausea. If that’s the case, it should be possible to disable it or at least adjust it. Have you enabled the developer options yet? They seem to allow e.g. disabling ETFR (causing the image to become jittery), and may allow to fine tune the experience more to your liking.

          • Dragon Marble

            Of course the motion blur doesn’t show up on recordings because you are recording pixels and frames, not the screen itself. My guess is that the AVP screens have the same fundamental issue as those in PSVR2. It’s a trade off to make them brighter. Honestly I would rather have motion blur than loose the HDR.

          • Christian Schildwaechter

            Traditionally motion blur occurs during exposure/recording while moving the camera on film, which can show up as either a smear due to long exposure or tearing/shearing with a moving shutter. If the motion blur on AVP came from the cameras, it would appear on both display and screen recordings, the later which would record the already smeared pixels and frames.

            So no motion blur on screen recordings means it was either added later or is an artifact. If it due to high persistence, with the microOLED displays flashing too long like on PSVR2, lowering the brightness reduce it. One of the reasons why the displays in the AVP are so expensive is the use of dual-layer white OLED backlights with low yield, used to increase the brightness compared to other microOLEDs, which would be a measure to allow for lower persistence with HDR.

            If motion blur is due to long exposure, it should be reduced in a brighter environment. If motion blur is consistent for both virtual content and passthrough, regardless of environmental and display brightness, it should be artificially added by AVP, most likely as a comfort feature.

          • Dragon Marble

            It’s not just passthrough; the motion blur shows up on digital objects too. But it’s much worse on passthrough and seems to depend on lighting conditions. I don’t know. It may be a combination of both camera and display.

          • Sven Viking

            Or maybe just high-persistence displays? PSVR2 has the same thing for that reason.

      • Sven Viking

        I’ve seen a few owners say hand tracking seems worse in at least some ways (e.g. apparently it updates at 30fps which increases latency and reduces smoothness compared to Quest).

        I think probably it’s better in some ways and worse in others, but the “vastly better” reviews may be because it more often uses simple gestures in concert with eye tracking, hiding the exact details of the hand tracking, whereas with Quest you more often get a full virtual hand where you can immediately see any inaccuracy.

        • Dragon Marble

          What most people don’t seem to realize is that the passthrough hand you see — which has low latency — is not the tracked virtual hand. On Quest you see the virtual hand overlayed on the real hand, making the latency easy to see. People also confuse a smooth UI with better hand tracking.

    • I’m as much of a Quest 3 fan as the next person, but if you think the Quest 3 passthrough is better than the AVP’s one, you’re delusional.

      • Sven Viking

        Sounds like it’s better in every way except motion blur.

        • Dragon Marble

          Passthrough on AVP certainly looks better because of higher resolution and dynamic range. But if you rate it side by side based on functionality, I have to say Quest 3 wins. I can read my keyboard and phone on both headsets; I cannot read what’s on my TV on either headset. I can walk around in Quest 3 comfortably; that’s tough on AVP due to motion blur.

          • Sven Viking

            People are saying the blur doesn’t show up in recorded video clips from the passthrough cameras — I’d guess it’s probably caused by high-persistence displays similar to PSVR2 motion smearing. :/

  • Paul Bellino

    Yes mark is totally right on this one. Why build a one or 2 trick pony when we can have it all in one device and this is a very big strength. You need controllers for more precise manipulation of virtual objects and why not have a device for gaming, Productivity and media consumption. For me at least, over time Meta quest will be the more useful device.

    • MackRogers

      -and yet it is selling terribly compared to q2?

      -and yet nobody has even mentioned in the last 6 months.

      -and yet there is basically no software coming out for it, the one “major” game that came out Assassin’s Creed sold so poorly the company didn’t just cancel a sequel they cancelled ALL future VR products.

      Quest 2 and Quest 3 have been gathering dust in closets for months now and all of a sudden, because you are can’t afford an AVP and have never even tried one, you come out of the woodwork to claim how great it is.

      Enjoy the nauseating passthrough, the 1/20th power thermal throttled snapdragon compared to M2, the absolute god awful selection of generic android apps, and the terrible low-res vomit inducing screens which make reading an email give you a migraine.

      • Cl

        Last paragraph completely exagerrated. If you have to do that to make a point then you already lost. While the person you replied to was being reasonable with legit points.

      • Christian Schildwaechter

        – Quest 2 is below the infamous USD 300 “impulse buy” threshold, while USD 500 Quest 3 falls under “investment”. Many current Quest 2 sales will be due to a halo effect, with people having heard of Quest 3 and then finding the seemingly very similar Quest 2 as a bargain at only half the price.

        – Quest 3 isn’t a flop, and Meta very likely thinks of it as an enthusiasts device like the PS4 Pro compared to PS4. Which is why Quest 2 still sells in parallel, with rumors of an even cheaper successor targeting the mass market.

        – Lots of software is coming out for Quest, most targeting the larger Quest 2 install base with improvements for Quest 3. The lack of AAA releases will remain a problem until VR has accumulated a much larger user base, made harder by still low retention.

        – All SoCs throttle, that’s a feature to allow operating at low TDPs. The M2 also throttles, with the M2 MacBook Air being significantly slower than the actively cooled M2 MacBook Pro. Quest 3 is slower with lower resolution, also cheaper with an impressive software catalogue, but we are way beyond the nauseating experiences of early VR HMDs.

    • Christian Schildwaechter

      No HMD focused on productivity will ever use VR controllers, because they are in the way when using trackpads, keyboards or any real world objects like phones, pens, cups, doors and pretty much everything else. VR controllers pretty much only work if you are in a (mostly) virtual world interacting with virtual objects, like games, where they provide real benefit.

      • VR5

        Good thing hand tracking is also available. And if you’re a 3D modeler, or film director, a 3D mouse is useful. Good to have precise input, if you need it. No one forces you to use the controllers, the Workrooms app has them optionally.

  • eadVrim

    Quest 3 needs the killer option is the capability to make photogrammetry. That will open doors to new ira of communication.
    Besides of course let users take 3D videos from the headset with no needs for 3rd party app.
    And needs too to be easy to install new experiences outside the official Oculus Market lite Citra Nintendo 3DS.

  • Yeshaya

    Zuck woke up and chose violence. If it had eye/face tracking I think he’d have a case, but that, and the Personas it allows for, are such big factors you can’t rule them out. I need to get to an Apple store and try an AVP for myself. Logically I can’t imagine the passthrough is actually better on AVP, but I did see some reviews talking about how they couldn’t read their phones at all on the AVP passthrough, where Q3 is at least serviceable. Also when using Fluid on Q3 it got choppy with like 4 windows, and seems like an AVP can do more than that, so in terms of raw processing gotta give it to them there too. I’m just interested he’s taking such a direct shot instead of his “2 products for 2 price ranges, competition makes us better” line he was using when it was announced.

    • Christian Schildwaechter

      It’s damage control. I’m pretty sure most were surprised how well the AVP was received. I expected it to be a useful HMD due to the media experiences and iPad apps even without gaming. But even I was surprised that people pretty much immediately started using it productively, while I expected it to be mostly useful for developers and people willing to pay USD 3500 for a large TV.

      AVP getting a lot of attention despite being unaffordable for most and only 450K units available in 2024, while Meta will dominate the XR market by user numbers for years, causes a “mind space” problem. Meta probably expected more of the reviews to end up in “nice, but you can do a lot of that with the much cheaper Quest 3”. That way Apple entering XR would actually have validated Meta’s expensive MRL ventures, making it much easier for Zuckerberg to convince stockholders that spending even more billions is a good idea.

      Unfortunately the reviewers treat the AVP as a different category and are mostly not even bothered by the lack of games and controllers, so Zuckerberg had to do it himself. And he is right to do this, as both are targeting XR, future Quest will get closer to AVP and improve productivity use, with the Quest 3 currently offering more “value” for most.

      • MackRogers

        Its projected 600k to be sold by years end.

        If they somehow get their shit together with the NFL/NBA and make compelling apps they wont be able to make enough of them

        • Christian Schildwaechter

          After AVP was announced in June, supply chain sources said that Sony couldn’t produce more than 300K displays for 150K AVP before launch, and no more than 900K for 450K AVP in 2024. I assumed that the 450K include the 150K, but your 600K sounds like they add up.

          Apple apparently asked Sony to rev up the production, but Sony refused, most likely because there is not a big market for USD 350 per eye displays. So the facilities would become sort of useless after the initial AVP, as Apple will use cheaper microOLED displays from BOE/SeeYa for future models.

          So for the time being, they already won’t be able to make enough of them anyway due to the limited display production, regardless of getting their shit together with NFL/NBA. And Apple apparently was in talks with the NFL in 2022 regarding streaming rights, but the NFL didn’t want to negotiate about not yet existing formats (i.e. NextVR/AVP Immersive Video), so Apple backed out of the deal. Instead they entered a ten year, USD 2.5bn partnership with MLS (Major League Soccer) that includes developing “future types of broadcasting.”

  • Arno van Wingerde

    Hm… I haven’t had the chance to try AVP, but display is miles better, less bright but 1000x more contrast and better resolution. The weight argument is plain wrong: with BoBoVR S3 pro strap my Quest 3 weighs over a kilo!, with Apple, get a larger battery and just a better strap, and you’re all set with 700-800 g on your head.
    Quest is better for playing games because of the excellent controllers. Hand tracking, hm it would amaze my if Quest3 is better, better my trouble to play Meta’s own hand tracking game: getting the thing to show a teleport requires trying 10 times. If AVP is not waaaay better, they shouldn’t even bother to put them in the stores.
    So yeah, Quest3 is better at room style gaming, but Apple allows use as a portable iPad/Mac, which is not possible with Quest. I did not upvote @disqus_fGX5RUi5Sz:disqus because of the general Apple fanboy tone, but he does have a point that Apple’s marketing is orders of magnitude better than Quest and people will want it because the hype and it is Apple…

    • Christian Schildwaechter

      A popular hack to deal with the front heaviness on AVP now seems to be to buy a second Solo Knit band for USD 99, 3D print a small adapter and attach both of them at the same time, with the second one serving as an adjustable, very broad and soft strap going across the head further to the front than the Dual Loop band that only a minority prefers.

      A lot of the issues Zuckerberg criticizes have solutions, and e.g. the actual FoV seems to be almost identical with Quest Pro/Quest 3, but you may need to use a thinner facepad than the initial 3D scan recommends, making the fitting process in the Apple store a much better way than ordering one online just based on the scan.

      But of course all these solutions will come at Apple prices, and the AVP is a USD 3500 HMD mostly in theory. Going for the higher storage tiers plus some accessories and maybe even Apple care to avoid the insane repair costs will quickly add USD 1000 or more. So unless someone really doesn’t care about the money or finds a very compelling productivity use case, at least Zuckerberg statement about the better “value” of Quest 3 should be true for anybody that doesn’t actually hate VR games.

    • Andrew Jakobs

      But but, with Apple you have a wire down your body to the battery, let’s not just forget that, it’s just awful. Only when you get a headstrap for the AVP with a battery, it will be more interesting.

      • wcalderini

        It’s not that bad. If you have it in a front pocket you don’t even notice it 5 minutes in while walking around the house.

        • If you don’t notice the weight of a battery in your pocket you might have other issues…

          • Andrew Jakobs

            It’s not the weight of the battery in your pocket, it’s the cable running to the battery which is the problem.

        • Sven Viking

          Though you can do the exact same thing with Quest 3 and a USB powerbank in your pocket, the difference being you get 3+ times longer battery life than Vision Pro with the same setup and the headset is a bit lighter. (Understandable since Vision Pro has more processing power and higher power draw.)

        • Andrew Jakobs

          From my own experience it is that bad, ok, it still better as having a cable to your PC, but a standalone headset should not have a separate battery you need to put into your pocket or something, it should at least be in the headstrap or something.

      • jasonmartino

        Yes there is the cable, but you also don’t need controllers. So there is a tradeoff. And yes I know Quest has hand tracking, but without eye tracking, hand tracking is painful.

        • Andrew Jakobs

          What BS that handtracking without eyetracking would be painfull. At least with Quest you have the option of using controllers to play games. The cable is a completely different thing. Eyetracking isn’t needed for a better UI interaction.

          • jasonmartino

            Myself, every reviewer, and most everyone who has actually used the AVP agree that the combination of eye tracking and pinching one’s fingers together is the magic of the Vision OS. I have the Quest and it’s great with controllers, but the hand tracking is awkward compared to the AVP. The AVP is a sedentary device. It’s not a gaming device. The power draw for it’s CPU and array of sensors requires a big battery. Guys with big necks could always clip it on the backstrap!

    • > If AVP is not waaaay better, they shouldn’t even bother to put them in the stores.

      If you were a company and you knew for a fact that the product you released would be sold out on Day 1 regardless of the quality, would you release it, or not?

      • Christian Schildwaechter

        Don’t worry what people will say. If your first version is so impressive that trolls don’t make fun of it, you waited too long to launch.

        Paul Graham, Lisp Guru/Venture Capitalist (Y Combinator)

        • Trolls will make fun of anything. By that definition, I can sell some dirt from my garden for $10,000 / clump claiming it cures cancer. When people say it doesn’t, I’ll say that the feature is coming with an update.

    • Sven Viking

      Adding the BoboVR Pro strap adds an extra battery on your head for longer battery life than Vision Pro. With comparable battery life, Quest 3 is lighter.

      If you want longer battery life than AVP, put a USB battery in your pocket connected by a wire, same as AVP. Same setup, longer battery life, lighter headset.

  • Cl

    Idk why people think avp is so great. It has higher resolution screens and passthrough… what else does it do better? Really though I like it only because it makes others more interested in vr and ar. Hopefully someone can make something more like quest 3 with eye tracking and 4k per eye oleds for ~$1000. That will be my next headset. Also I’d hope the battery would be on the back strap and be hot swappable.

    • A less expensive version is expected this year.

    • philingreat

      Just the micro oled displays in the AVP are $700 USD

      • Christian Schildwaechter

        But that’s an artifact of releasing it “too early”, with a low yield display production process and the Sony production line not being optimized for mass production, also leading to a limit of how many AVP Apple can produce. I’d expect the price for the microOLEDs to drop significantly before Samsung or others release competing HMDs.

        Production cost estimates for AVP were USD 1400-1800, with the displays being by far the most expensive component. Those plus M2, R1 and the very expensive assembly make up more than USD 1000, but Samsung/Meta could use the XR2+ Gen 2 plus eMedia (now owned by Samsung) 3.5K OLEDs and might be able to push total production costs close to USD 1000.

        That doesn’t mean that they would sell them at that price, but I’d expect them to have a lower margin than Apple, which charges at least USD 1700 on top of the production costs. Probably not only due to greed, but also to limit demand, as they can only produce 450K due to the display production limits. And of course they will still lose money, as it will take a decade or more to make back all the research money that went into AVP.

    • Christian Schildwaechter

      Many AVP owners state that the problem with explaining the difference to e.g. a Quest user is similar to explaining VR to someone who is just watching a video of a VR game. You basically have to experience it yourself.

      I’m currently watching a podcast by Geared Up, where three techies, who all used AVP since launch and were fans of VR and Quest users before, discuss their experience. One interesting aspect was two of them described experiencing “existential dread” in the immersive environment on the moon, feeling utterly lost, because it felt much more real, and a profound difference from the “Adventure Immersive Video” compared to just 3D movies in Quest.

      It is “just higher resolution” and “just better passthrough” and “just better production”, but the experience is more than “just” a slight improvement. I’m pretty sure that will go away like the initial VR WOW effect VR, once your brain gets used to previously unimaginable things now being (virtual) reality. But just like you cannot really “guess” how much pancakes improve the experience if all you ever tried are Fresnel lenses, you seemingly cannot “guess” how much different the AVP experience is by improved displays, passthrough, ETFR and UI, if all you ever tried is a Quest.

      • VR5

        Did Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin experience existential dread? Why would they? Seems pretty cool to be on the moon.

        • Christian Schildwaechter

          Well, they had several years of training before launching to the moon. And I’m pretty sure that everybody standing on the moon not only felt awe, but also a level of loneliness that being on celestial body far away from earth will give you, only topped by Mark Watney spending a year on Mars, without any contact to NASAS for months. But Armstrong and Aldrin were professional, so a few seconds of existential dread wouldn’t stop them from doing their work, or interfere with the awesomeness of the whole experience.

          The AVP users experiencing existential dread also didn’t toss away their expensive HMDs and fell into a depressive slump. Instead they reported this as an example of how profound the AVP experience can be. At least as long as you haven’t gotten used to it, like you got used to having access to infinite amounts of informations on a device in you pocket, always having drinkable water, waste being carried/flushed away from you and some mysterious and very useful energy just flowing out of sockets in the wall. Whoever will follow Zoomers will grow up in their own personalized Skyrim and consider this as normal as us getting food without having to produce it ourselves.

          • VR5

            Mark Watney is a fictive character. Maybe take your own advice and not assume to be able to judge what you didn’t yourself experience. Enough narrating things you are guessing and more looking at facts.

            Reactions to AVP are mixed. Zuck is not the only one to point out how Quest 3 is a more mature product with fewer design flaws.

          • Christian Schildwaechter

            Yes, I am aware that no real human being has yet been on Mars. And yes, I won’t be able to try an AVP for at least half a year, despite living in 5min walking distance from an Apple Store. With AVP selling out in the US and production being limited by display availability, the European AVP launch may even slip to 2025.

            So not being able to “experience” it myself, I do the next best thing and live vicariously through videos of people who are already using AVP, to get a broader image and more than one opinions. And it already shows that AVP users occasionally miss options and features others have already found, so I now ignore all the “first impressions” and instead only look at people who have been trying to use AVP productively and integrate it into their workflows.

            But I always try to make that clear with statements like “many reviewers say” or directly naming the source. So what I’m doing is gathering statistics from several sources to get closer to the facts, exactly to avoid just guessing or extrapolating a single data point. The chances that I will shut up about AVP until I had the option to test it myself are zero.

        • Ardra Diva

          “IF” they really went, maybe.

          • VR5

            Seriously?

  • The Zuckmeister says his product is better than the competition’s ….
    SHOCKER!!!
    []^ )

  • MosBen

    I mean, they’re devices with different target audiences and different stages of product maturity. Vision Pro is a very expensive device that won’t make sense for lots of people, which is good because most people can’t afford one. The Quest 3 is a lot more affordable, but it too still doesn’t really make sense for most people. What will be interesting is what comes next. Apple has a long history at this point of releasing a product that’s only a bit more than half baked, getting feedback from their users about what works and what needs improvement, and then releasing a second or eventually a third generation product that irons out most of the rough spots. I’m also quite confident that in the next couple years Apple will release a follow up product which is much cheaper (though probably still pretty expensive).

    Hopefully this pushes Meta to get more aggressive and creative in innovating on the Quest line to compete with Apple’s products. I’ll be very surprised if the next Quest doesn’t have OLED screens to try to erase that advantage for Apple.

    • another juan

      Sony’s micro-OLEDs in Vision Pro are by themselves more expensive that the whole Quest 3, so i’d be very surprised if the next Quest tries to equal Apple at that.
      Also, very curious that Zuckerberg criticizes the screen blur in those new screens. Might it mean that Meta already has devised a solution for the issue?

      • purpleduggy

        only a matter of economy of scale, if meta ordered a few million of those panels and cut a deal, or asked sharp or lg or samsung to develop even better ones but at a lower cost, they could pull it off. the xreal air’s sony micro oled displays were a few thousand a piece less than three years ago, now you can buy a whole headset for 399. large projects like the quest3 or quest4 that sells millions of units can pull it off.

        • MosBen

          Yep, that was my understanding as well. Apple’s screens are currently low yield and limited production numbers, but in a year or two when the Quest 4 is coming out it seems pretty likely that they’ll go with OLED screens.

          • purpleduggy

            in 6 months those screens will be obsolete if not already. tech moves fast gotta keep up.

          • NicoleJsd

            Tech used to move fast but now all the lowest hanging apples are plucked. Look at the gpu market.

        • Not really.

          “SK Hynix produces only 100,000 12-inch wafers a month and allows 30,000 to be used for Micro OLED displays.”

          So it’s not as simple as placing a bigger order, the whole thing is in is infancy.

          • Christian Schildwaechter

            In September 2017 Seeya announced plans to build an OLED microdisplay production line in Hefei, China. Seeya’s $300 million fab (now in production) has a yearly capacity of 20 million displays (a monthly capacity of 9,000 12-inch wafers).

            from www_oled-info_com/seeya-technology

            So if Seeya can create 20mn microOLED per yer from 9,000 12inch wafers per months, SK Hynix allowing 30,000 wafers per month to be used means 66.7mn displays per year. Given that Meta managed to sell about 1/3rd of that number for all Quest since 2019 combined, I don’t see the limit of wafers available for microOLED as a serious issue yet.

          • purpleduggy

            they’ll just build another factory or find a competitor. the scarcity aspect is an ancient sales tactic, don’t fall for it.

          • “Just build another factory” yes, and their complete supply chain. Which costs A LOT of money, so once again, it takes at least half a decade for any kind of “economies of scale” to kick in.

            But they’re not gonna build factories for a single product from a single company that may or may not die in the next 6 months.

  • BluesMaster3000

    Vr is dead

    • MackRogers

      Yep. Spatial Computer though is not.

      That’s why Quest 2-3 are gathering dust on shelves and AVP is doing something new and innovating. People do not want to throw up playing gorilla tag on low res screens, yet Meta keeps pushing it.

      Quest 3 sales are down MARKEDLY compared to Quest 2 and yet the hardware is far better. People dont want it, they are voting with their pocket books

      • Sven Viking

        Quest 2 sales went up markedly over the same period, though. By that logic people want lower-res and more vomit-inducing screens and Quest 3 is just too high-res for them. (But actually it’s the price difference.)

  • Brian Elliott Tate

    There’s a type, I think you meant to say: “We designed it to weigh 120g less [than Vision Pro]” ? Pretty sure that’s what he was comparing in the video

  • Octogod

    There is a meme right now that this is Zuck’s Balmer and iPhone moment, but I have to hard disagree.

    Q3 is 1/7th the price and let’s say 90% as good on hardware, and wins (today) on software. This will change, but for the average consumer that cost benefit ratio is massive. It is as if Android had been around for a few years before the launch of the iPhone – it provides a serious barrier to mass adoption.

    • jasonmartino

      Apple’s hardware is amazing but still not good enough. So meta reaching only 90% just shows how hard and expensive it is to solve MR issues. The Vision Pro’s 4K displays, eye, and hand tracking are just much more enjoyable to use than anything Meta has put out yet.

      • Octogod

        Have you tried eye tracking on Quest Pro or PSVR2?

        I would agree though, Apple’s entry highlights how challenging this technology really is.

  • GunnyNinja

    A $3500 Quest would be better than AVP. Because, for most of us, a $500 Quest is better than AVP.

  • xyzs

    I think Meta should release an independent open source OS with a proper name and marketing (like Android) and adopt the same model as Google:
    Primary OS designer and vendor, hardware reference line of product (the Quests would become the Pixels of VR), money from store fees from any platform using it.

    Since Google is too cheap to seize the opportunity, Meta should not miss it before Android VR happens, and it’s too late.

    • Sven Viking

      They had a project running to do that for a number of years but shut it down.

      • Anonymous

        But it isn’t impossible for Meta to open up their store and the necessary tools to let 3rd party headsets run Quest apps. This should be independent of their now gone proprietary OS

    • Christian Schildwaechter

      That’s not an easy model to pull of, because there is very little motivation for others to participate, since most of the money ends up in the hands of the app store owner. Other manufacturers can only make money on the hardware, which is close to impossible with Meta selling HMDs mostly at cost or with small subsidies/profit. The number of brands offering Android phones has shrunk significantly, and today they try to differentiate themselves by e.g. adding extra AI services for a fee.

      HTC is trying it with their mobile XR Wave platform open to others, which was their response to not making a lot of money from consumer PCVR HMDs due to all the money going to Valve’s Steam. So far this hasn’t been widely embraced. The Steam Deck is now a vertically integrated device, with the hardware, OS and store all coming from Valve, while their earlier attempt with Steam machines built by PC manufacturers and Valve providing the OS for free, but keeping all the software revenue, failed.

  • ApocalypseShadow

    Sounds like the fear is real with Zuckerberg. Better ecosystem of apps. Better at productivity like I always said and better reception across the board even though Vision Pro is more expensive. He wants to ride off of Apple’s success while also attacking it.

    Notice how Apple has said nothing and are doing their own thing. While Zuckerberg continues to attack and mock his competitors when he knows Apple has a better platform for apps, productivity and better marketing.

    This is when you know that one is fearful of the other. Can’t wait until we see him attack Samsung and Google next. He’s guaranteed to do so.

    • Christian Schildwaechter

      It’s not simply fear. A lot of it is also policy. Apple doesn’t comment on what others do, will name things however they like and never compare themselves to others, instead only emphasize how customers use their products. They don’t announce products beforehand and don’t talk about future developments.

      In contrast Meta makes a lot of noise to draw peoples attention, which is partly necessary due to Quest/XR being outside their traditional business and a non-existing market when they launched. They show a lot of concept videos and share research projects that won’t make it into actual projects for years, so people get an idea where things are going compared to what exist today.

      No doubt they “fear” Apple’s (and Google’s) ecosystem, though that’s not a new reaction to AVP. It has been their sword of Damocles, not just the name of the first HMD, but also a real danger lingering above their head at all times. And the very reason why they bothered to buy Oculus in 2014 for USD 2bn and spending another USD 50bn at MRL since.

  • Thanks for your independent review, Zuck

  • Joep

    Honestly I am wondering if there is a place for the AVP as Apple envisions. A VR- headset is used to get away from everyday life to do something you don’t normally do, like race a car, fly a tie-fighter or shoot zombies. The AVP is a ‘ professional’ device. Sure it will be very usefull like the Hololens to assist surgeons with their surgeries, some other professionals as well but for video editing or office work i am not sure if this will work better then a regular PC or laptop setup. Especially if you have to walk around with something heavy on your head for hours. Googles approach on that was more praktical with the google glasses.

    • Christian Schildwaechter

      It’s very simple to come up with a use case for regular people. Just think of it as a laptop with a dozen screens (iPad apps) that can be placed around you. That would be beneficial for anybody using a laptop with more than one app open at the same time.

      It’s probably not worth the price of AVP today, but a lot of people will prefer a similar (but lighter and cheaper) version combined with a bluetooth keyboard over an actual laptop in the not to far future. And you get a 200″ TV on top for free. AVP currently excludes real AR use as with Google Glass, and Apple actively discourages usage outside or while moving. That will only come later once technology has improved (a lot).

    • philingreat

      The PC was successful because people justified buying it for work, then used it also to play games. Same can happen with the Vision Pro

  • Nevets

    A lot is said about the suitability of AVP for watching movies relative to other purported use cases. In fact, I’d suggest the best setup for movie buffs using today’s available hardware, and with price in mind, is the Xreal Air (or equivalents). The screen is OLED and 1080p, there’s no pixellation, the size of the virtual screen is cinematic (when using Samsung DEX, not Xreal’s Nebula – anyone know if are there any other alternatives to Nebula which has a smaller virtual screen than DEX?).

    They can be worn lying down in bed (an excellent way to watch a movie in comfort any time of the day), they don’t occlude your full visual field like VR HMDs, they’re adequately comfortable. Unless you value the superior resolution and picture of a 4k TV, this is the best screen in the house.

    I think movie buffs need to be more aware of this tech.

  • nicki gentry

    Forget the quest or apple vision I have a better idea. How about lucid dreaming, that’s the best virtual reality experience you can actually feel the environment, you can even make your own experiences. Lucid dreaming is my vr.

  • BloozMaster3000

    Vr is dead

  • Ardra Diva

    The price difference speaks the loudest. Quest 3 is very good. AVP isn’t seven times better, that would make it worth the price. It’s not even 2x better.