In all-hands meeting and email to employees, Meta CEO says that the Apple Vision Pro is “not the one that I want,” and “there’s no kind of magical solutions… that our teams haven’t already explored and thought of.”
In an all-hands meeting Thursday, Meta Platforms Inc.’s chief executive played down the significance of Apple’s play for the mixed-reality world, a market that prompted Facebook to change its corporate name and plunge into the field with its Quest goggles.
“From what I’ve seen initially, I’d say the good news is that there’s no kind of magical solutions that they have to any of the constraints on laws and physics that our teams haven’t already explored and thought of,” he said in comments that were also emailed to Meta employees, according to multiple news reports that MarketWatch independently confirmed Wednesday.
“Every demo that they [Apple] showed [at the WWDC event on Monday] was a person sitting on a couch by themselves,” Zuckerberg dismissively said. “I mean, that could be the vision of the future of computing, but like, it’s not the one that I want.”
MacDailyNews Take: Hopelessly outclassed Zuckerberg then closed his all-hands meeting with:
$3,500! I said that is the most expensive VR headset in the world and it doesn’t appeal to business customers because it doesn’t have a keyboard which makes it not a very good email machine. Now, it may sell very well or not, I, you know, we have our strategy, we’ve got great VR headsets in the market today, we, you can get a Quest 2 now for $299.99; it’s a very capable machine, it’ll do music, it’ll do, uh, internet, it’ll do email, it’ll do instant messaging. So, I, I kinda look at that and I say, well, I like our strategy. I like it a lot.
Right now we’re selling hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of VR headsets a year, Apple is selling zero VR headsets a year (half smile). In six months, they’ll have the most expensive VR headset by far ever in the marketplace (laughs) and let’s see (shrugs), you know, eh, what’s the expression, let’s see how the competition goes.
Oh, we’ll see alright.
All of this is coming from a guy who was smart enough to steal the idea for Facebook, but doesn’t seem to be smart enough to run Facebook profitably without trampling his users’ privacy without permission. Hence, his quixotic push to sell a warmed-over Second Life knockoff; stench of desperation be damned.
Of course the Apple Vision Pro is “not the one he wants.” It’s going to kill him.
This is not a VR headset. It’s a spatial computer. Previous failures in the “VR headset” game from the likes of Meta are due to the fact that nobody else can come close to matching Apple’s ability to produce the entire widget. Only Apple has the custom silicon required, the custom operating system, the ecosystem and the interoperability it provides; no other company on earth can do what Apple has done here.
And even Mark Zuckerberg, who’ll soon be buying a middling NBA team for five times its value, can figure that out.
See also: Zuckerberg panics, Osborne Effects Meta with rushed ‘Quest 3’ headset reveal – June 1, 2023
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“There’s no kind of magical solutions that our teams haven’t already explored and thought of and failed miserably to do anything about.”
I’m proud of my Ballmer2020 comment days ago.
What I think is that even Apple doesn’t, yet, understand what they have made. While the Vision Pro is a Spatial Computer, it is actually a Brain Computer Interface, like nothing that has ever existed before, and it belongs to consumers. Between the richest sensory experience of the human brain available in the visual cortex and auditory cortex, lies only a person’s eyeballs and a piece of glass. Any visual or auditory content can be sent to the brain more directly and without invasion of the organ. These corteces feed right into the brain’s “hedonic hotspots” into its pleasure regions, while evoking memory and imagination. To say that this the Vision Pro is the future is to underestimate its real potential. it will change who we are. Zucherberg’s comments are almost as telling as his need to call a company wide meeting. Having developed for the Oculus family and looking at what Apple has are like looking at a match versus a million acre forest fire. The only common denominator between the Oculus and the Vision Pro is that they both sit on the face. After that the comparison is absurd. Ditto for any other “face computer” as the Vison Pro’s detractors like to say. While $3500 may seem a lot for a VR gaming computer, it’s and incredible bargain for humanity’s future!
LOL. So this is what sour grapes washed in salty tears tastes like!
First of all: Vision Pro was not intended to be for Meta.
Second: The Meta people may have thought of “it” but didn’t find a way to accomplish it.
First thing I thought of reading the headline, is there is going to be a plethora of Mark Zuckerballmer gags!
I’d love to see a Microsoft VR headset running Windows with Intel inside!
But even Microsoft isn’t stupid enough to try that one. Or as Bill Gates would say of Steve Jobs. “Why would he even try?” (Or something to that effect.
I so miss Ballmer!
Only a-holes say “magical” and only lemmings repeat it.
See if you feel this way 5 years from now when you reach the age of majority. It’s a burden to carry around so much truth.
At least you used your own words.
Zuk just pooped his pants.
Now that’s a solid product endorsement.
Is there another product out there that doesn’t need a separate computer to operate? I think people are confusing the Vision Pro with these other products, but it is actually an entirely different animal. No separate computer required; hence the high price.
The first thing I thought of when he mentioned this:
“From what I’ve seen initially, I’d say the good news is that there’s no kind of magical solutions that they have to any of the constraints on laws and physics that our teams haven’t already explored and thought of,”
So, Mark, you and your team WANTED to hold hand mechanisms with buttons, etc, and not just use your natural hands? How about browsing with your eyes? Didn’t want that either? Mmmmm…. okay, whatever you say.
If he was t concerned, why was there a all hands meeting called