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If I'm an executive at Meta, I'm not sure whether I should be happy or sad reading this review. By all accounts, Apple is at least 5 years ahead of Meta in ter

If I'm an executive at Meta, I'm not sure whether I should be happy or sad reading this review. By all accounts, Apple is at least 5 years ahead of Meta in terms of hardware. With all of Apple's compute/display tech, and at 8-9x the price point of Quest, it still seems like the Vision Pro falls short of delivering the breakthrough experience needed to make AR/VR mass market. Not to mention that it still doesn't seem like AVP answers the "killer app" question that Meta has been trying to answer. If the value prop at this point is "a big virtual screen", I guess their work over the next few years will be getting the price point down to a level where consumers buy this over a monitor?

Atotalnoob 3y ago
If their price was 8-9x higher, I’m sure meta could pull off something similar. The reason they can’t is their target price is much lower.
- crakhamster01 3y ago
  They could make the Quest feel more premium for 8-9x the cost, and include a lot of the AVP features (better eye tracking, better passthrough cameras), but I don't think they have the capacity to be making M1/R1 like chipsets or micro OLED screens at scale. The chipset in particular is a big reason why Apple is able to have their "sub-12ms latency" that makes the passthrough feel convincing. Now those definitely exist in a research lab somewhere on the Meta campus, but I doubt they're close to making them in high quantities.
dansalvato 3y ago
One thing I find with Apple devices is that they have an ecosystem of extremely passionate developers, and all their other "new paradigm" platforms also initially shipped with no software (Mac, iPhone, iPad). The mainstream usage of these devices is really based on what developers built for them in the first couple years after release, not the use cases Apple tried to sell us on. The shortcomings and skepticism surrounding the AVP is pretty reminiscent of the above examples' own initial releases. Unless AVP is an exception to the rule, I think both the hardware and the software will start to get extremely good over the next few years. But that is unavoidably predicated by a flawed gen 1 being released.
- canuckintime 3y ago
  > and all their other "new paradigm" platforms also initially shipped with no software (Mac, iPhone, iPad). The mainstream usage of these devices is really based on what developers built for them in the first couple years after release... Unless AVP is an exception to the rule... what about Apple Watch, AppleTV and HomePod? Those don't have the app success story of the Mac, iPhone and iPad. There's two paths that lead to a passionate developer base popularizing your platform via their apps: 1) build a platform that developers love to use i.e. Mac and iPhone to a certain extent 2) offer access to a product with a lot of users i.e. iPhone and iPad The AVP is more like the first HomePod (quite expensive compared to its 'competition' and irrelevant long before the mini arrived) than the iPhone and iPad which launched at competitive/accessible prices so we're not expecting a product with lots of users. Could the AVP be a platform that developers love to use? The mostly likely use case from a developer perspective appears to be as a portable big screen monitor for your Mac albeit with limitations*. Would that be compelling enough? Craig Hockenberry https://furbo.org/2024/01/29/the-next-40/ https://furbo.org/2024/01/29/the-next-40/ : "Apple Vision Pro is a technical marvel, but ultimately falls short in ways that satisfy the natural curiosity of developers." *p.s. there are other headsets with similar display specs to AVP rumored for later this year. It might be worth waiting if you primarily want virtual monitors for your Mac

Atotalnoob 3y ago

If their price was 8-9x higher, I’m sure meta could pull off something similar. The reason they can’t is their target price is much lower.

crakhamster01 3y ago
They could make the Quest feel more premium for 8-9x the cost, and include a lot of the AVP features (better eye tracking, better passthrough cameras), but I don't think they have the capacity to be making M1/R1 like chipsets or micro OLED screens at scale. The chipset in particular is a big reason why Apple is able to have their "sub-12ms latency" that makes the passthrough feel convincing. Now those definitely exist in a research lab somewhere on the Meta campus, but I doubt they're close to making them in high quantities.

dansalvato 3y ago

One thing I find with Apple devices is that they have an ecosystem of extremely passionate developers, and all their other "new paradigm" platforms also initially shipped with no software (Mac, iPhone, iPad). The mainstream usage of these devices is really based on what developers built for them in the first couple years after release, not the use cases Apple tried to sell us on. The shortcomings and skepticism surrounding the AVP is pretty reminiscent of the above examples' own initial releases. Unless AVP is an exception to the rule, I think both the hardware and the software will start to get extremely good over the next few years. But that is unavoidably predicated by a flawed gen 1 being released.

canuckintime 3y ago
> and all their other "new paradigm" platforms also initially shipped with no software (Mac, iPhone, iPad). The mainstream usage of these devices is really based on what developers built for them in the first couple years after release... Unless AVP is an exception to the rule... what about Apple Watch, AppleTV and HomePod? Those don't have the app success story of the Mac, iPhone and iPad. There's two paths that lead to a passionate developer base popularizing your platform via their apps: 1) build a platform that developers love to use i.e. Mac and iPhone to a certain extent 2) offer access to a product with a lot of users i.e. iPhone and iPad The AVP is more like the first HomePod (quite expensive compared to its 'competition' and irrelevant long before the mini arrived) than the iPhone and iPad which launched at competitive/accessible prices so we're not expecting a product with lots of users. Could the AVP be a platform that developers love to use? The mostly likely use case from a developer perspective appears to be as a portable big screen monitor for your Mac albeit with limitations*. Would that be compelling enough? Craig Hockenberry https://furbo.org/2024/01/29/the-next-40/ https://furbo.org/2024/01/29/the-next-40/ : "Apple Vision Pro is a technical marvel, but ultimately falls short in ways that satisfy the natural curiosity of developers." *p.s. there are other headsets with similar display specs to AVP rumored for later this year. It might be worth waiting if you primarily want virtual monitors for your Mac