Today is proving doubly bad for Apple… Not only are units heading back to store from unhappy customers but VR's last remaining true believer, Mark Zuckerberg, chose this moment to finally wade in with his verdict on their hard hat hardware. And - guess what - he doesn't rate it.
Meta's boss has been peddling VR for years now, ever since Palmer Luckey got lucky, offloaded Oculus - his WIP VR plaything - for $2bn of Meta's money and rode off into the sunset with Zuck's bucks. But while Oculus has been refined, won fans, become pretty popular and sported three Quest incarnations (and a Vision Pro rivaling Pro model), we're not yet living in the metaverse in the way that Zuck would like.
In fact Zukerberg's on-going 'quest' to make the metaverse 'a thing' feels increasingly out of touch with each passing minute, which perhaps is why it's taken him this long to come up with his verdict on Apple's Vision Pro. "Let's pretend the whole 'metaverse' thing never happend…" Or perhaps he's been too busy living his best life, playing Beat Saber and taking selfies by the Eiffel Tower to spot Tim Cook stealing his (virtual) lunch.
Either way Zuck just had to go there today and - guess what - he thinks Quest 3 is better and he can't resist telling us why. In a reel posted to Instagram he calmly goes through all the areas in which he thinks Quest 3 is getting a raw deal (with only a hint of toy-throwing indignation that Apple in now getting all the credit for something HE invented).
To his credit he makes some pretty good points. That pass through video doesn't look so bad (the clip is shot by a crony wearing a Quest 3) and the virtual windows he pops up (while curvey) look every bit as floaty as the ones on Apple's Vision Pro. And he makes some good points about being able to play things like Microsoft Game Pass right here and right now, and with PROPER physical controllers too.
But… Yeah… There's more than a few sour grapes being rolled into view here and - given that Apple has had the chutzpah to release what's little more than a cool toy for watching Apple TV and charge $3,499 for it - it's hard to see Captain Cook and his crew losing any sleep.
More worrying for them will be the fact that - staying true to their no-quibbles 14-day return policy which expires tomorrow - users who bought the device on launch day only to find that it didn't fill a $3,499 hole in their lives have begun returning them for full refunds. (Probably after making a few quid with a YouTube review.)
Main grumbles? The unit's weight and the degree of comfort that it affords have been sticking points with early adopters, but mostly it's the lack of a killer app or clear purpose to warrant hanging onto the thing that's sending buyers back to stores.
Same, returned mine today. Amazing piece of tech. Demo blew me away and convinced me I had to have it. But couldn’t find enough reasons I needed to strap myself in daily, blocking out usage of my iPhone, etc. Probably would have kept for half price. May rebuy later for vOS 2.0
— the invisible nb (@TapDatApp) February 14, 2024
While two of those things are unavoidable - at least in this generation of the hardware - it's the third sticking point - the lack of a coherent use case for a VR/AR headset - that Apple will be finding most worrisome.
But then again, that never stopped Zuckerberg from trying.
