Meta Unveils the Vision Pro Apple Should Have Shipped
Two and a half years ago, just weeks after the launch of the Vision Pro, it was clear to me that Apple had made a mistake. They simply had no business launching the product in that current state. For all the talk of the company missing Steve Jobs' product vision, they clearly at least missed his ruthless feedback and curation here. The product that shipped should have been a dev kit – at best.
Yesterday, we saw the first glimpse of the product that should have launched. The only problem for Apple is that it's made by Meta.
To be clear, I'm still not sure how much of an actual problem this will be for Apple. Simply because I'm still not sure what the market for VR headsets looks like in 2027. But I know that a $1,299 device seems about three times more enticing than a $3,699 version. And a 100 gram pair of glasses that you can slip on rather than a 700 gram brick that you strap on to your face sounds about seven times more enticing. You'll still look like a complete jackass, but at least you won't feel as much like one!
That is to say, while the Meta VR Glasses still aren't perfect, they at least seem like a reasonable thing for consumers to buy. The Vision Pro was not. Even the second iteration – speed boosted, and heavier – was not. To be fair, this is also not Meta's first attempt in the space – far from it – but they've been willing to stick with it and keep iterating relatively fast whereas it seems like Apple has mainly moved on.
Will this Meta product bring them back to the table? Maybe, but they have other fish to fry, namely in trying to combat Meta's actual hit product in their smartglasses. Granted, they're not an Apple-sized hit – far from it – but Apple clearly feels the need to mobilize before they get such scale. Cupertino clearly wants to run their playbook and take such a product mainstream. So the Vision Pro gets left in the rearview for now.
But again, the Meta VR Glasses look like the v1 Apple should have shipped of the Vision Pro. It was almost exactly two years ago that I wrote about the obvious mistake Apple made it not offloading the onboard compute to a puck as Meta's prototypes were doing – especially if you were already forced to have a tethered external battery pack! My god that was a stupid design decision. I'm sure there was more to it with latency and what not. But come on.
Further, it seems like Meta was actually able to take some learnings from Apple to figure out what people want out of such a device. In a not-to-subtle callback to Jobs' original iPhone unveil, Meta kept reiterating that the VR Glasses were three products in one: a private cinema, a game console, and a computer.
That is exactly what the Vision Pro should be, yet isn't. The Quest wasn't better than Vision Pro, but the Meta VR Glasses very well could be.
Further, here's Mark Gurman reporting on Meta's product for Bloomberg:
In an interview, Meta Chief Technology Officer Andrew Bosworth said the company owes Apple “a little bit of a debt of gratitude.” He said many entertainment partners first became excited about immersive computing because of the Vision Pro and credited Apple with giving the industry “permission to explore split architectures,” helping inspire Meta’s external-pack design.
“I think they definitely were pioneers on some of those pieces for us and did the heavy lifting,” Bosworth said. “But otherwise, there’s not a huge comparison,” he said, noting the lower price and weight.
“We all know they missed the mark in that you just couldn’t wear that thing for very long,” Bosworth added. “It wasn’t glasses — you looked goofy wearing it.”
Again, to be clear, from what I've seen, you will still look goofy wearing the Meta VR Glasses. Well, that's a bit unfair. You will look like you are wearing medical glasses due to a loss of vision. If anything, Meta's glasses look more like those that the vision impaired wear because they are glasses and not a headset. But they'll also likely still be mainly worn at home. Or they'll be about a million times easier to carry on and use on a plane.
But I digress. Boz is correct in his other points. Meta can run here because Apple crawled.
Apple was so fucking slow in rolling out content tailored for the Vision Pro, but now that it's starting to roll in, Meta is right there to take advantage. Sure, things shot for Vision Pro may not directly translate to Meta's glasses, but there are probably ways to make it all work pretty well. Back in April 2024, I wondered if Apple would strike a deal with IMAX to more directly translate that format to their headset. Well guess who did?
Apple thawed the content producers mindset around making and tailoring such newfangled content – including with sports. Meta will now benefit from Apple's too-early mistakes as they largely sit back and watch from the sidelines. How very Apple of Meta.
M.G. Siegler
M.G. Siegler
M.G. Siegler
M.G. Siegler
M.G. Siegler