Mark Zuckerberg says Apple's Vision Pro earbuds are expensive

Meta co-founder Mark Zuckerberg calls Apple's Vision Pro headphones a very expensive product that offers no "magic bullets." In a company-wide meeting and as reported by The Verge, Zuckerberg suggested that he was proud that Meta's own Quest virtual reality headset is so much cheaper and brings people together. He said Apple's promotional videos only showed isolated people, which might be the reality in the future, but something he wouldn't want to see.

In the meeting, Zuckerberg also touched on the technology behind the Vision Pro. He notes that Apple made some concessions to offer a metal design, while most other VR/AR headsets feature plastic construction to keep them lightweight. The Vision Pro headset does not have a built-in battery to keep the weight light, which the CEO of Meta also referred to. He stated:

"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 of physics that our teams haven't already explored and thought of. They went with a higher resolution display, and between that and all the technology they put in there to power it, it costs seven times more and now requires so much energy that now you need a battery and a wire attached to it to use it. They made that design trade-off, and it might make sense for the cases that they're going for."

Zuckerberg was also optimistic about the metaverse project with Apple's entry into space. He said that the future of AR/VR headsets will be a "fun ride." However, the core visions of both companies differ, with the metaverse being more about a virtual world where people create their own avatars, while Apple wants to offer augmented reality by overlaying images on top of real-world objects. The Meta Quests headset is also geared towards gaming. Apple promises some gaming capabilities, though the Vison Pro headset (at least the first-gen iteration) seems more focused on content consumption and productivity.

This was also stated by Tim Cook in an interview after the official launch of Vision Pro earlier this week. Apple's CEO declared that his first AR/VR headset can do everything the iPhone and Mac can, and more. When asked if the average person can buy the Vision Pro headset next year, he said a lot would depend on the global financial situation. Cook justified the cost by saying that the Vision Pro features the best displays and a powerful M2 SoC to power the device. All of these technologies have costs involved.