Metaverse evangelist Mark Zuckerberg took a shot at tech rival Apple over its pricey mixed-reality headset, saying the brand new gadget is just for folks “sitting on a sofa by themself.”
Apple’s “Imaginative and prescient Professional” — rolled out by CEO Tim Prepare dinner with an eye-popping $3,499 price ticket — will instantly compete with Meta’s lower-priced headsets when it’s launched subsequent yr.
“Each demo that they confirmed was an individual sitting on a sofa by themself,” Zuckerberg advised workers throughout an all-hands assembly at Meta’s headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif., on Thursday, in line with The Verge.
“I imply, that might be the imaginative and prescient of the way forward for computing, however like, it’s not the one which I would like.”
“Our gadget can also be about being energetic and doing issues,” he stated.
Zuckerberg has poured billions of {dollars} into constructing his imaginative and prescient for the metaverse that must be a “essentially social” expertise for customers, he advised his troops.
Apple unveiled its long-delayed headset simply days after Zuckerberg announced the Meta Quest 3 was due for launch this fall. The Meta headset begins at simply $499, and is 40% thinner than the Quest 2 model, in line with Zuckerberg.
Apple’s headset is probably the most vital problem but to Meta’s dominance of the so-called “metaverse.”
Meta has positioned a heavy emphasis on social gaming and health in its model of combined actuality.
Apple billed its gadget as a “spatial pc” geared towards work and leisure – with 4K decision shows and highly effective M2 pc chips – and stated will probably be probably the most technologically superior product of its variety available on the market.
Zuckerberg famous that Apple’s gadget “prices seven instances extra” than the Meta Quest 3 headset that can launch later this yr and “requires a lot vitality that now you want a battery and a wire connected to it to make use of it.”
“From what I’ve seen initially, I’d say the excellent news is that there’s no sort of magical options that they need to any of the constraints on legal guidelines of physics that our groups haven’t already explored and considered,” Zuckerberg stated.
Zuckerberg isn’t the one critic of the Apple Imaginative and prescient Professional.
Viral videos revealed that audience members audibly groaned when Apple executives introduced the headset’s steep value and early 2024 launch date. Others took to social media to poke enjoyable on the gadget.
Elsewhere, former Apple govt Tony Fadell – often known as the “father of the iPod” – argued the corporate had “jumped the shark” with the high-priced device.
