Mark Zuckerberg says Quest 3 is a 'better product' than Apple's Vision Pro. Here's why

Mark Zuckerberg said he was surprised by how many trade-offs Apple had to make to the quality of the device, the comfort, ergonomics and other aspects

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is escalating the battle with Apple as the race to dominate the next frontier of computing heats up.

In a video clip posted on Instagram on February 14, Zuckerberg said that every generation of computing has had an open model and a closed model.

"In mobile, Apple's closed model won. But if you go back to the personal computing (PC) era, Microsoft's open model was the winner. In this next generation, Meta is going to be the open model and I want to make sure that the open model wins out again" he said.

Zuckerberg's remarks came after Apple released its first mixed reality headset, Vision Pro, in June last year to take on the much-cheaper Meta's Quest headsets.

Over the years, the company has spent tens of billions of dollars on its metaverse ambitions and even changed its corporate name from Facebook to Meta, as the social networking giant stakes claim to shape the nascent technology. Quest headsets are a key component to achieve this vision.

This move has become critical for Meta after its core advertising business faced a significant setback in the past couple of years due to Apple's iOS privacy changes that made it harder to offer targeted advertising.

Meta has clashed with Apple on various fronts in recent years, including app store policies and consumer privacy. Recently, Zuckerberg criticised Apple's proposed App Store policies to comply with the European Union's (EU) upcoming Digital Markets Act. He described the rules as "so onerous" and "at odds with the intent of the EU regulation" that he would be surprised if any developer chose to adopt them.

Apple’s Vision Pro headset, which became available at Apple Store locations in the United States earlier this month, has received mixed reviews so far. One of the main drawbacks is Vision Pro’s high price tag of $3,499, compared with Meta’s Quest 3 headset, which costs $500.

In the video clip, Zuckerberg said that prior to the launch of Apple’s Vision Pro, he expected Quest headsets to offer better value for most users due to its significantly lower price point, being seven times less expensive.

"After using it, I don't just think that Quest is the better value. I think Quest is the better product, period," he said in the video that was shot with Quest 3's video passthrough system in his living room.

Zuckerberg said that different companies make different design decisions for their headsets and they have different strengths. But overall, he claimed that Quest is better for the vast majority of things that people use mixed reality for. Mixed reality is an immersive technology that blends virtual objects with physical objects around the user's surroundings.

"Apple's screen does have a higher resolution. But I was surprised by how many trade-offs they had to make to the quality of the device, the comfort, ergonomics and other aspects of the display in order to get to that," he said.

Zuckerberg added that the Quest 3 weighs 120 grams less, making it more comfortable to wear for longer periods. The absence of a wired battery pack and a wider field of view also makes it better suited for tasks involving movement, playing games, working out, hanging out with friends, and socialising, among others, he said.

"Quest's immersive content library is a lot deeper. We've been working with studios, building virtual and mixed reality games and other content for a long time now, and if you want to watch YouTube or play Xbox on the big screen anywhere you go, that's only available on Quest for now," he said.

Earlier this month, Apple claimed that over 600 apps and games have been developed for Apple Vision Pro.

However, several prominent companies, including Spotify and Netflix, have not developed native apps for the headset or expressed plans to make their iPad apps compatible. YouTube has also not developed a native app or made its iPad app compatible as of now, although the company has stated that a Vision Pro app is on the roadmap.

Meanwhile, Meta claims to have over 1,000 apps in its Quest app store. In September last year, Meta said that it had generated over $2 billion in revenue from the sale of games and apps on the Quest Store.

Also Read: Meta buys three VR game studios, adds Iron Man, Among Us to gaming lineup

Meta's Reality Labs division, which houses the company's augmented and virtual reality efforts, crossed $1 billion in revenue for the first time in Q4 2023, driven by strong holiday sales of its headsets. The unit's expenses also shot up to $5.7 billion for the quarter, resulting in an operating loss of $4.6 billion.

Last month, Zuckerberg also expressed his intentions to build artificial general intelligence, a form of artificial intelligence where machines can learn and perform tasks like humans, and open-source it to everyone across the world.