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Comment by rwc | Hacker News Reader

Two possibilities, both can be true: 1. It's recognition that in a match up of "Pro v. Pro" products, Apple Vision Pro trounces Quest Pro and it's not feasible to make that gap up at this point; and

2. If Apple is going to mainstream the AR/VR market, it's not bad to position as the de facto low-cost alternative (see also Android/iPhone).

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Or, they have come to the realization that there is no real future market for "pro" VR

Or, that they cannot deliver the required product to make Pro VR a thing without burning billions more in capital.

Apple controls the full stack. Processor, operating system, optical system and user facing software.

Meta doesn’t really control much. They’re bound by Qualcomm so can’t optimize the firmware and signal handling, wasting CPU cycles on things that Apple can offload to custom silicon.

They’re bound by Android which doesn’t have a progressive app system like Apple does. So apps are bespoke at the moment or run in a window with hacks. You can’t really do a hybrid app.

They don’t have the ecosystem of apps that keep a user in the headset once the game session is over.

So even though Apple is newer to the field, they can leapfrog metas capabilities for a pro device.

The other aspect is that this market segment has fewer cost considerations. So they’re fighting an uphill battle for a segment that doesn’t care about the only thing they really win on: cost.

To be fair, the Quest Pro has been in market for almost a year, and I'm betting it's another year before Apple Vision Pro hits the market. So a 2 year gap makes a bunch of sense that Apple's design would be far ahead.

The fairer comparison would be Quest 3 (~$500) to AVP (~$3500). Let's see how those two stack up when they are both available.

This seems like a comment made wearing Apple-tinted glasses.

1. It's recognition that in a match up of "Pro v. Pro" products, Apple Vision Pro trounces Quest Pro

Uh, Vision Pro hasn't been released yet. Its definitely miles ahead in concept (and priced to match); and seems to have got a better idea of the high-end possibilities. Its clearly not a consumer product at that price though.

2. If Apple is going to mainstream the AR/VR market

This is silly. Apple is way behind here. Meta has sold millions of headsets - no way is Apple mainstreaming anything in comparison. We can review the situation in a few years, but lets not get ahead of ourselves.

I'm very pro Apple's vision (ha) here, the Vision Pro is an exciting concept - but could really do without the framing that seems to not see that Apple is a laggard at the moment (possibly for sound strategic reasons though I suspect its a bit of both).

There were other smart devices on the market when the first iPhone was released. Yet Apple is credited with mainstreaming the idea of smartphones.

> Its clearly not a consumer product at that price though.

Quest Pro at $1500 is not a consumer product either.

$1000

I was wondering if they are doing this as a move to undercut Apple by shrinking the pro XR market.

Why would FB give up to an unreleased, unproven product? Apple goes for their ecosystem anyway. It s more likely there is a shortage of cheap components and they are focusing on what's most likely to sell

Well the existing Quest Pro wasn’t exactly setting the sales charts on fire.

The Quest 2 is doing great (as VR sales go). Does anyone know how well the Pro did? I imagine very poorly.

The Quest Pro uses the same chipset as Quest 2, with better cooling, allowing a bit better performance, but also has higher resolution than the 2, requiring more performance. There's not a significant difference between Quest Pro and Quest 2 performance.

Quest 3 has a next gen chipset that is rumored to outperform the Quest 2/Pro significantly.

These are primarily standalone devices, and graphics quality is important. The graphics quality is fairly abysmal for the vast majority of games available right now. I have a Quest 2 and Quest Pro.

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