Mark Zuckerberg Said The Quiet Part Out Loud

Even before the unveiling of the Vision Pro I was extremely skeptical it would be worth the cost. I wrote a post titled ‘Could The Vision Pro Be 2024’s Studio Display’

Now the second thing I’d like to talk about. The Quest 3 looks amazing. Full AR capabilities, a high resolution display, and for $500 too? Apple’s Vision Pro is rumoured to be $3000. What could it possibly have that justifies a 6x higher cost?

It’s interesting to read it because it was published before the Vision Pro’s reveal and when it was published I called the device the ‘Reality Pro’ because that’s what everyone thought it would be called. And I said it would be $3000, turns out it’s a bit more than that. Plus I criticized it for not having a third strap. Interestingly enough there is a version with a third strap which does appear to help but it’s not the default for whatever reason.

I was thinking of writing a follow-up to that post but what would I say? The Vision Pro is a bad value? Well, looks like I don’t need to because Mark Zuckerberg has said it for me:

The internet has been awash in criticism for Zuckerberg’s remarks. They’ve compared him to Steve Ballmer.

500 dollars? Fully subsidized? With a plan? I said that is the most expensive phone in the world. And it doesn’t appeal to business customers because it doesn’t have a keyboard. Which makes it not a very good email machine.

Now I don’t really think this criticism is fair. For one thing the iPhone was a massive paradigm shift as far as smartphones go. You can see it in Steve Jobs’ keynote. Specifically in this slide:

And he’s right. It’s way smarter and it’s way easier to use. Even a child could use it. Contrast this to the Vision Pro. The Vision Pro’s event was a straight sales presentation. They had to really sell it. “This replaces your phone, your laptop, and your TV.” Honestly it’s a bit cringy. Apple is supposed to be showing you transformative experiences, not doing hard sells like some used car salesman. Especially when making such questionable equivalencies.

But onto the two points. Is it easier to use? Actually it is, Apple has spent a lot making the device as intuitive as possible. It’s something Apple is really good at.

But is it smarter? Well… not really. And as Mark Zuckerberg says in his video… you can do pretty much anything that you can do in the Vision Pro in the Quest 3. And some much better too.

The one thing that Vision Pro does better is movies. It is very cool to get transported into Joshua Tree and do stuff there. But, I mean, do I really need that? I’m just fine with watching a movie on my laptop or my phone (if I can get it to play back at 1.5–2x speed). I’m not exactly the target customer.

So I’m just left with this sense of ‘Why is the Vision Pro so expensive?’ I actually wrote about this before.

There are many possible reasons listed in that post but I’m starting to think one major reason is just because Apple is late to the party. Facebook/Oculus had a lot of time to perfect the technology and it shows. Apple Gen 1 products tend not to be very good and this appears to be the case with the Vision Pro.

So do I think the Quest 3 will do better than the Vision Pro? Not really. The most important part of a device is not the device itself, it’s the apps. The Quest 3 has a lot of apps, sure, but Apple has more. This is because Apple has allowed every single iPad app to also run on the Vision Pro.

That is a lot of apps and it could result in the Vision Pro becoming the more attractive product. But will people pay $3000 more just to get a killer app? Maybe. My sister once purchased an Xbox just to play a single game. A Vision Pro is more expensive than an Xbox but it’s a similar idea.

But, you know, there is one thing that really annoys me about Apple. People are going to say, “Look how well the Vision Pro did, Zuckerberg was wrong.” They’re already doing it right now.

But just selling well doesn’t inherently mean you have the better device. This drives me crazy with the Apple Watch. Every time I criticize the Apple Watch people are like, “But how come it sold like a bazillion units?”

Look, selling more doesn’t necessarily mean you’re the best. Just look at Duolingo. Hated by people everywhere and yet they’re making millions of dollars. As an app developer it makes me so mad.

I suspect that this is going to happen with the Vision Pro. It’s an inferior product but just because of Apple’s massive App Store dominance it will be successful.

Which is such a shame because it feels like Apple products are getting worse. Like what happened to the magical experiences of the Mac, the iPod, the iPhone, or the iPad? Now all we have are products that copy other products and they are almost universally overhyped. Like the AirPods Pro 2. I fell for the hype, I bought them.

But they’re not that great. The sound quality is good, it’s probably the best I’ve ever heard from wireless earbuds, marginally, but the noise cancelling is just bad. It cancels out low frequency noises well enough but it’s like they forgot about the high frequency noises like people speaking.

So I guess in most places they’re good enough but I spend a lot of time in coffee shops with people talking and something that cancels out low frequency but not high frequency noises? It is very uncomfortable, it almost feels like nails on a chalkboard. Not that bad, but a similar idea.

Not to say the Vision Pro is bad. Who knows, maybe the next version will be half the price and twice the speed and it will be amazing. It just feels like Apple didn’t fully think through the device. Like the Eyesight and virtual avatar features have been almost universally mocked.

It almost feels like they were designed by marketing to look cool rather than be functional. Just like that two strap system. Which is such a shame. We’ve seen companies that are run by penny pinchers rather than engineers. They have been in the news recently. And I don’t want Apple to be one of those companies. Apple is better than this.

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