Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth shared his opinion on Apple Vision Pro, giving some interesting thoughts.
A day after Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg shared his thoughts on the Apple Vision Pro during his Instagram AMA, Andrew Bosworth, Meta’s CTO, also shared his opinion on the headset, discussing its pros and cons and comparing it with the Quest 3.
Mark Zuckerberg praised the Vision Pro’s resolution and eye tracking capabilities but criticized its motion blur, wired battery, weight, and comfort. Most importantly, he condemned the headset’s limited use cases, comparing it to the Quest 3, which offers immersive gaming, multi-screen functionality, social interaction, and more, all at a fraction of the price.
Andrew Bosworth shares a similar opinion to Zuckerberg’s, but he delves deeper into the pros and cons of the headset. Here are some intriguing insights and viewpoints from Meta’s CTO:
- “I found the weight really bad. And you know it’s one of those things where I get why they wanted to do the metal, it’s like part of their design language, but metal and glass are not premium materials when they’re on your face. In your hand they are, they feel nice and they react nicely, but on your face, lightness is the premium material. Lightness.”
- “I found that motion blur in the passthrough really distracted me. And I look around a lot I guess. I don’t know [laugh], maybe that’s the problem. So I found that the motion blur really bad.”
- “We have a prototype, you’ve seen it before, of EyeSight. I think our research prototype is actually better, and I still don’t think it’s worth the cost or weight that it adds.”
- “I was completely prepared to tell you how great I thought [Apple Vision Pro] was. And of course, there are tremendously great things about it. The resolution and the latency, the two things that they clearly optimized the entire system around are great. You know, it’s tremendous. And when you’re sitting there, when you’re watching a movie, you’re like, oh man, I get this, totally get it. The integrations with their ecosystem are great.”
- “I think our hand tracking is better. You know when I was in Fruit Ninja and some of the other games you could see the latency which you really don’t see with our hand tracking. And let’s be honest, the fact that we ship high precision controllers is a huge advantage for us”
- “Gaze [Eye Tracking] is cool. You know gaze is a cool thing. We’ve played with that a ton and we’ve got a couple of things that we use internally. And so I think that’s definitely a cool thing and they did such a great job and they put a lot of expense in that.”
- “There are things like travel mode, that we’re bringing back. I actually mentioned that before they even had released the headset, I talked about how we’ve been planning to bring that back.”
- “Okay so in summary what do I say? I think we have the best headset out there. I think if you want to get a headset that does mixed reality I think you should get Quest 3, and you save yourself $3,000. But I’m not just talking about the price, that’s a part of it. I’m talking about the actual trade-offs they made.”
A couple of intriguing observations occur from their statements. Both Mark Zuckerberg and Andrew Bosworth appear to appreciate Vision Pro’s impressive resolution and minimal latency. Vision Pro boasts one of the highest resolutions ever seen in a VR headset, measuring approximately 3660 px by 3200 px, as measured by iFixit. Moreover, its latency is among the lowest compared to other headsets. Additionally, both of them also enjoyed eye-tracking interaction, although they noted occasional inaccuracies.
One interesting point Boz raised was his opinion on EyeSight: “I still don’t think it’s worth the cost or weight that it adds.” This suggests that Meta may not currently prioritize integrating this feature into their headsets, but it’s possible they’re exploring alternatives. Meta has their own version of EyeSight in the lab, known as reverse-passthrough, and while it looks as creepy as the one in Vision Pro, Meta may have plans to incorporate it in the future.
“Mirror Lake” is a prototype headset from Meta described as “practical to build now.” The company unveiled a render of the headset, showcasing various advanced features, including its version of EyeSight, which appears much better compared to that of the Vision Pro. However, remember that the render represents the concept, not the product.
If you want to listen to Bosworth’s entire AMA on Instagram, click here.
