Abstract: At present, it seems that Vision Pro has brought far more positive effects to Meta than negative ones.
Recently, Wall Street** published an article in which "people familiar with the matter" were quoted as saying that Meta hopes Vision Pro can "reinvigorate its $50 billion metaverse efforts – an effort in this direction that has not yet been widely accepted by consumers."
The article explains that Meta executives, including Mark Zuckerberg, are "optimistic" about the launch of Vision Pro. They believe that Apple's entry into this space will validate their efforts in existing businesses and attract more consumers.
The former "imaginary enemy".
Although Meta has never admitted it, Apple must have put a lot of pressure on Meta when it first announced the launch of Vision Pro. Earlier last year, there were rumors in the industry that the Vision Pro would be officially released at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference on June 6, and although the previous release repeatedly bounced, the news was almost confirmed.
In this case, the new Quest 3, which was originally speculated in the industry to be launched at the Connect conference this month, was suddenly announced by Zuckerberg on June 1, only four days before Apple's WWDC 23.
In the teaser released with the official announcement**,Quest 3The appearance has been very directly displayed,In addition,This device**、Parameters、New handle design, etc. are also shown one by one,On the eve of the release of Vision Pro, it was out of the limelight,Less than one-sixth of the price of Apple devices has also become**One of the topics。
However, the device information released by Meta this time is still limited, and more content disclosure is still put at the Connect conference later. It is not difficult to see that in the face of the new product signal released by Apple, Meta is a little "anxious".
Meta certainly won't admit it. In a follow-up interview, Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth said that the Quest 3 was announced in June because they found last year that many consumers made the decision to buy a device in the summer, and if they announced the headset in September or October, they would not be able to take full advantage of the sales opportunity of the holiday season. Bosworth also said: "People won't believe me – I don't care. I'm telling the truth. You can trust me or not. It's up to you. ”
Whatever the reason, the fact is that the Quest 3 has taken preempt the Vision Pro. And from all aspects, the two products are indeed worth competing.
The first is the hardware aspect. The resolution of the Vision Pro is very high, it comes with a monocular 4K Micro-OLED display with a resolution of more than 4000 x 3000 pixels per eye for a total of 23 million pixels. In terms of interaction, Vision Pro pioneered handleless tracking, which has outstanding advantages. In addition, the M2 chip equipped with Vision Pro is a self-developed high-computing power chip, with 10 GPU cores, and its graphics performance will be stronger.
The Quest 3 isn't far behind when it comes to hardware. On the display, through dual RGB color cameras and a depth sensor, the Quest 3's ** delivery can present more accurate colors and achieve more realistic real-world rendering. Although there is no eye-tracking function, it also supports bare-handed gesture interaction, and the removal of the tracking ring for the controller Touch Plus, which was released with the Quest 3, is also an innovative advantage - after all, haptic feedback from the controller is necessary for some virtual interactions, and the new ringless controller also provides new ideas for controller design in the industry. In terms of chips, the Quest 3 is the first in the world to be equipped with the Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2 chip, which also brings a significant improvement in performance.
The second is the corporate side. With the development and layout in recent years, Meta's position in the field of virtual reality has gradually stabilized and become the leader of the industry. The Quest series still accounts for nearly half of the Steam VR device usage statistics, and Meta continues to expand its technology and talent pool in the field of virtual reality through acquisitions and mergers.
And Apple has always had a complete ecosystem in terms of hardware, including iPhone, iPad, Mac, and other devices that can seamlessly connect with Vision Pro. In terms of operating system and app store, Apple also has its own complete ecosystem, which is lacking in Meta. Not to mention these, Apple also has a group of fanatical "fruit fans" who have a certain curiosity about Apple's new device.
These will lead to competition between the Vision Pro and Quest series, which will affect Meta's market share and revenue. If Apple's new product is successful in the market, then Meta may need to invest more to deal with the competition.
Now the "new teammates".
Although at first, Meta may have really thought that Vision Pro would pose a threat to them, over time, Meta has probably seen the release of Vision Pro as a new challenge and opportunity.
From the perspective of the competition,Meta believes that Quest will benefit from Vision Pro. In a recent interview, Meta's VP of the Metaverse, Vishal Shah, referred to the upcoming launch of Vision Pro on February 2, saying, "One of the benefits that we're going to get when Apple releases their device is that people will be able to see it, try it, and use this thing." ”
Shah said that Apple customers may be more inclined to buy the Quest due to the higher ** of the Vision Pro. It thinks that users may have the idea that "maybe I can't afford a $3,500 device, but I can find something more affordable." ”
And from a macro market perspective,As mentioned at the beginning of the article, if the Vision Pro can succeed in the market, it will prove the potential and attractiveness of the VR AR market, which may prompt more consumers and developers to enter the field, which in turn will promote the development of the entire industry.
This is both a challenge and an opportunity for Meta, which needs to continuously improve its technical level and product innovation capabilities to cope with market competition.
The Wall Street** article said, "Meta employees see Quest and its software ecosystem as Apple's primary replacement in the space, filling the role that Google's Android plays in smartphones." Meta executives and industry insiders believe that the battle in the future will focus on software manufacturers, who will play a huge role in developing apps that appeal to more users. ”
At the same time, for XR, a field that has just faced a new inflection point, Apple's addition cannot be said to be a formidable enemy, or a powerful "teammate" is more appropriate. There is still too much uncertainty in the XR industry, and for more tech companies, led by Meta, Apple's addition just proves that their choice is not wrong.
The transition from fully virtual to mixed reality
In fact, Vision Pro has already had an impact on Meta's planning. In the early days, both Apple and Meta officials and industry insiders explained the vision of the two companies. Apple claims that what they want is to bring people closer to each other, not to "disconnect" users from reality – and that's what the "eyesight" feature does. Relatively speaking, what they consider to be a "disconnection" from reality is the full immersion mode of the Quest – once you put on the headset, you are basically immersed in a completely virtual atmosphere.
But now, Meta has begun to shift its mindset, and they're more focused on mixed reality than they were at the beginning. Previously, Meta was talking more about the virtual metaverse world, which is an amorphous concept that is imaginary, where people work and play in virtual reality. But now, Meta is more concerned with virtual images superimposed on real-world environments — and the mixed reality features highlighted by the Quest 3 are a reflection of that thinking.
Recently, researchers at Reality Labs, Meta's XR division, just demonstrated a way to use augmented reality to interact with the real world through a project. According to the introduction, this method makes it possible to virtualize real objects so that they can be interacted with in real time. In particular, the method not only digitizes the object, but also seamlessly erases its real counterpart, creating an unimaginable fusion between the real and virtual worlds.
Researchers Mohamed Kari, Reinhard Schütte, and Raj Sodhi refer to this concept as "scene response," an approach that creates "the optical illusion that virtual action affects a physical scene."
In previous AR presentations, virtual objects seemed to be suspended in the room, or attached to a wall, and they would follow the physics of the room, such as rolling on a table and then falling correctly when they reached the edge - except that the AR content was completely virtual.
However, digitizing real objects in space, giving users virtual control of them, and at the same time erasing real objects from where they were at the same time is a very interesting innovation.
Now, the technology shown by the researchers is not visually perfect and is very much a proof of concept, but as the technology evolves, it's not hard to imagine that it will soon actually be built.
Meta is trying to integrate virtual content into the real world, rather than just emphasizing "virtual". Interestingly, Apple executives have long been critical of the so-called "metaverse". For example, Greg Joswiak has stated that he will never use the term "metaverse." At the same time, Tim Cook also expressed doubts about whether "ordinary people can tell you what the virtual universe is".
Summary
All in all, the Vision Pro launch has a lot of obvious implications for Meta, including competitive pressures, changes in consumer expectations and demands, and the next path for its metaverse plans. But for now, it seems that Vision Pro has brought far more positive effects to Meta than negatives.
Wen Qing Yueling (the article is not marked on the Internet).
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