It is not fair to compare the Quest devices, given what we know about the Vision Pro so far.
The AR functionality on current-gen gaming headsets is terrible, and the screen door effect is glaringly obvious.
What Apple is advertising blows the Oculus devices away. Whether the difference is worth the extra $3000 is a question that has yet to be answered, but it’s a category error to compare them directly.
Every functionality that i see in these videos already exists in Q3, but presumably in lower resolution. Is hardware going to be the differentiator that makes it so much more useful? It's also theoretical atm
During the first iPhone release nay-sayers also brought up that the Blackberries already did what the iPhone did, it didn't stop it. The iPad was just "a big iPhone" that no one was going to buy, the Apple Watch was just another smartwatch, the iPod was just another MP3 player, etc.
Apple historically has been able to improve on current existing technology to deliver an experience that the rest of the industry had to catch up to, they aren't in the business of releasing completely new unseen product types since the 80s...
In fairness to the naysayers, nothing Apple has released yet is like this. The price is enormous even by Apple's standards, and the value proposition appears to be entirely unproven.
Only time will tell where the market goes with this one. Just concluding off pricing alone though, I think it's ridiculous to expect Vision Pro to be remotely as successful as the iPad or even the Apple Watch. Cupertino has their work cut out for them on this one, that's for sure.
The Quest devices are all fully wireless and have a pretty decent existing library of Quest-specific games and apps that you can play even if you don't own a computer.
You could also connect them to a PC wirelessly and play any PC VR games that your computer is capable of running. It used to be a little more cumbersome to set up, but Valve recently released a native SteamLink app on the Quest store that vastly simplifies the whole PC VR experience.
The Quest is fully cordless whereas the Vision Pro has a cord that goes to a battery pack that you wear on your waist. Though neither device requires you to be tethered to a computer.
> Is hardware going to be the differentiator that makes it so much more useful?
The tech journalists who got an early look seem to think so. Obviously time will tell if this holds up under real world conditions.
I was a VR early adopter and have used the best consumer units available. The thing that always held it back for me was the obvious screen door effect and the isolation of these headsets.
Apple seems to have focused on both of these issues, which makes the device intriguing. Being able to immediately interact with the room in high fidelity will make a huge difference. The AR mode on the Valve Index is awful, but also really cool. If Apple delivers on half of the room AR, it’s a huge step forward.
And a lack of screen door effect makes it viable for real productivity use cases.
Quest 3 screens are lower res, just barely enough to make text somewhat workable for me. It is also missing the eye tracking. Latency with hand tracking is not as good I hear and the passthrough is also lower res.
Also the software is much more restrictive. Barely any “flat” apps and doesn’t support the hybrid 2d apps with depth. Also can’t pin apps around a physical space. Some of that is coming but it’s clearly way behind in terms of software features. Which I’ll add lower latency streaming from other devices to as well
Passthrough also is pretty poor quality, enough to navigate a room but too blurry to read text and the cameras don't handle phone screens that well. Definitely usable but you'll notice you're still wearing a headset.
The AR functionality on current-gen gaming headsets is terrible, and the screen door effect is glaringly obvious.
What Apple is advertising blows the Oculus devices away. Whether the difference is worth the extra $3000 is a question that has yet to be answered, but it’s a category error to compare them directly.
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