Apple Vision Pro vs Meta Quest 3
VR headsets just became cool again. Coming off the back of Meta’s lackluster announcement of the Quest 3, Apple’s Vision Pro has set the Internet on fire. From next-gen specs to an interface that might as well be the future of computing, Meta has a lot to compete against Apple for, but it might not need to win every battle. Apple beat Meta’s existing lineup of headsets in every metric, as AIM predicted in the article on Apple’s upcoming metaverse dominance. Now that both headsets are out in the wild, we can delve deeper into each headset and see what they bring to the table. Vision matters most The most important part of any VR headset is, arguably, the screen. The Meta Quest 2 offered an LCD screen, with a resolution of 1832 x 1920 per eye, with each screen running at 90Hz. According to a hands-on review of the Quest 3, the resolution has slightly been bumped up, with the screen technology reportedly remaining the same. The Vision Pro headset, on the other hand, has 2 micro-OLED displays packing 4k screens for each eye. OLED is not only superior to LCD in terms of contrast and colour accuracy, but it is also more difficult to make out individual pixels thanks to the Vision Pro’s pixel density. While there has been no mention of the refresh rate, it is safe to give this win to Apple simply due to the quality and resolution of their displays. Battle of the brains The Meta Quest 3 is slated to launch with Qualcomm’s latest chips made for VR headsets, titled the Snapdragon XR2 platform. These chips offer support for up to 8K video, have in-built AI processing units, low-latency video passthrough, and improved thermals over the XR1 platform. Apple has brought its silicon manufacturing chops to the table once again, by not only integrating a M2 chip into the headset but also developing a new one from the ground up. This chip, titled the R1, was created specifically for real-time sensor processing of the onboard sensors. The M2 chip is also capable of desktop-level workloads, as opposed to the XR2’s mobile-grade performance. Sensors abound When tackling augmented and virtual reality, sensors are a must-have. These not only determine what is around the user, but also enable important features like passthrough, inside-out tracking, and hand control. The Quest 2 supports 6 degrees of freedom thanks to its inbuilt accelerometer, gyroscope, and 4 front-facing cameras. While other details are sparse, it is clear that the Quest 3 will not be able to catch up to Apple, simply due to the scale of the latter’s offering. The Apple Vision Pro headset has 12 cameras in various positions all over the headset, five sensors to track other details, which include a LiDAR Scanner, and 2 TrueDepth sensors. These sensors work with 2 infrared flood illuminators to paint a 3D image of the surroundings. To process all of this data quickly and on the device, Apple even created the R1 chip, which reduces the latency to around 12 ms. Working in a new reality Using a VR headset requires a new way of interfacing with software, and both these companies have poured resources into creating new operating systems for the headsets. However, where Meta has failed, Apple has flourished. In 2022, it was reported that Meta had canned their internal development of a new AR/VR OS, instead opting to continue using Android as the operating system for its headsets. While Android has a history of supporting AR and VR, the complete experience is nowhere close to what Apple announced with VisionOS. Building on the commonalities found in MacOS, iOS, and iPadOS, VisionOS brings a distinctly Apple-esque flavour to working in VR. When combined with the immersive viewing capabilities of the Vision Pro, VisionOS is closer to the metaverse than Meta ever was. Sweetening the pot A VR headset is more than the sum of its parts, as the other quirks of wearing a computer on the head come into play very quickly. Through years of innovation, it seems that Meta has finally reached some degree of user comfort for their headsets, along with some value-added features. For example, Quest headsets come with inside-out tracking, meaning that users don’t need to set up sensor towers to map their surroundings. Other interesting features in the Quest headsets include being completely standalone with no tether, unlike Apple’s unwieldy charging cable, and an ecosystem of accessories. These include face covers, straps with inbuilt batteries, and devices for working out with the headset. Conversely, Apple seems to have created the headset with a specific focus on comfort. From the tailored Light Seal to a fabric headband to a standalone battery, The Vision Pro builds upon Apple’s experience of creating hardware for a premium product. Other interesting inclusions include full hand control with no controllers, 3D camera functionality, a focus on on-device processing for all data, and AI to reconstruct the users’ faces in VR. A clear winner? When comparing the two, it is obvious that Meta’s Quest 3 does not come close to the feature set offered by the Vision Pro. It is also unfair to compare a $500 headset with a $3500 one. However, Apple’s announcement is even more significant than it seems, mainly because it may herald the rebirth of the metaverse. Mark Zuckerberg is now scared of having his metaverse dream taken away by Tim Cook’s Vision. This not only led him to rush the announcement of the Quest 3, which is, at best, a distant competitor to the Vision Pro but also position it directly against Apple. While Meta might have shot itself in the foot by taking this course of action, it is also worth noting that the Quest Pro 2 could have been Meta’s answer to Reality Pro. This was a more premium version of the Quest series, but unfortunately, the project was canned in 2024. Now, Meta has backed itself into a corner against one of the biggest hardware companies in the world, with nowhere to go but forward.
The story of two technology titans’ tussle in the metaverse.
VR headsets just became cool again. After Meta’s lackluster announcement of the Quest 3, Apple’s Vision Pro has set the world on fire.
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I am an AI enthusiast and love keeping up with the latest events in the space. I love video games and pizza.