[smoldesu]

The hard part is the low end - and Meta has 20 million devices sold there. If the hardware is an obstacle to reaching market fit, I'm pretty confident Meta could get there. It's mostly a matter of scaling up what they already have.

[juve1996]

Yea 20 million cheap VR headsets that haven't taken off into the expected market at all. Any hardware company could do that tomorrow. It's easy. Just source the parts.

Apple is practically completely vertically integrated. They design their own chips. They have decades of experience in consumer hardware.

To make AR/VR into what Zuck wants, his hardware is NOWHERE near what it needs to be. And they don't have the chops to get it there. If it's possible, I believe Apple can do it.

[smoldesu]

> It's easy. Just source the parts.

Why is that not a relevant strategy for competing with Apple? Nvidia and arguably AMD could both out-engineer Apple if you're just talking about chips here.

[prawn]

Aren't they talking about the "ease" of competing with a lower-end, non-vertically-integrated device?

Same tactic won't work against Apple because they make the key chips, make the hardware, the software, etc. They can have you look at your MacBook, and the headset brings up your laptop's workspace ready to go.

[smoldesu]

You cannot sell a $3,500 toy with "Handoff". It really is that simple.

[zmmmmm]

The sticking point is the silicon which they don't control. After watching Android flail for 10 years unable to match Apple's ARM processors in phones, I'm unfortunately not super optimistic that Meta can influence Qualcomm to suddenly make the necessary leap in performance needed. Of course, if they concede having an external power brick perhaps they can just stack multiple XR2's in there and get into the range ... but I'll be sad if they go that way. Carrying a power brick has to be a temporary detour, it can't be the long term of this.

[sm_1024]

Modern Android processors are pretty competitive with iPhone's silicon:

S23, 1.4k (Single core), 4.8k (Multi core), 79.3 (3d mark/GPU)

14 pro max, 1.8k (Single core), 5.3k (Multi core), 74 (3d mark/GPU)

Looks like gen2 is already on-par in multi-core and GPU perf. Single core still is 28% faster in iphone.

---

https://www.tomsguide.com/news/galaxy-s23-ultra-vs-iphone-14...

[theaussiestew]

Yeah but the Vision Pro rocks an M2 chip, not the A-Series in the iPhone.

[smoldesu]

And it uses all that power to run... iPad apps.

[throw9away6]

If you can get the high end to work well you can get the volume to make low end good enough. The 3k unit is probably the minimum viable product with todays tech but if it takes off in 2-3 generations we will get 1k headsets with equal or better features due to volume

[hinkley]

The hard part is only the low end if you don’t start with the high end.

With a high end you can continuously fund a drive toward lower manufacturing and operational costs. Without it you just focus on cutting corners.