QUEST 3 vs APPLE VISION PRO

It’s war! How the battle lines are being drawn in the headset world

The year 2024 will see two of the biggest names in the VR/MR business clash as Apple Vision Pro hits the market, looking to usurp the dominance of the Meta Quest in recent years. By then, the Quest’s latest iteration, the Meta Quest 3, will have been out for at least a year. Will that head start make the difference, or will other factors come into play?

Apple Vision Pro is a mixed-reality headset that also happens to feature VR and AR applications, while the Meta Quest 3 is a virtual-reality device with MR and AR properties. That is the headline difference. That and the cost: $799 for the Meta Quest 3 (128GB) and US$3,500 (about AUD$5,200) for the Apple Vision Pro. That $4,400-plus gap will no doubt be the biggest hurdle Apple will face when it comes to consumers.

Here’s the thing: Apple Vision Pro isn’t for consumers. At least, not yet. It’s named the Apple Vision Pro, not the Apple Vision. This is a professional device designed for developers to get the most out of it. The ‘spatial computing’ aspect of working via multiple big screens from your living room or office is what many early adopters will be trying out – built upon the visionOS operating system. Here users can interact with iOS and macOS apps in mixed reality. Interestingly, a similar experience can be found on the Meta Quest 3, via Android’s open-source software.

Entertainment and games are, of course, another selling point. Just what games will be available on the Apple Vision Pro is currently unknown. Meta has an exclusive Assassin’s

Creed title as of this month, along with 500-plus games and experiences from its library built over the past few years. That’s hard to compete with. And even if Meta might be determined to make the headset more about the Metaverse (whatever that might be), most people utilise the headset to play games. That’s unlikely to change anytime soon.

As you’d imagine, the components are quite different in scale too. Even though both offer approximately two hours of battery life, a Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2 chip can be found powering the Meta Quest 3. Meanwhile, Apple employs its own M2 Chip and a specifically designed R1 chip for smoothing mixed reality. Meta also used LCD displays as opposed to Apple’s OLED display that delivers 4K for each eye. Most notably, the former doesn’t feature eye tracking, either. It’s fair to say at this point that the technology from the Apple Vision Pro heavily outweighs what the Meta Quest 3 offers. This all flows into its everyday properties, like making calls to loved ones, answering emails or losing yourself in a cinema-like experience.

Taking the price point aside for just a second, it’s easy to see how Apple’s device could become the dominant player in the market. Maybe in a decade’s time, once the consumer benefits have been finalised and the cost has fallen drastically, that could be how Apple Vision Pro rises to the top. The reality is, though, you can’t overlook that hefty price tag in a cost-of-living crisis, so in the short term there’s only one winner.

More details are expected in the coming months ahead of the Apple Vision Pro’s early 2024 release date for the US and international release later that year.