When Mark Zuckerburg shared a video in which he argued that the Meta Quest 3 was not just a better value than the Apple Vision Pro “for most people,” but was the better product overall, he didn’t shy away from the device design strengths that have traditionally favored Apple. The Quest 3, he noted, is lighter, doesn’t require an external battery pack, and provides a brighter, less laggy experience that comes at the expense of its new competitor’s higher resolution.
But much of what you need to know about the two products is right in their names. The Quest is in its third generation, part of a product family that Meta has now been refining for a decade. Meanwhile, Apple has used the unusual naming convention of adding “Pro” to differentiate it from a baseline Apple Vision product that doesn’t (yet) exist. With such a head start and a long focus on virtual reality that has centered on games, it’s hardly surprising that the Quest 3 has a far richer native app library than its just-hatched competitor. Still, while just about every visionOS app makes at least some nod to the third dimension, it's a bit surprising that so few take great advantage of the spatial element of Apple’s spatial computing device given how long Apple had prepped developers and consumers for its arrival via iOS’ ARKit (which handles many key functions in visionOS).
