Yeah I get it. Zuckerberg promoting Quest, and saying it’s better than Apple’s Mixed Reality headset, was more than a bit self-serving.

What’s sad though, it’s refreshing to see a CEO step up and make a case for their company’s product directly. I think many of us in the tech scene have forgotten that occasionally leaders need to lead.

If you’ll pardon the cranky-old-guy-tangent, I still miss LG phones. They’re still my favorite phones ever made. If you really used all the parts of an LG, years after the company pulled out of the smartphone scene, there is no single feature-complete replacement for an LG phone.

I still believe that a massive factor in LG’s failure was the company’s halfhearted marketing attempts in western countries. LG did a terrifically poor job of promoting their own products. A new gadget would release, there would be one short ad campaign (usually completely unrelated to the features on the phone), and then the phone would languish in obscurity.

Without anyone LEADING the conversation about LG phones, there was a commentary vacuum surrounding the brand. That vacuum would be filled by reviewers and influencers happy to use LG as a whipping boy brand. LG was the third highest selling phone brand in North America, just popular enough to generate some search interest, so they were a perfect candidate to always “lose” in comparisons to Samsung and Apple.

“LG doesn’t care enough to advertise their products. They must not be as confident in the device as Samsung is…”

Out of Control Apple Hype Machine…

Apple dominates tech discussions in North America, but rarely through any kind of practical meritocracy of building the best product.

Apple keeps a vice grip on their media image. Bad guys in movies aren’t allowed to use Apple products. Influencers are carefully selected and briefed on new launches. Developers and influencers are carefully instructed to only use specific words in describing Apple products. News outlets rarely confront Apple executives on controversial business decisions, for fear of losing early access to Apple products. I’m not entirely sure Tim Cook didn’t perjure himself back in 2020 when testifying under oath about Apple bullying developers, using proprietary developer information to enrich Apple’s products, or stealing other company’s intellectual property.

When it comes to the question of AR and VR headsets, we’ve been slinging rumors about Apple’s potential offerings for over eleven years before the Vision Pro mixed reality headset shipped to consumers. For eleven years, there’s been a cottage industry of tech “journalists” comparing actual AR devices available to purchase against the lofty aspirations of Apple rumors and leaks. There’s a collection of tech enthusiasts that don’t really know what current XR solutions are capable of, but they’re excited to try a new Apple product.

A willful ignorance surrounding VR…

The tech commentary industry should be responsible for educating consumers on new devices and new trends, but if a topic isn’t already trending and popular, there’s little hope of monetizing that content directly. Putting “Apple” in a title is a lazy way to gin up a bit more search interest.

Unfortunately, that left the AR/VR scene in an under-discussed state. Without an Apple product in that space, all these tech enthusiasts could claim was “VR isn’t ready for the mainstream yet”.

They gave Apple an eleven year runway.

Now that Apple’s headset is out, it does seem to be a somewhat underwhelming option as a true consumer-facing product. It looks like what it is, an incredible and sexy developer kit.

Apple’s corporate hubris prevents them from just calling this a dev kit. It’s critical to the image of the brand that Apple always looks like it does things “the right way”, and everyone else is wrong. Waiting over a decade for an Apple headset, folks need to believe this headset is ready for prime time.

This headset is not ready for prime time.

If the media landscape were more fair and consistent in covering competing products, more consumers would understand this distinction between “consumer facing” and “dev kit”.  We would also hope that Apple’s headset might help illuminate the other options in the market, that a surge of interest in Apple Mixed Reality would translate into a broader education about the current state of ALL Mixed Reality. That’s just not the case today.

Journalists with little interest in the product segment before Apple’s arrival are here to get this early spike of traffic. Now that the interest in the headset is waning, they’ll likely vacate the topic, sure of their own ignorance, and confident they already tried “the best” headset to use.

I’m no fan of Meta…

…or Mark Zuckerberg. I think their social media products are toxic. I wish people wouldn’t use them.

Though, I can’t fault Zuckerberg for putting himself out there to compare the Quest against Apple’s headset.

Of course he has a bias, and a vested interest in Quest performing well, but he’s not wrong to point a spotlight on glaring omissions in the conversation surrounding Mixed Reality. If tech journalists are going to casually declare Apple “the best”, without properly accounting for the differences in experience, I can see why Zuckerberg feels the need to lead that conversation.

 

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We can’t count on tech “journalists”. They seem more concerned about stroking the egos of Apple fans, than doing deeper investigations into this market.

Losing another player…

I’m not coming to this editorial lightly, or using this simply to showcase my anti-Apple bias. I’m genuinely afraid of losing XR competition before we really have a good handle on what we can do with new optical systems.

I want people to be more excited about the future of displays and interacting with new services, new ways to present information. I don’t believe we will see the improvements these headsets need if we’re only playing brand-fan to Apple because it makes us more money to cover Apple.

I have an example of this phenomenon that helps reinforce my point. ONLY covering Apple consistently does not lead to a better general consumer education on broader tech trends.

Without opening another browser tab, recall all the information you can on HTC’s current Mixed Reality headsets.

See, like LG in my earlier tangent, HTC is putting out a premium hardware option, which is not subsidized with money acquired through trafficking user data, and has some really interesting features that might benefit folks interested in Mixed Reality. Chances are very good, even if you’re a fan of MR, you know a lot less about the Vive than Apple or Meta headsets.

HTC isn’t spending big on marketing, and no one is publicly LEADING the conversation around Vive headsets.

It’s not about winning…

I’ve brought up this example before, and it’s worth repeating here. We have over a century of experience making audio systems, but because of the unique biology of every individual, there is no such thing as a truly one-size-fits-all premium audio solution. There is no one earbud that works great for everyone.

Face computing is an order of magnitude more difficult to get right than audio.

We are in desperate need of competition for the future of XR solutions. We need more companies playing in multiple price tiers, and we need to learn a LOT more about the human face before we start pinning mission critical services to these products. Otherwise, we risk leaving a lot of people behind.

Whatever you might feel about the content or the conclusion of Zuckerberg’s comparison, it was a conversation that needed more direct attention. It was an under-served part of the discussion, and a blind spot for consumers currently outside the current XR scene.

Sadly, it was just refreshing to see an executive at a company other than Apple stand up and say “we’ve made something we think is cool”, and defend that product against the tech journalism vacuum.

I wish more executives at the “other” brands would lead discussions like this.