And then, Meta has no real interesting in delivering anything other than a product they can ship to millions of people on day 1 at a low price point, while Apple is actively cultivating exclusivity of access as a marketing tactic.
And then, Meta has no real interesting in delivering anything other than a product they can ship to millions of people on day 1 at a low price point, while Apple is actively cultivating exclusivity of access as a marketing tactic.
Apple has never really done that (at least in the post Jobs return era). They demonstrate what their intention is… then release the device. Zip, except maybe some WWDC stuff in-between.
Which makes sense: Apple is Product Vision & UX focused, Meta (and most other companies) are Product Delivery & User Consumption focused.
Neither is wrong, they’re just aiming at different goals.
Apple Maps.
I still remember the hilarity.
https://www.tomshardware.com/picturestory/607-ios-maps-fail....
They didn’t. So not a counter example.
I think that fairly counts as a "marketing ploy"? Apple is so good at it that folks that folks don't even realize what is happening.
The product is complete and it's just about ramping up production and sending stock to retail stores.
Compare with Meta: pretty sure this is the 3rd “sneak peak” cycle on this hardware in the last couple of months.
And it’s a pretty rare thing to have that mode of failure for them.
That sticks out as one of the worst delays between announcement and shipping I can recall in Apple's history (~10 months and multiple delays).
> https://venturebeat.com/mobile/apple-explains-white-iphone-d...
Very fascinating from a material science standpoint
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2010/06/apple-delays-white-i...
The home button and the bezel were made by different manufacturers IIRC, and the two plastics aged/coloured at different rates.
It took them ages to get it such that the button and bezel will colour match perfectly.
Easy to do with black, very difficult with white.
Great insight
They ship hardware & software, but their core product feature for each is the design of it. Both individually and as a whole ecosystem.
It’s actually kind of incredible they’ve done so well at this after Jobs & Ive left. Speaks to their culture.
”Most people make the mistake of thinking design is what it looks like,” says Steve Jobs, Apple’s C.E.O. ”People think it’s this veneer — that the designers are handed this box and told, ‘Make it look good!’ That’s not what we think design is. It’s not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.”
The Guts of a New Machine: https://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/30/magazine/the-guts-of-a-ne...
Even exquisitely-designed things aren't right for everybody, which is fine. I also personally like old-fashioned clicky 2-button mice like my Logitech M720.
(The one item on your list that isn't a "different strokes for different folks" thing isn't something I've ever experienced with my Mac minis, FWIW.)
I would say a “taste” company.
They are not competing goals.
All companies have to show progress.
Apple can afford to show finished products because it has multiple product lines. At any given time, at least one product line is shipping a finished version.
Meta, on the other hand, won't be shipping a finished product for their pitch ("Meta"-verse) anytime soon. So they have to be content with work-in-progress.
They are competing focuses however. Obviously they can all be satisfied, but you can’t focus on all of it. Otherwise it becomes “everything is a priority, so nothing is”.
I’ve worked at places that tried that. It’s foolhardy & doomed.
The trashcan Mac Pro desktop was heavily promoted to tech journalists before release to try and keep pro users from abandoning Apple. IPads and iPhones were going gangbusters then, and Apple had gone a long time without refreshing the Mac Pro. The common sentiment was Apple no longer cared about professionals that required workstation-level performance. IIRC, this was in the aftermath of the release of a neutered Final Cut Pro which seemed to cater more to prosumers than pros, since it removed key features.
The intention was to signal pros to hang in there, and then the trashcan got released and had perf issues with throttling due to thermal challenges. Good times.
Definitely a stronger push around it for sure tho.
(I still say it was a great design, they just best on the wrong direction of chip/etc tech with it so it rapidly got useless)
They had one meeting where they told journalists they were not going to abandon the pro market space. This was when the trashcan had been out for a long time. Too long in fact.
> The intention was to signal pros to hang in there, and then the trashcan got released
No, the trashcan was released way before that meeting. One of the things discussed in the meeting was limitations of the trash can form factor.
I'm afraid you're referring to yet another Mac Pro marketing push that came later (for the 2019 "Lattice" / cheese grater redux version).
I just looked up the dates & it lines up with my recollection and initial comment: the previous refresh (pre-trashcan) was in 2010. The Final Cut "Pro" X release that frustrated video professionals came out in 2011 and the trashcan itself was finally released in 2013. A lot of loyal video pros abandoned Apple for the Adobe/PC ecosystem in that era.
Tldr when your goal is to exploit peoples time you are reactive more than innovative, less secrets other than understanding human nature. When the goal like apple is to create the sleekest highest status product, it must be original and based on more objective standards (like aesthetics)
Meta cannot. Basically nobody can. Meta must drum up interest and hype to get people continuing to care about vr.
I remember reading that Mark Rober was at Apple (nobody knew about that!) and I just feel like that must have sucked massively for someone who loves making youtube videos to work in a place like that.
I could understand now talking about current work but if you have an open source project that's unrelated you can't publicly do anything?
It's hard to argue that that the one that ships is taking the wrong approach.
And no one other than yourself thinks that the Mac Pro is going to be a wild success. It's a highly niche product with the Mac Studio being the mainstream version.
It’s a good sign for them but far from convincing
The Series S is the same price, and estimates put it at around half of units sold.
The Mac Pro accounts for 11% of all Mac computers sold and 40-50% (~$20bln) of Mac revenues in 2022 (including laptops); the Mac Studio is only 1% of units shipped. What's your definition of wild success?
Because the Mac Pro outselling the Mac mini by 10x doesn't seem believable to me.
And especially in 2022 when the Intel Mac Pro was being outperformed by the Mac Studio.
Thankfully VFX Reference Platform also accounts for Windows and Linux, https://vfxplatform.com/
And when the GPUs no longer can keep up, one doesn't need to throw away the whole computer.
Through that lens, I don't see Meta has having slacked and failed to capture the market when they're definitely the leader and pushed it a decent amount forward.
The comparison point could be HTC, who's also continuing pushing the envellope but can't touch Meta in terms of scale and price point.
Ahm, are we forgetting the QuestPro? Meta tried to build their "Apple headset", 5x the price of a Quest2 and loaded with all the R&D features they could find. And it was a colossal flop. The whole thing is getting shutdown little over six months after release.
They forgot to include critical features like a depth sensor, they couldn't figure out what to do with the eye tracking in their software, face tracking wasn't a feature anybody wanted and reduced the battery dramatically when actually used, passthough cameras are a blurry mess, resolution is too low to work as actual desktop replacement, etc.
The whole thing, despite 5x the price, was firmly stuck at just being a slightly better Quest2. Meta spend the last seven years building a portable Oculus Rift, and they succeeded at that, but despite billions in R&D they haven't really managed to advanced VR beyond that point.
They delivered a product, but it's clear they simply don't have the commitment required to actually see it through. Quest Pro is actually great for what it is, but they seem completely clueless about how to actually market something to business or professional users. The software on it is 100% identical to the Quest 2, designed entirely for gaming. Just the fact they couldn't be bothered even slightly differentiating the software shows they just don't even understand the distinctions b/w the spaces.
But above that layer there are pretty big distinctions. Meta is fully on the record that they are all in on making Quest completely use OpenXR as the primary API to the point of deprecating the old Oculus proprietary APIs. They also actively pushing forward the latest WebXR spec into the browser on the Quest, and sideloading of apps in general is straightforward (although you do need a developer account to do it which is unfortunate).
Apple doesn't seem interested at all in open standards at the OS layer, so if you need to be happy with the fully walled garden and proprietary APIs to buy into that ecosystem. It's unclear if VisionPro will support WebXR in the browser it ships.
So in terms of freedom, you will get a lot more from Quest, but its definitely sad that this whole area of computing could end up being the first that has literally no true open platform available.
But in terms of how they are are "more" open, you can side load any app you want, and the headset supports open standards at both the app level (OpenXR) and browser level (WebXR).
I guess this means "sideloading" is a privilege they can revoke at their whim, is that right? I hope I'm over-interpreting this (and not blaming you as the messenger).
Apples approach is that they wont release until its ready for use by the average joe. The expectation that you get it and it works out of the box without needing to be too technical is where they thrive.
This isn't to say one approach is better or worse, just different.
Wow, how naive can you be?
Because Meta's forte is ads. The hardware is just the gateway to their ecosystem where they don't have to pay Apple/Google for access to users.
Companies' engineering blogs are just carefully curated marketing pieces with highly distilled technical info. It's still marketing and some people eat it up.
Judging by the current relative market caps of facepalm and MySpace, seems like it worked out ok.
Apple literally ships millions of devices on day one (that is, on the exact day they announce they will ship it).
Edit: with very few notable exceptions like the wireless charger
And you believe that they are doing this out of the goodness of their heart?
At the same time, they are keeping the door open for mass-market over the long-term.
Meta needs as many people using their products to show ads and earn money, that's all there is to it.
Apple’s Vision Pro release has been all about the software: the interaction models, how to use SwiftUI to make immersive and windowed apps, the windowing model, accessibility, type readability, and every little detail related to UI
I’d argue Apple is equally software and hardware
A startup begins a project often by announcing that it has almost succeed. Some open source projects and crowdfunded projects with a lot of pomp also take this approach. It is great(?) for fundraising. It is interesting that Meta chooses this since they are not looking for funding, but maybe they are looking to cultivate the same panache/ethos. A way to market to prospective employees, more than end customers.
Apple denies that its even doing something until after it has succeeded. And even then it will announce it on its own terms. The Putin regime also follows this model (eg 2014 annexation of Crimea). It is great for denying competition time to catch up.
apple can get away with being less polite. what it delivers is enough to motivate a certain level of tolerance.
apple is ecosystem. it is the front runner at the moment, and will be hard to beat.
ffs this is facebook and mark zuckerberg. how does the joke go? their faces are next to the word unlikable in the dictionary?
both meta and zuck are cultivating a rather incredible comeback story. for all the historical hateables, even with layoffs and rto, there are a lot of recent moves that are brilliant.
second place in a martial arts tournament. threads. llama. this.
both meta and zuck are starting to look downright likeable.
this is no accident, and no small feat.
tl;dr you seemed to have missed meta’s marketing tactic, possibly due to anti-apple bias.
if that answer has flipped over the past few years, that isn’t just due to musk.
it takes time to rehabilitate an image so tarnished.
he can’t delete the congressional hearing recordings from reality.
They have videos of actual people using the actual built devices at the conference. They are letting conference attendees at SIGGRAPH put these on and try them out.
I get the need to downplay anything good that Meta does, but stick to "reality" - this is very different from half finished vapor ware. Or to put it another way, if this is vaporware, so is Apple Vision Pro at this point.
We have no idea when, or if, this will end up in a shipping product. If they were to imply it’s a real product (didn’t read that clearly) it’s vaporware.
The Vision Pro was announced. Has a release date (within a quarter), a full public SDK & simulator. They have started the hands on labs for developers around the world this week.
That’s not vaporware. If it is every movie that’s been announced + shot but not released is.
The modern Apple (post Jobs return) had what, one product that was announced but didn’t come out? The AirPower. And that was a real product they were in the final stages of (best I understand) but hit insurmountable safety issues. Not “hey we’re thinking this will be a thing one day”, but a failed product launch that didn’t make it to market after multiple attempts to fix it in the final stages.
Apple doesn’t announce vaporware.
And in regards to modern Apple, the settings panel and SwiftUI are more of a work in progress kind of thing, than actually done.
Have people called SwiftUI and the new settings panels vaporware? I’ve never heard that. I’m neutral on the new settings design, but they do have a lot to fix there.
SwiftUI is pretty great when you can do what you want. Every release that encompasses more. I’m not sure you can reasonably make a fully featured UI toolkit in secret, I think you need external devs to help find issues and gaps. Letting it out early may have been a good idea for that reason, though it was quite rough at the start.
Let this sink in; Facebook alone has more MAUs than YouTube in it's entirety. That's frankly bonkers. After YouTube, the 2 next most popular are, yep, Instagram and WhatsApp.
If you went up to the average person on the street and asked them how they felt about the Cambridge Analytica situation, they would probably ignore you and think it was some sports thing. "the public" clearly doesn't care and journalists are probably pretty happy with Facebook's performance given what they have to put up with on Twitter.
I'm not saying anyone is particularly right or wrong here. I just think that this site's obsession with "Facebook bad" doesn't really extend beyond the constituent of hackers with a healthy distrust of organized power.
I'm not a republican btw, I just know a lot about the nuts and bolts of the digital industry. Anybody who actually knows how political ad targeting works guffaws every time CA comes up.
Meta has never showed off demo-able advanced R&D hardware publicly, even when they’ve had it, until now.
This is simply a second degree demo to Wall Street investors. Their analysts will either attend, or read reports from reputable experts.
They’ve sunk $40 Billion into this project with nothing to show. Apple has reportedly spent $20 Billion while underpinning it with healthy growth and profits.
Facebook shipped Quest 2 dev kits to partners that were physically disguised as clothing irons. The narrative you’re spinning is nonsense.
EDIT: You’re either Boz or a lieutenant judging by your comment history.
You only comment on topics related to Facebook competition and say things close to “interesting feedback” and occasionally expose yourself with specific phrases like “Thanks for sharing, it's always interesting to hear these kind of anecdotes!” https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36351422
???
Meta already shipped 20M headsets. Apple won't get more than 400k of these in the field until 2025, and even then they will be so expensive barely anybody can afford it. Quite literally, whatever mass market there is, Meta owns it now and for the foreseeable future.
Apple is targeting the wider compute market which is capped at Billions. They won't sell billions in 2025, or at the $3500 price point, but this is the market they are building towards capturing.
Think of Palm Pilot vs iPhone. It's a decade-scale play.
* edit: Let me just add that Apple TV hardware which is largely abandoned and afterthought product line considered unsuccessful, for example is a 13M/year item for Apple. 20M lifetime is not mass market.
Source? https://www.businessofapps.com/data/apple-statistics/#AppleT... says there 31M active Apple TVs in the US. https://9to5mac.com/2020/09/02/apple-tv-market-share-report/ says Apple TV has 2% share of 1.14B global TV platforms. These don't look like 13M/year of sales.
Besides it seems like comparing apples to oranges. Apple TV works with existing TVs which are already billions in numbers. VR devices are completely new devices. Meta has sold 20M headsets SO FAR, not in its lifetime.
Weird semantics on so far vs lifetime.. it's the same thing.
Meta and Apple are targeting different markets and you can tell by Apple's product videos.
To me, Meta is entrenched in the currently gamer centric VR market. I call it this because 100% of the people I know who have been excited by VR over the last 10 years have been young, single, male gamers. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that, but the marketing & people excited about the product, to me, seem to align there.
Apple doesn't even call it VR because they are trying to target a much wider market.
I agree with this (though trying is the operative word). It seems a strange moment in time to choose to call the game for Apple though, at a grand total of 0 units shipped and a price point of $3500+tax. It is literally not knowable now in 2023 if they will be able to manage to do what Tesla did, in transitioning from “toy for rich jerks” to “reasonable mass market choice, and we can manufacture them in mass quantities too.” I mean, it’s not even clear yet if the rich jerk set will adopt it.
I agree, that's why I said "what mass market there is". Because the whole thing is completely speculative that there can be mass market here ever, and that applies as much to Apple as Meta. None of the so far demonstrated devices are really appropriate for that.
I don't know why you think Meta is "capping" themselves to gaming market or why you think that market tops out at 10M units. That is where they started, but clearly that's not their whole vision (or why did they bother making the Quest Pro?).
Now that the chip shortage and supply chain issues have calmed down a bit, we're seeing big improvements. But these constraints also apply to Apple which is why their first run of Vision Pro headsets is set to be around 100,000 units. Hardware is the constraint.
That said, the focus for Oculus has always been much larger than gaming. The whole "Metaverse" pitch isn't a pitch for a product. The "Metaverse" is just another jangly marketing term just like "Information Superhighway" was for the Internet back in 90s. It just means using VR/AR for everyday situations like work, entertainment, etc.
Are you just saying that Meta has the wrong focus or do you think Apple has a moat?
Meta's focus on games right now is not by choice or by vision, but simply because that's the only VR product they have that actually sells. Kids love Quest and VR. Nobody bought the QuestPro for social VR or for work-in-VR. Horizon World doesn't seem to gain traction either, everybody is still doing VRChat. Gaming was also not their idea, the gaming focus came from the original Oculus company they bought, they just have been unable to move past that.
The difference between Apple and Meta is that Apple has a clear vision, they are building a device that works as full desktop replacement. They completely skipped any of the classic VR topics at their presentation. VisionPro is "just" a better monitor, everything else is optional and come later.
Meta on the other side doesn't really know what they want, they have this vague vision of VR being big in the future and they want to secure their place in that future by throwing money at it. But they don't know how to get there. So they have a lot of gaming here, a bit social there and a bit of VR-as-desktop, but none of it is polished, lots of it isn't even functional and nothing is ever used to its full potential. Worse yet, they handicap themselves, their VR must be mobile, since they want to own the VR platform, so their PC support ends up lackluster, despite all the best VR content still being on PC. They want to have ads and collect data, so kids under 13 aren't allowed on their platform, despite being very popular in that age group. It's all a mess.
You only comment on topics related to Facebook competition and say things close to “interesting feedback” and occasionally expose yourself with specific phrases like “Thanks for sharing, it's always interesting to hear these kind of anecdotes!”
Focus on their argument, not "outing" someone, whatever that means.
I don't think we're going to stumble into good immersive AR/VR by cobbling together OEM parts bin specials to hit a $400 price point day 1.
It seems obvious that the displays & optics need to be as good or better than top of the line phone/computer displays, not worse. So I don't see how a remotely immersive experience can happen even at the $1k price point.
I strongly feel that you need to actually try modern VR for more than a few minutes. Is it perfect? Far from it. There are many problems, specifically that VR’s main form factors are too intimidating for most adults to even try. Is it immersive? Yes, a lot of apps and games are
I’m just glad Tim forced Apple to finally join the market. Otherwise, there would be VR winter for about a decade due to the mass public perception of VR and the fact that the most engaged VR users can’t even drive yet.
This was definitely the case with the iPhone, iPad and the Watch. It's arguably also true with the first generation MacBook Air.
(This definitely doesn't apply to the M1 transition as this wasn't a new product family. It was a fork of an extremely mature product, combined into another extremely mature product, resulting in a product revision which was very cool but did absolutely nothing new.)
What they tend to shy away from are ultra-low margin sectors with little opportunity for differentiation and flooded with amoral competition. Sure, the cheapest iPhone is nowhere near the cost of the cheapest Android phones. But that's because most cheap Android phones are also abandonware, and/or manufactured e-waste, and/or using all of the conflict minerals/abusive labour practices/environmental hazards which Apple has to remain unambiguously distanced from.
I agree with everything you wrote but this. Just because Apple products are within reach of a lot of people, it doesn’t mean that they’re not a luxury brand.
While not cheap, Apple products are obtainable and utterly mainstream. In fact in the rare instances where Apple has experimented with luxury it has been a dismal failure — Apple Watch Edition being a noteworthy example.
What are you talking about? They've done this continually:
2018: https://www.meta.com/blog/quest/introducing-the-team-behind-...
2019: https://www.meta.com/blog/quest/half-dome-updates-frl-explor...
2020: https://tech.facebook.com/reality-labs/2020/9/announcing-pro...
2021: https://tech.facebook.com/reality-labs/2021/3/inside-faceboo...