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Comment by laserlight | Hacker News Reader

> Meta decided to build cheaper gadgets that people want to use now.

Let's not deceive ourselves. We all know that Meta is capable of neither designing nor manufacturing Apple Vision Pro. That's not a bad thing. Every company plays its own strengths. There's no point pretending that it was a deliberate decision.

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> We all know that Meta is capable of neither designing nor manufacturing Apple Vision Pro

According to what? What limitation is there that stops Meta engineers from being able to do this?

John Carmack had some things to say about it:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2022/12/17/john-carma...

EDIT: direct link https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=pfbid0iPix...

Having read it at the time and now again I'd be surprised if Apple would do any better in his performance metrics. Big companies are, almost by definition, slow. The breakneck speed he wants to see will never happen in a company with thousands of people, thousands of opinions and many layers of management.

So, while that is a sad reminder that things could be far better in theory, I don't see how it supports that Meta couldn't produce a Vision Pro if they wanted to.

Silicon for one. The M2 is miles ahead in terms of performance (and heat) than anything Qualcomm has to offer.

This won't always be the case; people act like this is set in stone for decades to come. It might not even be true in 3-4 years.

It's unfortunately far, far more true than whatever lead Meta still has over Apple on the VR headset side.

Also it's not just the chip itself, but moreso the whole hardware-sofrware vertical integration. Despite being a decade-long Apple-hater, ever since I got an M2 max macbook from work I simply have never touched my Windows/Linux Thinkpads again. The difference in user experience isn't even on a generational level, but more of a I-can't-imagine-how-Apple's-competitors-can-begin-to-close-this-gap level. Sadly I think all this talk of Quest-vs-AVP war is just an illusion, the outcome is very much preordained at this point.

Its tsmcs chip not apples though, anyone can up and order something of those sort of specs from them and meta has plenty of money to wave around at a crowded bar for attention.

TSMC is a fab, not a chip designer. Apple designed their own chips with in-house engineering talent. Due to how the silicon supply chain works no-one but TSMC can make those chips so everyone needs to use them. Also Meta can't just waive around money and get the most advanced chips; apple has bought out all the production for some time.

Amd waived around enough money to get a big order of 3nm too and they aren’t even big scary nvidia but the underdogs in this space.

You really think if it was that easy to compete with Apple's SoCs, Google wouldn't have done it long ago for the Pixels? Or someone in the Android space would step in to compete with Qualcomm's Snapdragon chips? Samsung hasn't been able to do it for years with their Exynos line.

Looking at tsmc’s zen 5 they just sold to Amd I think its certainly possible.

> anyone can up and order something

Can you send me the link for this and do you know if I can also order my own custom 4090 GPU as well.

I am thinking I might beat Nvidia and Apple at their game.

Provided you have a millions to waive around at tsmc this is certainly possible for you. They don’t work for Apple they work for money.

The engineers at Apple aren’t somehow imbued with any sort of special intellect that the engineers at Meta lack to do the same thing. And to be clear here, I’m no fan of Meta. But, in echoing @laserlight here, let’s not pretend that the engineers at Meta are any less capable than the engineers at Apple. There are plenty of brilliant engineers in both companies.

It's not intellect. It's organization.

Why does the US still not have universal healthcare? Europe/China aren't somehow smarter or "health geniuses" - they just put in the effort and made it a priority to provide a well-functioning service.

And Apple Vision Pro engineers are incapable of designing a product with a $500 price limit.

What's special about $500?

That it’s the price of a games console.

Why is a general purpose computer pegged to the price of a video game console most commonly sold at a loss?

Because the general population of americans probably also doesn’t pay more than that for a computer

Then they’ll get it second hand like many people get iPhones. You can even be 2 or 3 generations behind so long as the tech was the best at its time, it’ll endure.

Since when does Apple predominately sell to the general population.

They have always preferred premium users and their success to date suggests this is a good strategy.

57% of Americans have iPhones.

Which disproves the claim that the general population does not pay above $500 for a computer.

Only if it’s a computer that does exactly what they need.

You make the assumption that most people buy iphones for full price. They still offer free iphones through carrier subsidy. For other apple products you need sufficient credit to get approved for their installment payment plans because its through the Apple card and not subsidized by the carrier.

a) Engineers don't decide the price and target audience of products at Apple.

b) Apple is more than able to design low cost products. HomePod mini being an example of this.

c) The question is why should they sell a $500 headset when it involves compromising on the user experience.

Doesn't matter. The US military is going to be a big customer for Apple. After all, the only thing that matters for training is that it works flawlessly.

Training for who? The military strategy is to train soldiers cheaply and replace them when they are no longer able to fight or they die.

What an extraordinarily small minded take. The military has a long history of interest in performing training in increasingly realistic simulations.

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