Mark Zuckerberg is someone special. No one doubts his incredible contribution to the world of technology and the beginnings of the internet as we know it now. Facebook remains the most visited website in the world according to data from 2022, and that means that it should not be as bad as some —especially from my generation— think.
We all remember more or less clearly when Facebook stopped being Facebook and became Meta. The reference was clear: the metaverse. For better or for worse, Zuckerberg’s company has marked the “social” expansion of the Internet, and His idea was to provoke the same thing with virtual realitybut it has not turned out as expected.
“When the wise man points to the sun, the fool looks to the finger”
If we compare what Meta offered us at the time with what Apple has just done by presenting the Apple Vision Pro, the qualifiers are superfluous. Zuckerberg offers us a parallel world with graphics taken from the Mii Studio of the original Wii —tremendous console, by the way—, 50% transaction fees and an experience, in my opinion, poorly cared for.
Apple’s offer, on the other hand, is none other than to combine reality and fiction to achieve a unique approach. So that we can do all that with which we have been dreaming for years but without giving up the real world, which is where our real life is and that we have to enjoy and make the most of. So to speak, Facebook offers us a new life and Apple improves the one we already have. I think that distinction is essential.
Yesterday Zuckerberg reacted to the launch of the Apple Vision Pro saying that his proposal and that of Cupertino are diametrically opposed. I couldn’t agree more, although I think the difference we see is not the same. He says that Meta’s option is more focused on socializing, and that Apple’s is too individual, claiming that all he saw at the event was people using the product sitting on a sofa.
Zuckerberg fails to see that the Apple Vision Pro is just the beginning. In the end they are a prototype. In any case, the question that arises is whether what they offer is really more “sociable”. That is, do we socialize more in a world completely different from ours? Is hiding behind avatars that have little to do with us really the best way to relate to other people? is that socializing?
What the Vision Pro intends is nothing more than to create a platform for which developers from all over the world prepare applications. Rumors are in favor of some supposed glasses —with a normal appearance— that will be launched in a few years. That will be Apple’s final blow. This is just a prototype to show us what we can have in a few years. What Meta has taught us is its final product, and if even in those it is already worse, I don’t want to see how big the difference will be in a few years.
Zuckerberg has wanted to do the same thing that they did with social networks in the 2000s, but he has lacked resources, time and patience. He has wanted to decide how the future has to be, but it could not be. He has been overtaken by an Apple that has made a better approachwho has been able to invest much more in it and who has known how to wait for the perfect moment, and they have not liked that.
The difference between Meta and Apple is that those from Cupertino do not want to dictate how the future should be. They have simply made all their resources available to developers, users and other agents involved so that they, and basically us, decide. Perhaps this will serve as a wake-up call to Meta and know how to be able to start looking at the sun and stop thinking about the finger. We leave you here the complete statements of Zuckerberg:
Apple finally announced its mixed reality headset, so I want to talk about it for a second. I was very curious to see what they were going to release. And obviously I haven’t seen it yet, so I’ll learn more as we play with it and see what happens and how people use it.
From what I’ve seen initially, I’d say the good news is that there aren’t any sort of silver bullet solutions to any of the limitations of law and physics that our teams haven’t already explored and thought about. They’ve gone for a higher resolution display, and between that and all the technology they’ve put in to power it, it costs seven times as much and now requires so much power that you need a battery and a cable attached to it to use it. They did that design tradeoff and it might make sense for the cases you’re looking at.
But look, I think his announcement really shows the difference in values and vision that our companies bring to this in a way that I think is really important. We innovate to make sure our products are as accessible and affordable for everyone as possible, and that’s a core part of what we do. And we have sold tens of millions of Quests.
More importantly, our view of the metaverse and of presence is fundamentally social. It’s about people interacting in new ways and feeling closer in new ways. Our device is also about being active and doing things. Instead, all the demos they showed were of a person sitting alone on a couch. That might be the vision of the future of computing, but it’s not the one I want. There’s a real philosophical difference in terms of how we’re approaching this. And seeing what they put out there and how they’re going to compete just made me even more excited and in many ways optimistic that what we’re doing matters and it’s going to be successful. But it’s going to be a fun ride.
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