Meta and Apple do not agree very well to say it. Facebook has seen a drop in revenue due to privacy measures introduced by Apple in iOS 15, and that’s not a trend that’s going to change given what Tim Cook thinks of services selling user data to the highest bidder.
This relationship also has no hope of improving with all the rumors pointing to a future battle of virtual and augmented reality headsets, with the Meta Quest Pro already presented and a supposed “Apple Reality” in the works. And about that, Mark Zuckerberg once threw a dart directly at Apple’s business model.
A Metaverse that will be inaccessible to many for now
Zuckerberg made it clear in a recent interview: “Apple builds its hardware and sets it as expensively as possible.” The head of Meta argues that if you want to connect people and give them a new “social experience”, you have to do the opposite: “build the best hardware and sell it at cost or even at a loss.”
It’s not newMicrosoft admitted to doing just that with the Xbox because the money comes from selling games, not the console. Zuckerberg is looking to do the same with his virtual and augmented reality headset: Sell it as low as possible to make money from the services that can be used on it.
But of course, understanding this, you will consult the price of the Meta Quest Pro and you will come across… 1,799 crushers. The Metaverse is definitely not something everyone can afford at the moment. And if that price is the lowest price at which Meta can sell this device, it’s clear to us that it’s going to be a long time to see a more popularly priced headset.
Rumors indicate that Apple’s first headset could cost as much as $3,000, so that’s where we might start to see the difference between selling at cost and looking to make a margin. We’ll see how popular Meta Quest Pro is when it starts shipping later this month.
