Mark Zuckerberg appeared to take a shot at Apple’s Vision Pro

• Mark Zuckerberg appeared to take a jab at Apple’s Vision Pro during Meta’s Q1 earnings call.
• The CEO said he sees a mainstream market for AI glasses without a display.
• Meta’s smart glasses, developed with Ray-Ban, feature AI, a camera, and built-in speakers.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg seemed to take a hit at Apple’s Vision Pro in Meta’s first-quarter earnings call on Wednesday.

Zuckerberg said he didn’t think augmented reality glasses would make it in the mainstream market until it had “full holographic displays.” The comment appears to show his skepticism of the potential success of a product like Apple’s Vision Pro.

“And I still think that that’s gonna be awesome and is the long-term mature state for the product,” the CEO said. “But now, it seems pretty clear that there’s also a meaningful market for fashionable AI glasses without a display,” Zuckerberg said.

Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment to clarify Zuckerberg’s comments.

Meta launched its latest version of Ray-Ban smart glasses in September. The device has a starting price of $299 and includes access to Meta AI, a camera, the ability to make calls, and built-in speakers.

“Glasses are the ideal device for an AI assistant because you can let them see what you see and hear what you hear,” the CEO said. “So their full context on what’s going on around you.”

The CEO said he thinks the glasses have “the ability to be a pretty meaningful and growing platform sooner than then I would have expected so.”

While Meta’s Quest virtual reality headset competes with Apple’s Vision Pro, Zuckerberg has said before that he doesn’t imagine a future of people walking around with virtual reality headsets.

“That’s certainly not the future that I’m hoping we get to,” Zuckerberg said to podcast host Andrew Huberman in an interview in October 2023.

It’s not the first time the CEO has thrown shade at the Apple Vision Pro and tried to one-up Meta’s competitor. In February, Zuckerberg posted a video of himself reviewing Apple’s competing device and said the Quest didn’t just have better value but that it was “the better product period”

In the video, Zuckerberg also listed a number of features on Meta’s Quest that he said were better than the Vision Pro, like a brighter screen and wider field of vision.

Zuckerberg isn’t the one executive at the tech giant to drag the Apple Vision Pro. Meta’s CTO, Andrew Bosworth, previously said the product was “very uncomfortable.”