Meta’s chief expertise officer has all however confirmed stories that the corporate is abandoning its plan to tackle the Apple Imaginative and prescient Professional with a equally highly effective gadget.
Proper earlier than the announcement of the Apple Imaginative and prescient Professional, Meta “leaked” its four-year plan for digital and combined actuality headsets. A key a part of that plan was the event of what was identified internally as La Jolla, however would maybe have grow to be identified the world as Apple Imaginative and prescient Professional’s closest rival.
As first noticed by The Data, Meta started improvement work in November 2023, however then cancelled the mission round mid-August 2024. Reportedly, the choice was made at a product overview assembly attended by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Chief Expertise Officer Andrew Bosworth, amongst others.
Following the report, Meta’s CTO Andrew Bosworth responded with a message on Threads, though he didn’t straight acknowledge the publication.
“Just your regularly scheduled public service announcement: we have many prototypes in development at all times,” he stated. “But we don’t bring all of them to production.”
“We move forward with some, we pass on others,” he continued. “Decisions like this happen all the time, and stories based on chatter about one individual decision will never give the real picture.”
It is definitely true that Meta is constant to work on completely different headsets. Nevertheless it seems to have dropped its Apple Imaginative and prescient Professional competitor, codenamed La Jolla, and probably due to price points.
There may be the truth that the $3,500 Apple Imaginative and prescient Professional has but to grow to be a dramatic success. However reportedly Meta was targeted on retaining the price of the La Jolla headset underneath $1,000, and it merely was not potential.
It is believed that La Jolla would have used micro OLED shows, similar to the Apple Imaginative and prescient Professional. Whereas not particularly identified, the price of these alone is more likely to have been an element.
Two unspecified sources inside Meta stated that it was potential that the La Jolla headset might be revived. But additionally that expertise developed for it, equivalent to gaze monitoring, could be utilized in different merchandise.
Meta has not formally introduced the cancellation of the mission, however as demonstrated with the failed Meta Quest Professional, it tends to not.