It's such a fascinating difference in approach between Meta and Apple. Meta literally invites journalists in to walk around its lab, shows off their latest advances in academia (including all the limitations and problems). Meanwhile Apple works for 10 years in secrecy and even after they publicly announce are making anybody with access to the device use it in SCIF-like environment with a draconian NDA.
And then, Meta has no real interesting in delivering anything other than a product they can ship to millions of people on day 1 at a low price point, while Apple is actively cultivating exclusivity of access as a marketing tactic.
It’s more that Meta uses the showing of incomplete & currently not functional hardware/software as a marketing ploy.
Apple has never really done that (at least in the post Jobs return era). They demonstrate what their intention is… then release the device. Zip, except maybe some WWDC stuff in-between.
Which makes sense: Apple is Product Vision & UX focused, Meta (and most other companies) are Product Delivery & User Consumption focused.
Neither is wrong, they’re just aiming at different goals.
> Apple has never really done that (at least in the post Jobs return era).
The trashcan Mac Pro desktop was heavily promoted to tech journalists before release to try and keep pro users from abandoning Apple. IPads and iPhones were going gangbusters then, and Apple had gone a long time without refreshing the Mac Pro. The common sentiment was Apple no longer cared about professionals that required workstation-level performance. IIRC, this was in the aftermath of the release of a neutered Final Cut Pro which seemed to cater more to prosumers than pros, since it removed key features.
The intention was to signal pros to hang in there, and then the trashcan got released and had perf issues with throttling due to thermal challenges. Good times.
> The trashcan Mac Pro desktop was heavily promoted to tech journalists
They had one meeting where they told journalists they were not going to abandon the pro market space. This was when the trashcan had been out for a long time. Too long in fact.
> The intention was to signal pros to hang in there, and then the trashcan got released
No, the trashcan was released way before that meeting. One of the things discussed in the meeting was limitations of the trash can form factor.
> No, the trashcan was released way before that meeting
I'm afraid you're referring to yet another Mac Pro marketing push that came later (for the 2019 "Lattice" / cheese grater redux version).
I just looked up the dates & it lines up with my recollection and initial comment: the previous refresh (pre-trashcan) was in 2010. The Final Cut "Pro" X release that frustrated video professionals came out in 2011 and the trashcan itself was finally released in 2013. A lot of loyal video pros abandoned Apple for the Adobe/PC ecosystem in that era.
”Most people make the mistake of thinking design is what it looks like,” says Steve Jobs, Apple’s C.E.O. ”People think it’s this veneer — that the designers are handed this box and told, ‘Make it look good!’ That’s not what we think design is. It’s not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.”
Which is funny because Apple often does design fails with regards to how stuff works. The obvious Magic Mouse 2 charging port, their mices continued insistence that there be only one physical click button so it's literally impossible to right and left click at the same time despite games and other software occasionally needing that, being maybe the only monitor manufacturer in the world to still ship a monitor with a single input, the Mac Mini constantly being plagued by Bluetooth/Wifi issues because of its chassis design etc.
> Which is funny because Apple often does design fails with regards to how stuff works.
Even exquisitely-designed things aren't right for everybody, which is fine. I also personally like old-fashioned clicky 2-button mice like my Logitech M720.
(The one item on your list that isn't a "different strokes for different folks" thing isn't something I've ever experienced with my Mac minis, FWIW.)
> Which makes sense: Apple is Product Vision & UX focused, Meta (and most other companies) are Product Delivery & User Consumption focused.
They are not competing goals.
All companies have to show progress.
Apple can afford to show finished products because it has multiple product lines. At any given time, at least one product line is shipping a finished version.
Meta, on the other hand, won't be shipping a finished product for their pitch ("Meta"-verse) anytime soon. So they have to be content with work-in-progress.
They are competing focuses however. Obviously they can all be satisfied, but you can’t focus on all of it. Otherwise it becomes “everything is a priority, so nothing is”.
I’ve worked at places that tried that. It’s foolhardy & doomed.
But that’s sort of what I mean: announced, never any mention again. Just cancelled. No additional “here’s that thing but it’s half built”, just… dropped
And it’s a pretty rare thing to have that mode of failure for them.
Yeah, I feel that this is why Apple announcements are exciting: they won’t show prototypes that may or may not be released to consumers. What they show they intend to ship within a year.
There was also the infamous white iPhone 4 debacle, they had almost shipped the next one the following year before anyone got a white handset. A white handset may not sound like a big deal, but people really wanted that thing.
That sticks out as one of the worst delays between announcement and shipping I can recall in Apple's history (~10 months and multiple delays).
Fill you in about what exactly? And what do you mean by "without search"? There is contemporaneous reporting on the matter available online, it's going to be more useful for you than someone's twelve year old recollections.
Exactly. Meta always shows a preview because as you said their focus is user consumption - their vision is completely dependent on how the public vision forms around their idea. Beyond their core idea I think they observe usage and then figure out how to best exploit that. We’re seeing it now with threads- they’ve basically piloted it and have tons of data to guide their path to profitability.
It seems they’re figuring out how to do this with hardware - by giving public previews they can gather all feedback.
Tldr when your goal is to exploit peoples time you are reactive more than innovative, less secrets other than understanding human nature. When the goal like apple is to create the sleekest highest status product, it must be original and based on more objective standards (like aesthetics)
I was approached by both Apple and Facebook back in the days, and decided to join Facebook instead of Apple. Why? I like to be able to post about the research I do, and I didn't like the secrecy approach of Apple. I'm guessing that this is a big factor for more than just me when choosing a company to join, especially when you do interesting things that you want to be able to share with the world.
I remember reading that Mark Rober was at Apple (nobody knew about that!) and I just feel like that must have sucked massively for someone who loves making youtube videos to work in a place like that.
Yeah, on point observation. I worked at both companies. I left Apple to work at Facebook because I wanted to be able to participate in open source projects and talk about my work with my coworkers openly.
Another way of looking at it is - one company has a deep history of shipping successful and often innovative hardware products, and the other one doesn't.
It's hard to argue that that the one that ships is taking the wrong approach.
You're comparing a hardware company with a software company. Meta only got into hardware in recent years. I would also point out that Meta is massively ahead of everyone in terms of VR (including Apple).
I certainly wouldn’t call Apple a hardware company. Their software is as much a part of the story of their products as their hardware, if not more so in many areas.
I'm not sure if you're arguing that Meta/Occulus wasn't innovative or their hardware isn't successful. The Quest Pro would perhaps be a failure, but then will the new Mac Pro be a wild success ?
Meta acquired Occulus and so far have released only a single popular product.
And no one other than yourself thinks that the Mac Pro is going to be a wild success. It's a highly niche product with the Mac Studio being the mainstream version.
It’s also a little more than half the price. It’s not bad, but it builds strongly on brand recognition as well. They were really the only major game in town.
The Mac Pro accounts for 11% of all Mac computers sold and 40-50% (~$20bln) of Mac revenues in 2022 (including laptops); the Mac Studio is only 1% of units shipped. What's your definition of wild success?
There's a reason the Mac Mini went longer than the Pro without an update. Compared to the Studio, the Pro has dual 10Gb Ethernet, SATA and PCIe Gen 4, and a rack-mounted chassis option. For certain classes of enterprise workloads, that makes a difference. Think VFX, post production, sound stages and recording that can't use the Studio for lack of PCIe expansion slots for industry-related hardware (HDX/DSP).
Why would you need a separate GPU when you have integrated 60-core GPU with access to up to 198gb of memory? Like what you'd need a render farm? Apple Metal is already a target for all the important tools.
The Mac Pro is their lowest volume computer. You’re thinking of MacBook Pro, perhaps. The MacBook Pro is a laptop and the Mac Pro is a full tower desktop.
Nope. The MacBook Pro outsells it four to one, but the Mac Pro _starts_ at $7k and goes up to $25-50k fully loaded. It's easy to underestimate the enterprise market.
Oh, that report. No comment on the accuracy. I did misunderstand you to be talking about all Mac revenue and not just desktops. I work on a 2019 Mac Pro so am familiar with the price range.
VR being a niche in itself, I don't see absolute sales number for headset to be a failure (if you excuse the Mac Pro for being niche, any of the Meta headsets are probably a blasing success. Makes me wonder how many trash can were sold during these years)
Through that lens, I don't see Meta has having slacked and failed to capture the market when they're definitely the leader and pushed it a decent amount forward.
The comparison point could be HTC, who's also continuing pushing the envellope but can't touch Meta in terms of scale and price point.
One company was almost bankrupt and only by sheer luck with some injection of capital managed to avoid closing shop while bringing a former founder, and the other one didn't have to deal with such problems.
> Meta has no real interesting in delivering anything other than a product they can ship to millions of people on day 1 at a low price point
Ahm, are we forgetting the QuestPro? Meta tried to build their "Apple headset", 5x the price of a Quest2 and loaded with all the R&D features they could find. And it was a colossal flop. The whole thing is getting shutdown little over six months after release.
They forgot to include critical features like a depth sensor, they couldn't figure out what to do with the eye tracking in their software, face tracking wasn't a feature anybody wanted and reduced the battery dramatically when actually used, passthough cameras are a blurry mess, resolution is too low to work as actual desktop replacement, etc.
The whole thing, despite 5x the price, was firmly stuck at just being a slightly better Quest2. Meta spend the last seven years building a portable Oculus Rift, and they succeeded at that, but despite billions in R&D they haven't really managed to advanced VR beyond that point.
They delivered a product, but it's clear they simply don't have the commitment required to actually see it through. Quest Pro is actually great for what it is, but they seem completely clueless about how to actually market something to business or professional users. The software on it is 100% identical to the Quest 2, designed entirely for gaming. Just the fact they couldn't be bothered even slightly differentiating the software shows they just don't even understand the distinctions b/w the spaces.
But above that layer there are pretty big distinctions. Meta is fully on the record that they are all in on making Quest completely use OpenXR as the primary API to the point of deprecating the old Oculus proprietary APIs. They also actively pushing forward the latest WebXR spec into the browser on the Quest, and sideloading of apps in general is straightforward (although you do need a developer account to do it which is unfortunate).
Apple doesn't seem interested at all in open standards at the OS layer, so if you need to be happy with the fully walled garden and proprietary APIs to buy into that ecosystem. It's unclear if VisionPro will support WebXR in the browser it ships.
So in terms of freedom, you will get a lot more from Quest, but its definitely sad that this whole area of computing could end up being the first that has literally no true open platform available.
I guess this means "sideloading" is a privilege they can revoke at their whim, is that right? I hope I'm over-interpreting this (and not blaming you as the messenger).
I just said above they aren't truly open ... so I'm not sure why you're premising your statement on me believing the opposite?
But in terms of how they are are "more" open, you can side load any app you want, and the headset supports open standards at both the app level (OpenXR) and browser level (WebXR).
I think the biggest difference is Meta is happy to put out an incomplete product and iterate. The standard Quest 2 for example leaves a lot to be desired on the software side, but instead of waiting for years to perfect it they shoved it out there with the expectation that people would understand and accept that its very much an evolving platform.
Apples approach is that they wont release until its ready for use by the average joe. The expectation that you get it and it works out of the box without needing to be too technical is where they thrive.
This isn't to say one approach is better or worse, just different.
"Meta has no real interesting in delivering anything other than a product they can ship to millions of people on day 1 at a low price point"
Wow, how naive can you be?
Because Meta's forte is ads. The hardware is just the gateway to their ecosystem where they don't have to pay Apple/Google for access to users.
Companies' engineering blogs are just carefully curated marketing pieces with highly distilled technical info. It's still marketing and some people eat it up.
> Meta has no real interesting in delivering anything other than a product they can ship to millions of people on day 1 at a low price point, while Apple is actively cultivating exclusivity of access as a marketing tactic.
Apple literally ships millions of devices on day one (that is, on the exact day they announce they will ship it).
Edit: with very few notable exceptions like the wireless charger
It’s interesting that you make this point. Because Meta’s video is _all about_ the hardware: here’s new lens design, here’s high density screen.
Apple’s Vision Pro release has been all about the software: the interaction models, how to use SwiftUI to make immersive and windowed apps, the windowing model, accessibility, type readability, and every little detail related to UI
I used to call this the startup model vs the Apple model
A startup begins a project often by announcing that it has almost succeed. Some open source projects and crowdfunded projects with a lot of pomp also take this approach. It is great(?) for fundraising. It is interesting that Meta chooses this since they are not looking for funding, but maybe they are looking to cultivate the same panache/ethos. A way to market to prospective employees, more than end customers.
Apple denies that its even doing something until after it has succeeded. And even then it will announce it on its own terms. The Putin regime also follows this model (eg 2014 annexation of Crimea). It is great for denying competition time to catch up.
apple can get away with being less polite. what it delivers is enough to motivate a certain level of tolerance.
apple is ecosystem. it is the front runner at the moment, and will be hard to beat.
ffs this is facebook and mark zuckerberg. how does the joke go? their faces are next to the word unlikable in the dictionary?
both meta and zuck are cultivating a rather incredible comeback story. for all the historical hateables, even with layoffs and rto, there are a lot of recent moves that are brilliant.
second place in a martial arts tournament. threads. llama. this.
both meta and zuck are starting to look downright likeable.
this is no accident, and no small feat.
tl;dr you seemed to have missed meta’s marketing tactic, possibly due to anti-apple bias.
One is the world's biggest voyeur, a creepy, dead-eyed non-human who has broken the concept and functioning of the entire internet too many times to even count, the other makes toy cars and space rockets.
Meta has a god-awful reputation and needs to do whatever they can to build goodwill with journalists and the public. If they think showing off half-finished vaporware is the way to do that, good luck to them.
They have videos of actual people using the actual built devices at the conference. They are letting conference attendees at SIGGRAPH put these on and try them out.
I get the need to downplay anything good that Meta does, but stick to "reality" - this is very different from half finished vapor ware. Or to put it another way, if this is vaporware, so is Apple Vision Pro at this point.
We have no idea when, or if, this will end up in a shipping product. If they were to imply it’s a real product (didn’t read that clearly) it’s vaporware.
The Vision Pro was announced. Has a release date (within a quarter), a full public SDK & simulator. They have started the hands on labs for developers around the world this week.
That’s not vaporware. If it is every movie that’s been announced + shot but not released is.
The modern Apple (post Jobs return) had what, one product that was announced but didn’t come out? The AirPower. And that was a real product they were in the final stages of (best I understand) but hit insurmountable safety issues. Not “hey we’re thinking this will be a thing one day”, but a failed product launch that didn’t make it to market after multiple attempts to fix it in the final stages.
Yes they did do it. But I called out post Steve Jobs return in my comment gif that reason.
Have people called SwiftUI and the new settings panels vaporware? I’ve never heard that. I’m neutral on the new settings design, but they do have a lot to fix there.
SwiftUI is pretty great when you can do what you want. Every release that encompasses more. I’m not sure you can reasonably make a fully featured UI toolkit in secret, I think you need external devs to help find issues and gaps. Letting it out early may have been a good idea for that reason, though it was quite rough at the start.
Let this sink in; Facebook alone has more MAUs than YouTube in it's entirety. That's frankly bonkers. After YouTube, the 2 next most popular are, yep, Instagram and WhatsApp.
If you went up to the average person on the street and asked them how they felt about the Cambridge Analytica situation, they would probably ignore you and think it was some sports thing. "the public" clearly doesn't care and journalists are probably pretty happy with Facebook's performance given what they have to put up with on Twitter.
I'm not saying anyone is particularly right or wrong here. I just think that this site's obsession with "Facebook bad" doesn't really extend beyond the constituent of hackers with a healthy distrust of organized power.
You and GP miss that FB products are used in worldwide. Foreign people don't much care about Trump related chaos. Though I might underrate that how US is big for a VR market, because they tend to spend money and tend to have big rooms.
Cambridge Analytica was an entirely fake issue so in this case the general public is more informed than the average hacker news reader.
I'm not a republican btw, I just know a lot about the nuts and bolts of the digital industry. Anybody who actually knows how political ad targeting works guffaws every time CA comes up.
You’re a bit biased if you think Meta is doing anything other than marketing here, just using a different tactic.
Meta has never showed off demo-able advanced R&D hardware publicly, even when they’ve had it, until now.
This is simply a second degree demo to Wall Street investors. Their analysts will either attend, or read reports from reputable experts.
They’ve sunk $40 Billion into this project with nothing to show. Apple has reportedly spent $20 Billion while underpinning it with healthy growth and profits.
Facebook shipped Quest 2 dev kits to partners that were physically disguised as clothing irons. The narrative you’re spinning is nonsense.
EDIT: You’re either Boz or a lieutenant judging by your comment history.
You only comment on topics related to Facebook competition and say things close to “interesting feedback” and occasionally expose yourself with specific phrases like “Thanks for sharing, it's always interesting to hear these kind of anecdotes!”
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36351422
Yes they have. Unless I dreamed watching a bunch of YouTube videos of people trying on different prototypes at their office last year and talking about different tradeoffs they're considering.
Meta literally changed their name for this space, and Apple is going to beat them to market with a mass market product. This is clearly reactive "we have to show something" vaporware.
> Apple is going to beat them to market with a mass market product
???
Meta already shipped 20M headsets. Apple won't get more than 400k of these in the field until 2025, and even then they will be so expensive barely anybody can afford it. Quite literally, whatever mass market there is, Meta owns it now and for the foreseeable future.
Oculus is capped at the gamer market size, which is in the 10M units range.
Apple is targeting the wider compute market which is capped at Billions. They won't sell billions in 2025, or at the $3500 price point, but this is the market they are building towards capturing.
Think of Palm Pilot vs iPhone. It's a decade-scale play.
* edit: Let me just add that Apple TV hardware which is largely abandoned and afterthought product line considered unsuccessful, for example is a 13M/year item for Apple. 20M lifetime is not mass market.
> * edit: Let me just add that Apple TV hardware which is largely abandoned and afterthought product line considered unsuccessful, for example is a 13M/year item for Apple. 20M lifetime is not mass market.
Besides it seems like comparing apples to oranges. Apple TV works with existing TVs which are already billions in numbers. VR devices are completely new devices. Meta has sold 20M headsets SO FAR, not in its lifetime.
Weird semantics on so far vs lifetime.. it's the same thing.
Meta and Apple are targeting different markets and you can tell by Apple's product videos.
To me, Meta is entrenched in the currently gamer centric VR market. I call it this because 100% of the people I know who have been excited by VR over the last 10 years have been young, single, male gamers. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that, but the marketing & people excited about the product, to me, seem to align there.
Apple doesn't even call it VR because they are trying to target a much wider market.
I agree with this (though trying is the operative word). It seems a strange moment in time to choose to call the game for Apple though, at a grand total of 0 units shipped and a price point of $3500+tax. It is literally not knowable now in 2023 if they will be able to manage to do what Tesla did, in transitioning from “toy for rich jerks” to “reasonable mass market choice, and we can manufacture them in mass quantities too.” I mean, it’s not even clear yet if the rich jerk set will adopt it.
Tesla is not a great analogy for this. Their lowest priced vehicle is only just below the average sales price of all new cars and that vehicle excludes the Tesla brand features that Apple would not strip out of their product. And that is when the average vehicle sales price has increased 10k in the last four years. So for the analogy to work Apple would effectively have to strip down their device to the point that it is just an expensive copy cat Quest and Meta would have to raise prices 50% (to be fair, the price rise might happen).
So why do you think Oculus is capped at gamer market size? What about the AVP is something Meta can't replicate in a generation or two? Considering the install base, I would think Meta will be able to keep their app store stocked as well.
Are you just saying that Meta has the wrong focus or do you think Apple has a moat?
Oculus is not capped at the gamer market size. It's capped by hardware constraints. Until very recently, the hardware wasn't there for high resolution microdisplays and lenses. Most VR equipment has been built using off the shelf parts and modified smart phone hardware. This stuff is still great for gaming but not so great for dealing with text or anything requiring anything super high resolution.
Now that the chip shortage and supply chain issues have calmed down a bit, we're seeing big improvements. But these constraints also apply to Apple which is why their first run of Vision Pro headsets is set to be around 100,000 units. Hardware is the constraint.
That said, the focus for Oculus has always been much larger than gaming. The whole "Metaverse" pitch isn't a pitch for a product. The "Metaverse" is just another jangly marketing term just like "Information Superhighway" was for the Internet back in 90s. It just means using VR/AR for everyday situations like work, entertainment, etc.
I agree, that's why I said "what mass market there is". Because the whole thing is completely speculative that there can be mass market here ever, and that applies as much to Apple as Meta. None of the so far demonstrated devices are really appropriate for that.
I don't know why you think Meta is "capping" themselves to gaming market or why you think that market tops out at 10M units. That is where they started, but clearly that's not their whole vision (or why did they bother making the Quest Pro?).
Quick question for Boz: so are you saying the Quest Pro was line of business proof of concept to give cover for PMF to downstream the tech into Quest 3?
You might be right, but what makes you think Oculus can't grow beyond the gamer market? I ask because they identified a VR company that was focused on VR productivity as a competitor, so they're clearly thinking beyond gaming.
Meta is targeting one billion people in VR. They have stated that numerous times throughout the years. Meta does not like gaming, they tried numerous times to move away from it and focus on social VR. At their conferences over the last few years gaming gets a quick trailer show and than they go back talking about the Metaverse.
Meta's focus on games right now is not by choice or by vision, but simply because that's the only VR product they have that actually sells. Kids love Quest and VR. Nobody bought the QuestPro for social VR or for work-in-VR. Horizon World doesn't seem to gain traction either, everybody is still doing VRChat. Gaming was also not their idea, the gaming focus came from the original Oculus company they bought, they just have been unable to move past that.
The difference between Apple and Meta is that Apple has a clear vision, they are building a device that works as full desktop replacement. They completely skipped any of the classic VR topics at their presentation. VisionPro is "just" a better monitor, everything else is optional and come later.
Meta on the other side doesn't really know what they want, they have this vague vision of VR being big in the future and they want to secure their place in that future by throwing money at it. But they don't know how to get there. So they have a lot of gaming here, a bit social there and a bit of VR-as-desktop, but none of it is polished, lots of it isn't even functional and nothing is ever used to its full potential. Worse yet, they handicap themselves, their VR must be mobile, since they want to own the VR platform, so their PC support ends up lackluster, despite all the best VR content still being on PC. They want to have ads and collect data, so kids under 13 aren't allowed on their platform, despite being very popular in that age group. It's all a mess.
Bro you’re clearly either Boz or a senior lieutenant judging by your comment history.
You only comment on topics related to Facebook competition and say things close to “interesting feedback” and occasionally expose yourself with specific phrases like “Thanks for sharing, it's always interesting to hear these kind of anecdotes!”
Or they just really care about VR, or they're an investor that's bullish about the company. A good number of people on HN have literally millions of dollars in stock in various companies.
Focus on their argument, not "outing" someone, whatever that means.
Apple does employ some tropes of luxury and fashion in marketing strategy, but they are absolutely not a "luxury fashion business". A large number of their products are utterly mainstream and often price competitive.
What they tend to shy away from are ultra-low margin sectors with little opportunity for differentiation and flooded with amoral competition. Sure, the cheapest iPhone is nowhere near the cost of the cheapest Android phones. But that's because most cheap Android phones are also abandonware, and/or manufactured e-waste, and/or using all of the conflict minerals/abusive labour practices/environmental hazards which Apple has to remain unambiguously distanced from.
> A large number of their products are utterly mainstream and often price competitive.
I agree with everything you wrote but this. Just because Apple products are within reach of a lot of people, it doesn’t mean that they’re not a luxury brand.
Apple is absolutely a premium brand, but they're not a luxury brand. The key distinction is that a luxury brand revels in real or perceived exclusivity; with prices set for the primary purpose of gatekeeping the brand to a select audience.
While not cheap, Apple products are obtainable and utterly mainstream. In fact in the rare instances where Apple has experimented with luxury it has been a dismal failure — Apple Watch Edition being a noteworthy example.
My point is Apple is taking their typical approach which is more Tesla - start at the high price point option to define a space and then work your way down.
I don't think we're going to stumble into good immersive AR/VR by cobbling together OEM parts bin specials to hit a $400 price point day 1.
It seems obvious that the displays & optics need to be as good or better than top of the line phone/computer displays, not worse. So I don't see how a remotely immersive experience can happen even at the $1k price point.
> So I don't see how a remotely immersive experience can happen even at the $1k price point.
I strongly feel that you need to actually try modern VR for more than a few minutes. Is it perfect? Far from it. There are many problems, specifically that VR’s main form factors are too intimidating for most adults to even try. Is it immersive? Yes, a lot of apps and games are
I’m just glad Tim forced Apple to finally join the market. Otherwise, there would be VR winter for about a decade due to the mass public perception of VR and the fact that the most engaged VR users can’t even drive yet.
It's also likely to mirror Apple's approach with all-new product families, where a first generation product is released as soon as they have the core technology working but before it's at an "Apple" level of maturity and/or have a true grip on the product's raison d'être. Subsequent generations reveal the first generation to be the experimental beta/market test product it really was all along.
This was definitely the case with the iPhone, iPad and the Watch. It's arguably also true with the first generation MacBook Air.
(This definitely doesn't apply to the M1 transition as this wasn't a new product family. It was a fork of an extremely mature product, combined into another extremely mature product, resulting in a product revision which was very cool but did absolutely nothing new.)
And then, Meta has no real interesting in delivering anything other than a product they can ship to millions of people on day 1 at a low price point, while Apple is actively cultivating exclusivity of access as a marketing tactic.