Apple is no stranger to unsolicited shots across the bow. The latest comes from Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who used his time on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast to take a few shots at the iPhone maker.
“I feel like they haven’t really invented anything great in a while. It’s like Steve Jobs invented the iPhone and now they’re just kind of sitting on it 20 years later,” he said. Mind you, this comes after Apple launched several new products in 2024, including:
Apple Vision Pro: A brand new category with several innovative features that propelled Meta to announce the Meta Quest 3 early and tease a pair of AR glasses that cost $10,000 to make.
AirPods 4 with ANC: A new pair of mid-range open-ear earbuds with active noise cancellation for under $200.
M4 Mac mini: A completely redesigned desktop computer that’s smaller than an Apple TV.
That’s in addition to the 5.3mm iPad Pro, 13-inch iPad Air, Apple Intelligence, Apple Pencil Pro, and four new models of the aforementioned iPhone. Now you could argue about whether a thinner iPad Pro or a smaller Mac mini is innovative, but to say Apple hasn’t invented anything great in a while is a bit of a stretch.
It’s so bad, Zuckerberg continues, that Apple is due to get knocked off its perch any day now: “I’m pretty optimistic that just because they’ve been so off their game in terms of not really releasing many innovative things that eventually—I mean the good news about the tech industry is it’s like, it’s just super dynamic and things are constantly getting invented. And I think companies, if you just don’t do a good job for like 10 years, eventually you’re just going to get beat by someone.”
Meta Quest 3 is just like Vision Pro if you ignore all the things Vision Pro does better.
Jim Martin / Foundry
That someone, I presume, would be Meta. After all, back when Vision Pro arrived last February, Zuckerberg mused that Apple’s headset was basically a heavier, overpriced, inferior version of the Meta Quest 3 despite the latter having inferior passthrough and eye tracking. And let’s not forget that the first-gen Oculus Go had its own growing pains. And it’s better we don’t speak of the early days of Meta Horizons at all.
But the real reason for Zuckerberg’s Apple ire isn’t invention at all. It’s money. Zuckerberg wanted to tap into Apple’s quick-pairing AirPods system for the Ray-Ban Meta Glasses, but Apple wasn’t having it: “We basically asked them… ‘Can we basically use the protocol that you use for AirPods and some of these other things to just make it so we can as easily connect? So it’s not like a pain in the ass for people who wanna use this?’
“And I think one of the protocols they’ve used that they built, they basically didn’t encrypt it. So it’s like plain text. And they’re like, well, we can’t have you plug into it because it would be insecure.”
Obviously, it would be a huge boon for the Meta Glasses if they “just worked” with the iPhone without needing to dig into Bluetooth settings. But if Zuckerberg really thought Apple was just going to open a proprietary connection method for Meta, he’s more delusional than I thought.
And not for nothing, Zuckerberg’s claim that the protocol isn’t encrypted is unfounded, as is his earlier claim that iPhone sales “might actually be declining.” You know what actually is declining? Facebook.
There are plenty of things to criticize Apple about, but a lack of invention isn’t one of them, especially coming from someone whose two biggest products were bought rather than developed. In fact, the only new product Meta has released recently is basically a Twitter clone.
But hey, I guess I’d be upset too if I was responsible for one of the biggest smartphone flops in history.
