Mark Gurman Tried a Prototype of Meta’s Quest 3 ⇥ bloomberg.com

One week before WWDC is scheduled to begin, during which Apple is widely expected to introduce its take on a mixed-reality headset, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman spent some time with a prototype of Meta’s Quest 3 headset, and it is a bizarre article.

Begin, naturally, with the title, which now reads “A First Look at the Headset That Could Be Apple’s Biggest Competition”. That appears to have been changed. If early tweets, the page title, and the metadata in this archived version are anything to go by, it originally ran under the headline “Meta Quest 3 Real Life Hands-On: How It Compares to Apple Mixed-Reality Headset”. That is what I remember reading yesterday when it dropped into my inbox, and I had to wonder how Gurman would compare a prototype product to one which does not yet exist.

Then there is the story of how Gurman got a hands-on with a product which Meta has not yet announced. Presumably, it was a demo arranged by Meta in an attempt to anchor reporting of a forthcoming announcement from Apple. But Gurman does not say, and there is the possibility this is an unsanctioned demo from someone who is working on the device or, perhaps, a third-party developer. Such details would help the reader form a clearer understanding about the intention of this article — how much of it is Gurman trying to provide context, and how much is Meta attempting to sway coverage?

The story itself seems fine if highly speculative. It is a hands-on experience with a prototype, which may or may not be representative of the product Meta announces or ships. If Meta is responsible for arranging this demo, it is a clever way of getting people thinking about what the company could announce later this year — at least until Monday.