Comment by LegitShady

Meta has consistently tried to drive the price of their headsets down compared to the competition. They weren't looking to build the expensive high end groundbreaking hardware, they are looking to make cheap ubiquitous AR/VR so that people can access the "metaverse" which is the real platform and product that meta wants to control.

So no, meta's play was never "groundbreaking hardware", it was making the hardware better while keeping the price accessible to normal people. Apple hasn't even entered the competition there.