Zuckerberg takes on Apple, AI takes on Steve Jobs, and Ask Apple Developer launches

The Meta Quest Pro, in simulated use

After all the launches, pre-orders and finally shipping products we've had from Apple lately, it was a quiet week for new devices — except from Meta.

This week Meta launched a $1,500 VR headset and Mark Zuckerberg has chosen to defend the price by saying, well, it's cheaper than Apple's is bound to be, so there. He also insists the world needs VR to be an open system, so he's collaborating with Windows.

Even without clicking that Play button, you can already hear your AppleInsider podcast hosts saying to Zuckerberg uh-huh, sure, "open" system, we believe you.

What you won't believe, despite the greatest efforts of an AI company, is that there is a brand-new interview with the deceased Steve Jobs on a podcast. For some reason, he didn't show up and neither did "host" Joe Rogan - yet it sounds as if it they were both there.

It does and it doesn't. But this kind of deep-fake audio work raises some quite scary questions for the future.

Speaking of questions, though, if you are a developer and you have one, Apple is listening. In what seems to be an excellent experiment to reproduce the annual developer sessions at WWDC, a new Ask Apple service has launched.

It's only getting a short run, which does suggest it's a pilot, but it's a promising one. Developers around the world will be able to speak with Apple staff about specific coding problems, or perhaps details of Apple's iOS APIs, and more.

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• Fake Joe Rogan interviews ghost of Steve Jobs on AI-made podcast

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