That's a common take but I think it's based more on PC/Android fans looking for an easy dismissal than any serious understanding of the history of the field. You saw this a lot when the iPod or, especially, iPhone came out which both ignored the degree to which devices were substantially different from other ones and, especially, that there were older experiments going back to the 1990s or even 1980s but that they chose not release products which were seriously compromised by the hardware.

In the case of VR/AR, we know Apple has been working on VR products since at least the early 90s but those never made it very far other than a few things like QuickTime VR. As we can see from the rest of the field it was only until the last half-decade that people were getting things like the visual quality or especially latency to acceptable levels and battery life / weight still seem to be a substantial problem.