Meta’s Chief Technology Officer Andrew Bosworth answered a question about whether Meta plans to support 2D Android applications during yesterday’s Instagram AMA (Ask Me Anything) event.
“There’s nothing stopping Android developers from bringing their APKs that are already running on Android phones into VR. They just need to send us the APKs. They may need to make some slight modifications, depending on how they want to set it up,” he said. control scheme, but maybe not even that much of a modification is needed. We don’t have any automatic way to import these apps, and we’re hoping Google will bring their Play Store into VR. We’ve asked them, but they don’t want to do that , so it’s up to the developers themselves.”
Quest already has the ability to run 2D Android apps in the home interface, which float in front of the user. However, there are currently only two Android phone/tablet applications available on the Quest store, namely Meta’s own Messenger and WhatsApp. However, users can use their computers to install Android APKs, but applications that require Google Play Services runtime cannot be used properly.
Quest also supports progressive web apps (PWA), and there are a few such apps on the Quest store, such as Adobe Acrobat, Lastpass, Peacock, Coursera and Monday.com.
Technically, the Quest’s built-in web browser is also a 2D app that can be called up within an immersive app.
Meanwhile, Apple has confirmed that “almost all” iPad and iPhone apps will be available on the Vision Pro when it ships. And Google is developing its own Android XR platform for upcoming Samsung headsets, which will likely include the Play Store and its slew of 2D apps.
One of the core reasons why Mark Zuckerberg acquired Oculus in 2014 for about US$3 billion is to reduce his company’s commitment to the next generation of personal computers. Dependence on platform owners Apple and Google. But these existing platforms may have a lasting impact when it comes to 2D applications, which could become one of Meta’s major weaknesses in the XR space.
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