Meta recently rejected Google’s bid to bring Android XR to Quest, although now it seems the company is looking to make it slightly easier to use 2D Android apps on its standalone headsets, but also possibly harder to mod Quest-native games.

X user ‘Lunayian’ discovered in Quest’s v63 on the public test channel (PTC) that Meta is currently testing the ability to show and keep apps pinned to the Universal Menu dock, which is where you find all of your recently-used apps.

https://twitter.com/Lunayian/status/1764855550997651495

Since Quest is based on an open-source version of Android, users have been able to sideload apk files for both XR-native apps and standard 2D Android apps via SideQuest, however it seems the company is baking these into the Universal Menu to make recently used apps easier to access. Before this, sideloaded apps would disappear from the Universal Menu when another app was opened, so you’d have to go back into the App Library to find them again, which was a minor hassle, but a hassle none the less.

A report last week was substantiated by Meta CTO Andrew ‘Boz’ Bosworth, who called Google’s Android XR ambitions too “restrictive,” as the search engine giant was “threatening to fragment the ecosystem,” so we shouldn’t expect Google’s Play store on Quest anytime soon. Still, it’s clear Meta knows what it’s missing in its continued bid to compete with Apple Vision Pro, which boasts over 1.5 million apps built for iPhone and 1,000+ visionOS-native apps.

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Speaking of sideloading, update v63 on the PTC seems to include a few other features that are stirring the pot with users who opted into the software test channel. The update has ostensibly removed access to scoped storage, which allows folder access for things like game modding.

Meta forum moderator ‘WootM4ge’ maintains in a post that “prohibiting access to the scoped storage within your headset wasn’t a feature that Meta intentionally added, but instead was a part of a new update to Android that implemented some security features, which has locked access to files.”

It’s not certain whether this will carry over to the public release channel, but if it does, it means things like Minecraft standalone port QuestCraft and the miasma of BONELAB mods currently available will be nonfunctional. There’s no word on when Meta will roll out v63 officially, so we’ll be keeping our eyes out in the meantime.

We’ve reached out to Meta on whether v63 will indeed revoke access to scoped storage, and will update this piece when/if we hear back.

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Scott Hayden
Well before the first modern XR products hit the market, Scott recognized the potential of the technology and set out to understand and document its growth. He has been professionally reporting on the space for nearly a decade as Editor at Road to VR, authoring more than 4,000 articles on the topic. Scott brings that seasoned insight to his reporting from major industry events across the globe.

  • The Mod thing is my problem, since my app is used to Mod game, but it doesn’t fully stop modding, you can still attach to a PC, use a developer workaround, or use the Apps’s built-in mod manager, if they exist, but it does put a halt to standalone modding, such as downloading a Zip file with the Quest Browser, and using Mobile VR Station / CXExplorer to install in into the /Android/data/game/files/Mods folder. This was caused by Google, they have been locking down access to /Android/data for quite a while, making Android phones less like a PC and more like a Photo/Video device.

    • So an Update for Meta, we won, they rolled back the new Scoped Storage changes.

      • ViRGiN

        Did they modify and updated Android to keep old storage system, or just rolled back the update?

      • Yay!

  • ViRGiN

    It’s not really modding if you have to copy stuff manually. It’s more like game hacking. Beat Saber modding is hacking the game. You want example of modding, look at Contractors or Pavlov, implementing native modio support, not needing any PC to install mods, and no trickery doing some file managment from Quest itself.

    Bonelab devs are extremely lazy. What have they even done in the past year to update the game and mod tools? I assume nothing.

    • Beat Saber is more Akin to hacking since you need to install a modified version of the APK. Also the same for GTAG, it doesn’t have mods, just modified versions. But Bonelab, Pavlov, Blade & Sorcery nomad have true mod support, but getting the files in their is painful.