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Comment by ladyanita22 | Hacker News Reader

Meta's Horizon OS is Android, so they could basically just do the same. Of course, they don't have a proper app store for that, but the compatibility should be there.

The main roadblock would be the OS support, and Meta's already has that. They are of course lacking another big roadblock, which is the store.

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> Meta's Horizon OS is Android, so they could basically just do the same.

They just announced they're doing that: https://developers.meta.com/horizon/blog/building-2d-apps-on...

AFAICT there won't be Play Store support though, so devs will have to publish their 2D Android apps specifically to the Quest store.

Presumably Google wants VR headsets to run Google's own version of Android, perhaps called Android VR (or the like), though I haven't heard of a VR version of Android developed by Google. Previously they developed Android TV and Android for smartwatches. Even a version for cars I believe.

Thank you for the link!

I maintain an Android app which doesn't require Play Services. Might as well get it on the store if Meta is encouraging it

Meta just announced support for carrying standard 2D Android apps on their storefront at Connect a few weeks ago. I think the Vision Pro release has (pun intended) given them a vision to work towards (as seen by their rapid update process post launch to match features)

That said, visionOS can run iPad and iPhone apps unmodified. Meta will not bundle Google Play Services and a few other Android APIs, so APKs won’t be publishable on their store without some amount of work to use their alternate SDK.

you can already install android apps on the quest (since day one probably). I did that regularly over the past year, they work great.

it's just not officially supported, since they have been having a fight with google for years now. meta is claiming that google are the ones that don't want to see the play store on the platform.

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