Meta launched the v50 replace for Quest 2, bringing to the standalone some new experimental options that not solely purpose to make hand-tracked UI navigation a bit of extra pure, but additionally deliver 2D app multitasking to Quest 2 for the primary time.
One of many headlining options of v50 is one thing Meta is looking ‘Direct Contact’, which helps you to faucet and swipe by the Residence UI. Merely ‘contact’ the tile and manipulate the menu such as you would on a cellphone or pill, Meta says, one thing that sounds a bit of extra pure than pinching tiles from a distance in mid-air.
Meta says in a weblog put up that Direct Contact brings Quest “nearer to that extra intuitive hands-on future” that it hoped to deliver when it first built-in optical hand monitoring in 2019. Take a look at the way it works within the gif under:
“We’ve reworked the Meta Quest UI in order that—when you allow Direct Contact—you possibly can faucet buttons together with your index finger to regulate your Settings or choose a recreation out of your library, shortly sort out messages on the digital keyboard, and extra,” Meta says.
You possibly can opt-in by navigating to the ‘Experimental Settings’ tab in-headset and turning on the ‘Direct Contact’ toggle, after all offered v50 has already rolled out to your machine.
Meta’s v50 replace additionally features a new Quest 2 function beforehand unique to Quest Professional: in-game multitasking. This allows you to navigate to 2D apps, equivalent to a browser, with out closing the VR app you presently have open. Successfully, this implies you possibly can keep in-headset when you browse recreation walkthroughs, test your e mail, or no matter else you are able to do in a 2D app, all whereas nonetheless in-game.
As for Quest Professional, Meta says v50 has additionally lowered the period of time it takes for monitoring to initialize on the Meta Quest Contact Professional controllers—one thing oft lamented by early adopters because of the controllers’ inside-out monitoring capabilities, which want to search out their bearings within the room first.
In the meantime, v50 marks the final time Meta is transport new options to Quest 1. The corporate says within the launch notes that whereas Quest 1 homeowners will be capable to use their headsets past 2024, customers will now not be capable to create or be part of a celebration; Quest 1 customers who presently have entry to Meta Horizon Residence social options will lose entry to those options on March 5, 2023—which suggests you additionally received’t be capable to invite others to your Residence or go to another person’s Residence.
With Quest 1 seemingly within the dustbin, Meta seems to be specializing in unifying a few of the function units between Quest 2 and Quest Professional whereas sharpening the software program expertise earlier than the discharge of its subsequent headset, Quest 3.
Earlier this month, Meta affirmed plans to launch a Quest 3 headset in some unspecified time in the future this yr, one thing the corporate calls a blended actuality headset, inviting comparisons to Quest Professional—albeit with out the face-tracking of the latter on account of its relative price, Meta says.