"Open platform" my ass. I still have to jump through ridiculous hoops to mod BeatSaber (which is the only way to make it worth playing for more than a few minutes). Quest 3 makes modding even harder. This announcement is trying to frame App Lab as an open app distribution platform; it isn't. Those "basic technical and content requirements" apps have to meet are basically the same ones that Apple or Google or Meta themselves enforce for their app stores. Entire classes of applications, particularly those that undermine platform-owners' business models are not allowed.
Additionally, Horizon is generally a terrible operating system. Useless and intrusive "social" features out the wazoo, laden with tracking/spyware, and it isn't even good for anything beyond launching apps that take over the whole environment. Want to use your fancy headset to open up apps in 3d space and do some multitaking work? Well I sure hope you're happy with exactly 3 2d apps (all equally sized) lined up in a row in a fixed location, because that's all you're getting. If you want to do anything real you need to install an app that launches its own environment for multitasking, but of course then you can only pull in windows from a remote PC, so if you want to run any local applications it's back to basics for you. Oh, and of course you can't mix those remote PC windows with local apps. As poor as Apple's Vision OS is in the multitasking department Horizon falls far behind even it.
This is ultimately what they want: their owned walled garden, where they get to be the decider, hold the power, track the user's as first party data, etc. It makes perfect sense. They want this to be the next Android OS (with Play Store equivalent of course).
This is really the only move that gets them back in (perhaps only somewhat) with the dwindling ads market.
Much as I don't like it, it is a legitimate tactic. I just don't see it being effective in the current market, even with Apple as a player.
If what they ultimately want is their own walled garden, then wouldn't opening things up be the opposite of what they should do? I mean, it's a lot harder to re-take control that you previously released than it is to hold onto it from the start. Look at Apple's difficulties tighteninng up control on the mac for example. It has to be a very long game. Compare that to the iPhone, iPad, vision OS that have been tightly controlled from the start and they have no difficulties (other than regulatory) holding the reins tightly.
> If what they ultimately want is their own walled garden, then wouldn't opening things up be the opposite of what they should do?
The are only opening things up in their marketing speak. There is not actual opening up happening. "Open" sounds cool, inclusive, and like you are creating a stable platform for others to build on top of (IBM opened up x86, Linus opened up Linux, etc).
Judge by what they do not what they say -- most valid advice in this age of lies.
But you do sign in to use an Android phone, or iPhone. Although, I agree with the point that someone would never want to sign in with their Facebook account there, with FB account holding so much personal information about them! For gaming, somebody would rather prefer to use an alias like dungeonmaster669 instead of their verified actual identity.
You don’t have to sign in to use an iPhone or Android phone, though you to have to sign in to use their app stores. Presumably with the advent of DMA though you can avoid creating an Apple ID or Google account if using a 3rd party store (though probably you’ll need some other account for that store, that’s how it always goes…).
Fe: gaming - yes, this is why Apple had separate IDs for gaming center.. and I think Microsoft does this too for Xbox vs Microsoft account?
I also basically have to have a smartphone, and smartphones are entirely self contained devices.
On a scale of trust for how companies are handling my data, Apple, and to a much lesser extent, Google, are still more trustworthy than Facebook, I feel.
I was half tempted to get a quest after playing beat saber on a friend's device. it's kind of amazing how much better it is than the next best thing you could do on one, some team just knocked it out of the park designing and implementing that game
Pistol whip is pretty good too. Those two get your light saber sword fight fantasy, and the Matrix Gun-Fu fantasy :)
And though I haven't an athletic bone in my body, the fitness / boxing apps are actually a great way to get some exercise in.
Generally, quest 2 was one of the things I haven't had any interest whatsoever until after a year's campaign, my friend basically forced me to try it during a visit :-). I have one now, largely for those 3 apps.
> I sure hope you're happy with exactly 3 2d apps (all equally sized) lined up in a row in a fixed location, because that's all you're getting.
To be fair that is all I really want. Regardless, its still a privacy nightmare which makes it a no-go for me, combined with the fact that the most powerful ("productivity") app I can expect to run on it would be something like excel which makes me not really need anymore than 1 window, at which point its no better than a regular laptop.
I'm waiting for the Simula One, or maybe XReal Air support for linux
EDIT: To be clear, the kind of apps I'd want to be running (what I run on my regular laptop) that I doubt would be available on Meta OS include things like: Godot, Blender, VSCode, terminal windows, probably a bunch of other stuff but those are the main ones
They mention Steam Link but don't mention it isn't allowed to sell in-app purchases (maybe a decision on Steam's side to be fair; they dont want games on Steam themselves having a "remote desktop" overlay workaround where you buy DLC without paying the 30% revenue tax).
You can - it's just far less fun than BeatSaber with mods. The biggest improvement is from being able to select from the community list of songs that are available that may better suit your taste than the songs that come built in. It's a rhythm game so using a rhythm you like makes it much more fun.
I assume there are sort of natural skill ceilings but if you practice with more difficult scenarios and really push yourself you'd be amazed at what you can do. I've got an essential tremor[1] and I usually play on Expert+ for the vanilla tracks which is usually do-able for me.
1. On that note - my tremor does hurt me here too but unlike twitch shooters (which I loved before my tremor got bad) and things like guitar hero (which require comparatively precise movement) beat saber is usually pretty forgiving about precision of placement and angles - so long as your rhythm is correct you can go pretty far with it.
OG BeatSaber comes with a small-ish selection of tracks, most of them obscure and not generally known. Good or bad, they get boring quickly. Modding lets you expand to arbitrary number of tracks, including pretty much all the ones you like. It's what makes it fun and worth returning to. Not being able to add your own music, makes BeatSaber not worth the sticker price (much less if you're getting Oculus just to play it).
Also note that people were used to this capability, because before BeatSaber became a poster child for Oculus, it was streamed to other headsets from PC, where adding custom tracks was tacitly allowed.
Lack of any songs I actually care about, and the actual note mapping from the devs has been pretty bad up until recently. The modding community has had them beat for ages. Without mods the game would be a breif curiosity before I got bored with the provided songs, most of which don't suit my taste.
If I paid for the song (even somewhere else, even on a subscription like spotify/apple music), I should be able to dance/move to it. I don't think one should have to re-buy every song in a videogame. Especially when the work is done for free to put in the dance moves by modders.
No, that's basically correct. Mods are primarily for downloading community-made tracks/maps for songs not included with the game. There are also officially licensed DLC song packs, but they're quite pricy and still only provide access to a limited selection of tracks.
Not quite; piracy of the paid DLC is one thing, but modding is to add songs (which should be read as, entire Beatsaber custom-made tracks) that otherwise are not available through any other avenues.
Additionally, Horizon is generally a terrible operating system. Useless and intrusive "social" features out the wazoo, laden with tracking/spyware, and it isn't even good for anything beyond launching apps that take over the whole environment. Want to use your fancy headset to open up apps in 3d space and do some multitaking work? Well I sure hope you're happy with exactly 3 2d apps (all equally sized) lined up in a row in a fixed location, because that's all you're getting. If you want to do anything real you need to install an app that launches its own environment for multitasking, but of course then you can only pull in windows from a remote PC, so if you want to run any local applications it's back to basics for you. Oh, and of course you can't mix those remote PC windows with local apps. As poor as Apple's Vision OS is in the multitasking department Horizon falls far behind even it.