Meta teases upcoming Meta Quest UI features in new commercials
Meta has launched a new ad campaign for Meta Quest that seems to anticipate the device's upcoming UI overhaul.
A video has been released on the Meta Quest YouTube channel promoting the usefulness of the Meta Quest 3 in everyday life. The commercial shows a man using the device to assemble a crib.
He has Whatsapp, YouTube, and a browser window in front of him as virtual panels and uses a pinch gesture, to pull one of the three windows closer to him, which is not yet possible on Quest. The video description says: "Surround yourself with multiple screens to tackle projects in a whole new way."
Another advertisement appeared on Instagram. It shows two women in what appears to be a car repair shop, with several virtual windows floating around the room. You can't have that in Quest 3 either at this point.
It is possible that more commercials of this kind will appear soon.
It's a pre-rendered ad, but this might be our first glimpse at the future of Meta Quest/Horizon OS ? https://t.co/Pkslr2fwD1
- Luna (@Lunayian) May 27, 2024
Meta copies Apple Vision Pro features
The UI features shown in the ads are clearly inspired by Apple Vision Pro. With Apple's headset, windows can be anchored and moved around the room independently. With Meta Quest, this is currently only possible with one window. Up to three windows can be displayed at the same time, but they are linked to each other.
Since the launch of the Apple Vision Pro, Meta has been working hard to replicate features of the device. These include spatial video and panorama playback and, most recently, travel mode.
The Quest UI is one of the biggest weaknesses of Meta Quest's operating system, Meta Horizon OS. In February, Meta CTO, Andrew Bosworth confirmed that the Meta Quest UI was undergoing a major overhaul "to enable a richer environment". It has been in the works for some time and was making good progress, Bosworth said.
One disadvantage of the Quest compared to the Apple Vision Pro is that the former does not support eye tracking, which is a key requirement of Apple's UI design. However, a more flexible UI architecture would be a big step forward for Quest.
Meta's new ad campaign comes ahead of WWDC 2024. Apple is expected to unveil visionOS 2.0 and new Vision Pro features at the company's developer conference.
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