Meta Unveils “Open” Mixed Reality Ecosystem, Zuckerberg’s Motivation, Getting Out Ahead of Android XR

The news continues to flow. Today’s update will be focused on the big development from Meta in mixed reality land. Let’s jump right in.

Meta Unveils “Open” Mixed Reality Ecosystem

In a blog post published yesterday, here’s Meta:

“Today, we’re taking a major step toward our vision for a more open computing platform for the metaverse. We’re opening up the operating system that powers our Meta Quest devices to third-party hardware makers, giving developers a larger ecosystem to build for and ultimately creating more choice for consumers. This platform is the product of a decade of investment into the underlying technologies that enable mixed reality, and opening it up means a lot more people will benefit from that investment. We’re working with leading global technology companies to create a new ecosystem of mixed reality devices, and we’re making it even easier for developers to build mixed reality apps.

We believe a more open ecosystem is the best way to bring the power of mixed reality to as many people as possible. With more devices, this new ecosystem will offer more choice to consumers and businesses around the world. Developers will have a much larger range of hardware that can run their apps, and more device makers will expand their market to a wider range of users, much like we’ve seen with PCs and smartphones.”

Meta will be rebranding its mixed reality OS, which is built on top of Android, to Meta Horizon OS from Quest OS.

That unofficial Meta “leak” to the WSJ a few months back when Meta employees talked of wanting to be the Android to Apple Vision Pro makes a lot more sense now. It was difficult to associate a platform where one company handled both hardware and software as being the new Android of anything.

The “leading global technology companies” that Meta announced partnerships with include:

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