I'd hope for Meta to support these new Jetpack APIs for the Quest / horizonOS, as their SDK is currently basically limited to Unity / Unreal / Native, with no primitives for building regular apps.
Two competing XR platforms build on Android may not be too bad if apps just run on both.
There are some warts on horizonOS for true XR experiences like the guardian system effectively locking you into a predefined/scanned room or the camera feeds not being accessible (would be useful for scanning QR codes or copying IRL text), hopefully some competitive pressure can move Meta here.
Right now there are quite a few Quest 2 & 3 devices on the market and not a single new Samsung XR glass. Any developer building a new XR app would want their app to run on Quest
I'd bet on Meta because XR is Zuckerberg's Moby Dick whereas it is 20% of a 20% priority at GOOG. Meta is watching competitors (Vision Pro) but also keeping an eye on cost conscious consumers. It's so refreshing to see "Big Tech" taking such a pragmatic approach.
If any Android interoperability happens, I doubt it will be because Google is encouraging or allowing it.
They’ve refused to officially support Play Store apps on Meta HW, intentionally released the most barebones versions of their products on Meta platforms, etc.
They don’t seem willing to play nice and now that they have their own platform to push, I can’t imagine that would change for the better. But would love to see it.
I can understand the camera feeds not being accessible to every app. Tbh that makes total sense. Do you trust every app developer to look around in your home? I would trust random app builders even less that I do meta :) I don't even care that much personally but I'm sure many people will.
The guardian system doesn't apply when you are in passthrough mode. You can walk around and leave screens in different rooms, you will see them through walls even :) So that's not a problem anymore. Meta has improved passthrough mode a lot since the Vision Pro came out.
That's going to be complicated for no particularly good reason. It will turn out kind of like Android in Kindle Fire devices: No Play Store, but some app compatibility. Google won't drop their compatibility requirements, and Meta won't give up their own development path for an AOSP based product.
Two competing XR platforms build on Android may not be too bad if apps just run on both.
There are some warts on horizonOS for true XR experiences like the guardian system effectively locking you into a predefined/scanned room or the camera feeds not being accessible (would be useful for scanning QR codes or copying IRL text), hopefully some competitive pressure can move Meta here.
Right now there are quite a few Quest 2 & 3 devices on the market and not a single new Samsung XR glass. Any developer building a new XR app would want their app to run on Quest