Every month there’s a new software update for the Meta Quest platform, some more important than others. The latest v40 instalment has been announced, adding a range of smaller features and refinements, continuing to improve the user experience.
Back in March, Meta discussed improving the parental supervision tools for Quest and v40 does just that with the App Unlock feature. This means parents – or the owner of the headset – can put specific games and apps behind an unlock pattern, thus preventing younger players from accessing inappropriate content like coming face to face with Resident Evil 4’s monsters.
Next on the list of improvements are the addition of more keyboard support. Previously allowing Logitech’s K830 keyboard and the Apple Magic keyboard to be tracked in VR, now there’s support for the Apple Magic Keyboard with numeric keypad as well as the Logitech K375s and Logitech MX Keys. Another step towards Mark Zuckerberg’s vision of people working in VR.
Payments are getting more secure in VR with v40. 3D Secure (3DS) previously only worked within the Oculus mobile app to keep payments secure but now it’ll work inside VR to things like in-app purchases. Developers will need to opt-in to enable 3DS support so you might not see the feature appear across every videogame and app right away.
Then there’s a new audio accessibility feature, designed to make Quest usage more comfortable for those who are hard of hearing. A Mono Audio option will be added to the Accessibility tab so users can hear the same audio from both the left and right speakers. They’ll also be able to adjust the balance of the left and right audio channels if one ear is more sensitive than the other. This will, of course, disable the default spatial audio effect.
Like all past updates, v40 will be rolled out gradually beginning this week so it may take a few days to hit your Meta Quest. For continued updates on the latest Quest features or what Meta has to come, keep reading gmw3.