We’ve Tried The Quest 3 v67 Update
We can now move panels in Meta’s Quest 3 and enjoy a showy ‘Theatre View’
While perhaps less substantial than recent changes offered in the v66 update and v64 update, the v67 update brings us a nice quality of life improvement—one that many think brings Quest 3 even closer to its fruity competitor in terms of capability.
Well, a couple of us have got our hands on it. And this is what we think of the latest changes.
A powerful boost for panel productivity
Anyone familiar with Quest 3's menu system would agree that it’s slick and functional, but a bit limited with positioning and panel options. It currently supports you having up to three 2D panels open at once in a horizontal layout with two arrangement options: close or far (with the closer option wrapping the panels around your FoV a bit). It’s nice, but a bit limited. You can’t resize the windows and you’re locked into having the panels open in one conga line.
Well, that’s changing with v67.
You can still keep that 3-panel dock and position it as you like, and select each panel to reposition it within the dock, popping them in and out, but now, we can take panels off the dock and leave them wherever we’d like—and you can do this with up to 3 additional panels.
That means we now have 6 to play with.
Dragging a panel off the dock automatically adds a replacement to the dock, meaning you still have a central selection, but can freely position the floating elements as you like. To reposition your whole view, you can just press the menu button (or pinch if hand tracking) to close everything, swivel position, and then press again to reopen the panels.
Many panels are also re-sizeable while freely floating, adding more flexibility to this new setup. This definitely works best for browser panels, allowing you to pinch the corners and adjust. However, we have noticed that not all of them are adjustable like this. The Horizon Store panel is one of these.
Another nice little addition for anyone who likes to get wordy and type away in VR is that the virtual keyboard is more adjustable than ever—you can freely move it about, adjust the angle, and start typing.
Now, there are some limitations to all of this. If you’re in passthrough and you dot panels around your space, when you leave the room, those floating panels will snap back to the dock—unlike the Vision Pro, which lets you indefinitely leave panels floating around your house. This isn’t such a let down though—perhaps the feature will be added in the future.
It also seems like we can’t drag and drop apps from their icons to open them in a new panel—you have to click the icon, open the window, and then drag that to a new panel.
Finally, if you’re detaching browser tabs and trying to open a new panel this way, we’ve noticed a tendency for the Quest to try and consolidate them back into one browser panel. This makes opening 6 at once a little fiddly if you want separate browser tabs dotted about as opposed to separate apps like the browser, Horizon Feed, Connections, or Meta TV.
Remember: this is still an experimental option (as you’ll see when you enable the feature in the Settings menu), so expect to see a couple of bugs and maybe a bit of clipping. It’s a work in progress—but it’s looking good so far!
Great theatrics
Another awesome and much-wanted feature is the new ‘Theatre View’, bringing the drama, upping the contrast, and letting one of your panels take center stage over the others. Every panel is a lil’ prima donna after all.
Essentially, this maximizes the view of one panel and draws it to the center of your FoV, while making the others disappear. It can also apply a dimming effect to your peripherals—like a vignette—and you can adjust the intensity of this effect to suit your preferences. In fact, you can dim it all the way down to complete blackness, which is very neat indeed. However, it’s important to note that this dimming feature doesn’t work while you’re in passthrough—it only works while you’re in immersive mode. But, let’s face it, this would kinda remove the point of being in passthrough in the first place.
While you’re in Theatre View, you can un-hide the other panels you have open by pressing the Meta button, letting you get more in your view. You can hit the button again to hide them once more.
It definitely looks dramatic. And, fortunately, it performs well, too! While the bonus for streaming fans and movie buffs is pretty apparent, this is also a really nice feature for cutting out the noise and allowing you to focus on a document or key webpage if you’re prone to distraction (like me).
More from your favorite creators
Finally, Meta has brought content from your favorite creators into the Horizon Feed, making it easier for us to catch up on the latest relevant news or watchables. You’ll also be able to like and share this content with your connections within the Feed, making it a more social experience.
It’s a nice addition, and pairs well with the new ability to open more panels — if you find something eye-catching in the Feed you want to check out, you can click it and expand it to a new panel seamlessly. Nice.
About SideQuest
SideQuest represents the ultimate community in standalone VR. A place where developers and players around the globe can create, share, and get excited about the virtual reality apps they love.
Developers (like us) are free to experiment with mechanics and modes on their journey to official stores, while players can safely explore thousands of apps across the wonderful world of VR — the biggest collection all in one place, actually.
Because who needs limits, right?
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