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Developers can now distribute Oculus Quest apps without going through full store approval or requiring sideloading.
Oculus Quest is a semi-closed console-type platform. The Oculus Store was previously the only official way to distribute apps. Owners can declare themselves developers to enable sideloading, however, with games and experiences available from the third-party service SideQuest, which automates the USB sideloading process.
Application lab, available now, allows developers to upload apps to the Oculus platform and share them directly with users through a URL or key. Applications can be free or paid.
Click on the URL to open the list of apps in the Oculus smartphone app, where the user can purchase or install it on their quest.
These apps do not appear in the main Oculus Store, but once used they will display in your VR library and support automatic updates as well as platform features such as achievements and rankings. You don’t need to be a developer to install an App Lab application and a PC is not required.
The approval of the Oculus Store is notoriously difficult to obtain, which has left some rejected developers struggling to recoup the investment they made in porting to the mobile VR system.
App Lab still requires basic Facebook approval, but the process is much shorter than for the store. Apps must be approved as long as they adhere to Oculus content guidelines and Facebook’s data usage policy.
App Lab does not replace SideQuest. In fact, SideQuest now supports App Lab URLs instead of APK file, continuing its role as the de facto alternative app store for Oculus Quest. As App Lab does not require a PC, these applications can be efficiently installed from the SideQuest website through your phone’s browser.
Developers can submit apps for App Lab in the Oculus Developer Dashboard.
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