Meta Quest gets free software upgrade pulling it closer to the Apple Vision Pro than ever before

Emerging tech is a funny old thing sometimes. To me, it feels like only yesterday that phones still had physical buttons and TVs were deeper than they were wide.

That's certainly not the case, though. Phones have evolved into foldable phones. TVs are 85 inches wide and mere millimeters thick.

One other big development is the emergence of virtual reality devices. Once just the brainchild of science fiction writers, the market has come on leaps and bounds, with a wide array of major brands entering the fray.

One of the most notable is Meta. The brand was an early entrant in the space, and is now on its third generation. The Meta Quest 3 is its current flagship, while the recently released Meta Quest 3S offers a lot of the performance in a much more wallet-friendly package.

Now, a new software update has arrived, which makes a range of upgrades for users who enjoy the productivity side of these devices. The first thing you'll notice is an overall change to the design. That refresh is suitably modern, and is said to optimise both the light and dark themes to make them easier to read.

Elsewhere, the search tool in the settings menu has been upgraded. That should now be easier to navigate and find the things you're looking for. The brand has also made a change to how you share spatial video on the device. You'll be able to share videos directly in the Horizon Chat, without first needing to upload it to the Meta Horizon app first.

There's also now the ability to stream a high-quality view from your headset to a PC. That's great news for anyone looking to share their experience with others – content creators will love this.

In perhaps the best change for productivity users, there's now a Calendar app on the device. That can integrate with your Google Calendar or with Outlook, and gives users a nice interface to keep track of their day with.

It's a significant boost for users. While Meta may well be a bigger name in the world of VR, it's no secret that the arrival of the Apple Vision Pro has shaken things up somewhat. These changes appear to pull some of the promises which Apple has made into devices which are less than one tenth of the price. That's a big deal for users.