Meta cancels its VR operating system XROS

Meta, the new parent company of Facebook, chose its name mainly because they want to move from the normal social network in the direction of the metaverse, i.e. augmented and virtual reality. But obviously, you also have to accept setbacks. Mark Zuckerberg and his social media giant Facebook are putting everything on the VR card. This has long been the official company motto, which, as mentioned at the beginning, is reflected in the name Meta. But the project is not quite as simple as one can see from a report by The information can close.

XROS is dead – or not?

Meta is said to have stopped working on a custom operating system these days that was intended for future AR and VR headsets. The system called XROS (XR is a collective term for AR and VR) is said to have been sidelined last November. The exact reasons for the discontinuation are not known, but Meta denied that it was withdrawing from this area or reducing its activities. This means that Meta will stay with the Android-based operating system for the time being, which is currently used in the VR devices known as Quest and formerly Oculus. Work on XROS is said to have started as early as 2017, and the company has assigned around 300 employees for this project. The operating system is said to have already been quite advanced.

A possible reason or connection exists with the departure of several prominent developers who were involved in XROS. Team lead Mark Lucovsky is said to have left Meta shortly after whistleblower Frances Haugen was revealed and is now working on a similar software project for and at Google. Meta denied The Verge the report on many points: “We will neither cease nor scale back our activities to develop an operating system for VR. The team continues to make progress and we continue to invest in the development of future computing platforms such as AR glasses and wearable devices to achieve our vision of the metaverse realize.”