Horizon Feed being replaced by Navigator starting in v85
As announced during Connect, we’ve been testing Navigator and will ramp up the rollout later this year, starting in v85. As Navigator rolls out, we’ll also begin gradually sunsetting the Horizon Feed in VR.
What’s changing
- Navigator will become the default landing experience when users turn on their headset.
- Navigator brings experiences, friends and settings together in one place.
- As part of this shift, we’ll be sunsetting the Horizon Feed in VR.
How Navigator improves the user experience
Navigator is designed based on feedback from developers and users to make it faster and easier to jump into the experiences people love:
- All-in-one access: Quickly access experiences, friends, and settings from a single place.
- Faster return to apps: The App Library is front-and-center on cold boot, making it easy to jump back into pinned and recent apps.
- Streamlined discovery: The Store is pinned at the top for quick access to new apps, helping users discover something new with less friction.
- More seamless exploration: Overall navigation is simplified to improve the end-to-end user journey in VR.
What the removal of Horizon Feed in VR means for developers
The Horizon Feed in VR is not a high-intent surface, and users often see it without a specific intent to browse or purchase apps. Because of that, it historically has not driven strong entitlement conversion, and we don’t expect significant revenue impact for the vast majority of developers. With this rollout, we will monitor for any impact to developer revenue and engagement and continue partnering with developers on ways to surface apps to users effectively in the new experience. Our previous guidance on driving app discovery still applies. We recommend reviewing the latest best practices here.
New Navigator assets
We’ll be introducing new Navigator-specific creative assets in the future. Apps in the Library have a foreground and a background to enable spatialization of the foreground when the user is hovering over the app tile. You don’t need to take action right now. These assets will be optional at first and will be submitted alongside your app’s metadata. Be sure to refer to our Meta Horizon Store asset design guidelines for the most up to date best practices. The Navigator will utilize your existing Cover Square asset as the spatialized foreground element on hover today.
Thank you for continuing to build for Meta Quest. We’re excited about how Navigator will help users find, return to, and enjoy your experiences.
