The new SideQuest mobile app lets you sideload to Quest without a PC

Source: Nick Sutrich / Android Central

It’s been a long time coming, but SideQuest has officially launched an Android-only mobile app that will allow you to sideload apps and games from the SideQuest marketplace to your Oculus Quest or Oculus Quest 2. That means you no longer have to use a PC just to load and update apps and games from SideQuest, making the SideQuest marketplace a truly viable alternative to Facebook’s Oculus store in many ways. Sideloading apps and games from the SideQuest mobile app can be done either with a USB cable for Quest or via your home’s Wi-Fi network.

SideQuest has long been a bastion of indie devs who were able to market and sell games they were not previously able to get approved on the official Oculus store. Oculus has since launched an indie section of the Oculus Store, called App Lab, but App Lab still makes it difficult for people to find indie apps and games. That’s because, without having a direct link or the exact name of the app or game to search for, Oculus doesn’t readily list these titles on its store.

SideQuest provides both an easily searchable and curated store for indie developers that highlights new projects and updates as a regular app store might. SideQuest also provides a place for developers to bring content that might otherwise be unlisted on a traditional app store such as emulators or ports of old games, or even fan-made projects of popular IPs. Examples of this include Doom VR, Quake VR, Half-Life VR, and Pokemon VR, to name a few.

The SideQuest mobile app is totally free and can be downloaded from the Google Play Store (see link below). Unfortunately, for iOS users, this app is only available on Android. iOS users will have to keep using a computer to sideload apps and games to their Quest. Any standard USB Type-C cable should do the job, although your phone will need to support USB OTG in order for SideQuest to interface with your Quest. Once you get it set up, you can configure wireless transfer, which will install and update SideQuest apps and games on your Quest without a cable. YouTubers Cas and Cherry have put together a tutorial explaining how to get it set up and working both with and without a wire, which you can view below.