During its developer keynote at the Meta Connect conference on Wednesday, the company pitched its Quest mixed reality platform as the next big app store to developers, saying that with tech giants like Apple and Google facing tougher regulations over their app store monopolies, Meta is working to make it easier for mobile developers to move over to Meta's Horizon OS.
“Today we're happy to announce that if you can develop for Android, you can also develop for Meta Horizon OS in your favorite language and favorite IDE. And to make it available to everyone, we've completed the transition to an open store that we began in April,” said Mark Rabkin, Meta vice president leading Horizon OS and Quest XR devices.
Image credit: Meta
Additionally, the company said its open store now supports 3D and spatial apps, and has introduced the Meta Spatial SDK to help developers get started. The SDK enables developers to add native spatial capabilities to traditional mobile apps, such as floating 3D objects, atmospheres and immersive media. The new Meta Spatial Editor makes it easy to add panoramas and 3D spatial videos to the media viewer in the system. Examples of these can be found in the “Showcase” app section of Meta's app store, which currently features open source apps.
For 2D apps, several features will also be available on Meta Horizon OS, including resizing, theater, spatial audio, background execution, multitasking, and handling of all hand and controller inputs.
Meta itself tested the new technology by building new Facebook and Instagram apps for Horizon OS using familiar tools like React Native. Other developers who have since tested the system include Amazon (Prime Video and Amazon Music), Twitch, and others.
The new SDK and other tools will also make it possible to port existing mobile apps to Horizon OS, which Meta says will allow developers to “get going faster.”
These advancements were made in part in response to developer feedback, following complaints from the community that Meta was difficult to build for the platform.
Image credit: Meta
“First of all, I want to apologize,” Meta CTO Andrew “Boz” Bosworth said at the start of his developer keynote. “Developing on our platform hasn't been easy. We know that, and we're very sorry. As you know, the ecosystem we've built over the last decade has been constantly changing.”
“The thing you all have in common is that over the last few years, the ground beneath your feet has been constantly shifting,” Boz told the developers in the room. “It's an inevitable part of building new technology, and it creates a lot of new opportunities. You've been wise to jump on board, but of course, it can also be very tricky. We know it's been a tough few years for developers.”
Meta said the new features and tools aim to address developer frustrations by making it easier to develop for Horizon OS and use open-source AI tools. Additionally, for developers exhausted by the app ecosystem, Meta said it will bring spatial improvements to the browser and Web XR to the open web. Spotify was cited as an example of an app that, despite being web-based, offers background audio and can multitask on top of other apps.
NYT's Wordle was also featured as another example of a progressive web app that will be fully featured in Meta's app store, including discovery and in-app payments.
Image credit: Meta
Of course, the benefit of going along with developers' preferred path goes beyond adding more apps and games to the Meta app library — it also opens up a new revenue stream for the company, taking a cut of in-app purchases and sales, similar to the major app stores run by Apple and Google.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg continues to insist that Meta is more open than Apple.
The Facebook founder recently said on the Acquired podcast, “I think the next 10, 15 years are going to be an ideological battle about what the architecture of the next set of platforms should be. Is it going to be the closed, integrated Apple model that Apple has had for so long? Which means there are multiple good ways to build things.”