Meta’s VR app store is about to fill up with phone-style 2D apps

Meta’s Quest headsets and app store have been around for a while, but with a software experience largely limited to 3D and AR apps and games. But now, the company says it’s opening things up — Horizon OS and Quest VP Mark Rabkin said during Meta Connect that from today, the Meta app store “fully welcomes 2D and spatial apps.”

Meta also says it supports web apps, and what do you know? The New York Times’ Wordle app for Quest headsets, which we wrote about last week, is a Progressive Web App.

The company’s app store, until now, has been heavily curated, with a single experimental section called App Lab. But today’s announcement sounds like the company bringing its app store approach more in line with something like a Google or Apple online marketplace, encouraging developers to bring more smartphone- or tablet-style apps to its VR platform. (Meta says App Lab is no more.)

Meta also says Quest users can now place apps wherever they want, change their size, and use up to six of them at the same time. Users will also be able to open a 2D app while they’re in an immersive VR app, as well. Both are major features of Apple’s visionOS.

Maybe Meta thinks that Apple was onto something when it rolled out the Vision Pro with years of iPad and iPhone apps supported out of the gate.