Meta’s Ray-Ban Display Have an App Problem

If you’ve used the Meta Ray-Ban Display for any extended period of time, you’ve probably noticed one major omission in the smart glasses’ capabilities: there’s no app store. That means, while you can still do quite a few things in the Meta Ray-Ban Display, like get turn-by-turn directions, message notifications, and video calls, you can’t do those things with third-party apps. You might be saying to yourself, “Well, a lack of apps is to be expected with a product that’s so new,” but here’s where things get worse. Meta doesn’t currently have a concrete plan for bringing apps to its only pair of smart glasses with a display.

While Meta announced an SDK for developers during Connect for its Ray-Ban Meta AI glasses and the Meta Ray-Ban Display, that program, which gives developers access to tools for developing apps for its Meta Ray-Ban Display, is still in early access with no specific launch date. In September, Meta said it’s planning on an ambiguous launch date of 2026. In the meantime, anyone who spent $800 on a pair of Meta Ray-Ban Display smart glasses will have to be okay with crossing their fingers very tightly and hoping for more functionality to arrive.

As expectant as people may be for more apps, that doesn’t mean they’re guaranteed to come. If wearables of generations past, like the Apple Watch, are any indication, functionality could wind up being limited to first-party capabilities, leaving the promise of a third-party ecosystem as a pie-in-the-sky kind of dream. Casting even more doubt on that robust third-party app future is Meta’s relationship with developers as of late. Late last month, Meta Chief Technology Officer Andrew “Boz” Bosworth went on a bit of a crusade, blocking Quest developers on X who criticized the company for—get this—being closed off to third-party devs. Woof.

Super strange behavior. @boztank is taking a flame thrower out on everyone who ever gave a shit about the quest ecosystem.

First he blocks a founder building for years on his platform for leaving a thoughtful comment, then he blocks me for *checks notes* replying to the founder… https://t.co/T1loqwLYLJ pic.twitter.com/GXAfjQyI6Q

— Felix Hartmann (@FelixOHartmann) October 30, 2025

This is all to say that, despite the promise of SDKs and more support for apps in the Meta Ray-Ban Display in the future, Meta’s pipeline for making that happen is looking less than ideal. That could be bad for people who bought Meta’s display smart glasses, but also bad for Meta. Competition is closing in pretty much every day, and with the promise of a Google-made pair of smart glasses on the horizon, the Meta Ray-Ban Display’s lack of apps might end up feeling even more glaring. Google, as we know, not only owns the Android platform but also the Google Play store, and I’d be shocked if it didn’t plan on using that massive mobile app platform to its advantage in the impending smart glasses wars.

For its own sake, Meta better hope that people are fine with using a pair of display smart glasses that are limited to (some) notifications, navigation, and messaging/calling, because as groundbreaking as smart eyewear with lots of apps could be, there’s no guarantee that future will come to pass without the support of the people who actually, you know, make apps.