Throughout the 2010s, the battle for mobile device supremacy was waged on the smartphone, but it looks like the fighting has moved to headsets. While we all thought of VR and XR headsets as niche, Apple officially brought them into the mainstream with the Apple Vision Pro. Well, Google just announced Android XR, an XR platform to power the next generation of AR devices.
Last year, Apple took over the world when it launched the Apple Vision Pro. In Apple fashion, it was a proprietary piece of hardware with a closed operating system. Be that as it may, it offered a pretty wide range of uses. The innovative, yet ill-fated device, made waves in the tech community, and it got other companies to start crafting their own competitors. In fact, around that time, we found out that Samsung started working on its own similar headset.
Google announced Android XR
We don’t know too much of what to expect, but we do know that it won’t be purely Google’s vision of XR. The company collaborated with Samsung to develop this platform.
The name “Android XR” pretty much sums up what the company plans to do with this operating system. It plans to do what Android did to smartphones. Android is an open-source operating system that thousands of companies have loaded onto their devices. Well, it seems that Google wants multiple companies to load Android XR onto their devices.
Google will use the technologies that it’s been developing over the past decade. In a YouTube video posted by the Android Developers channel, Juston Payne, Google’s Director of XR Products, mentioned other technologies that went into developing Android XR. These include ARCore, the Geospatial API, Lens, Live View, Google Translate, and Gemini. So, think of this as the cross roads of a handful of Google technologies.
Best of both worlds
Google plans to have this platform run both VR headsets and smart glasses. The latter is the most interesting because that’s still a burgeoning device category. They’re much more seamless, so you’ll likely see people wearing them out in public more often. Imagine using Google Maps on a display right on your glasses. This will eliminate the need to take your phone out of your pocket.
Also, since this is Android, users will be able to use their favorite Android apps with their headsets. At this point, we don’t know if there will be a shortlist of compatible apps or if Google will just let you download any app. In any case, it’d be neat to play games or watch videos from your favorite streaming services right on your glasses.
Google also showed off that Gemini will be a focus. So, be prepared to see Google’s AI assistant on your glasses.
Hardware… coming soon?
Google only announced the platform, and we didn’t get any sort of hardware announcement. We know that Google sent out the SDK for developers so we’ll see devices come in the future. We heard news reports that Google itself is planning on developing its own glasses, so we’re wondering it these glasses will be to XR glasses what Pixel phones are to smartphones. We might see the latest and purest versions of Android XR on its glasses, assuming that the rumors are true.