There have been many signs pointing towards 2016 as the year where VR really takes off. With many big tech companies coming up with their own solutions to VR, Google has stuck with their Cardboard and Cardboard app — unless, of course, if you want to count this.
But with Android N’s second developer preview, it looks like the next version of Android will have a much bigger push towards VR support.
Buried within the app and configure app settings, the folks over at Ars Technica have discovered that apps will soon be able to register themselves as a “VR Listener” or “VR Helper” in Android N. Not only that, there is also a permissions warning related to the VR service that states “[App name] will be able to run when you are using applications in virtual reality mode”.
This not only hints that Android N might have some kind of VR Mode (perhaps like Lenovo’s VR Mode?), but there will be certain helper apps that will be able to pop up within that Android VR Mode.
It’s interesting to see the search engine giant make a more substantial push towards virtual reality considering their current offerings are rather lackluster. Perhaps this is timely considering the rumours that have come about where Google was allegedly working on a Gear VR-styled headset and a standalone VR headset that doesn’t require a PC or smartphone to function.
