Google has released a developer preview of the Android XR SDK - a comprehensive toolkit for its newly announced mixed reality platform, created in a joint effort with Samsung and Qualcomm.
XR stands for Extended Reality, and Android XR is described as a "new operating system for the next generation of computing." It'll run on forthcoming headsets and glasses made by Samsung, codenamed Project Moohan.
Prototype glasses are expected to be in private preview soon, and wide availability is promised during 2025. The concept behind the glasses (as opposed to the more immersive headsets) is reminiscent of Google Glass, discontinued in early 2015, which our sister site The Register described as a "humbling flop," though it had some limited take-up as an enterprise product for hands-free interactions.
One difference between then and now is the advent of AI, and Google believes that its Gemini AI assistant can provide help such as "directions, translations or a summary of your messages without taking out your phone."
The platform cannot succeed without developer support, and the SDK enables building for Android XR using a variety of frameworks. Most Android applications will run on XR, according to the docs, with the main blocker being unsupported hardware features, such as telephony. The Play store will be available on Android XR, but will filter out apps that require such features.
Apps that are already designed to run on large screens will benefit from Android XR headsets, which present a spatial panel of 1024dp x 720dp.
The full experience though is only available through what Google calls "Android XR differentiated apps." These will use XR-specific features including 3D video and a variety of spatial features including panels, environments, spatial audio, spatial video, and spatial UI such as orbiters.
A spatial panel is a virtual surface within an app, and an orbiter is a UI component that attaches to a spatial panel and might be used for controlling the panel content.
Devs can choose between four tools for building XR apps. Jetpack XR is aimed at existing Jetpack coders and adds XR capabilities. Unity is a well-known 3D development engine that will suit game developers now targeting XR. OpenXR is a standard Google is expanding with extensions for Android XR that, we are told, have been submitted to the Khronos group, which manages the standard, for approval. And WebXR is for building VR and AR (Augmented reality) features for web browsers and is a W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) standard.
The big developer challenge though is designing successful spatial applications. "It helps to understand spatial computing, immersion, and how to blend digital content with a user's physical environment," the docs note.
Doing VR or AR apps well requires substantial investment, but will Android XR succeed sufficiently to merit that investment? Meta and Apple are already competing in this space and consumers will be wary of buying into a third and incompatible system; and the history of 3D platforms to date is littered with failures, including Google's earlier efforts as well as others such as Microsoft's HoloLens.
Developers will be cautious, though no doubt compatibility with existing Android apps is an advantage and it will be worth making the effort to have them run well on a large virtual screen.