Posted by Matthew McCullough – VP of Product Administration, Android Developer
Since launching the Android XR SDK Developer Preview alongside Samsung, Qualcomm, and Unity final yr, we’ve been blown away by all the pleasure we’ve been listening to from the broader Android neighborhood. Whether or not it is by way of coding live-streams or native Google Developer Group talks, it has been an impressive expertise taking part in the neighborhood to construct the way forward for XR collectively, and we’re simply getting began.
Immediately we’re excited to share an replace to the Android XR SDK: Developer Preview 2, full of new options and enhancements that can assist you develop useful and pleasant immersive experiences with acquainted Android APIs, instruments and open requirements created for XR.
At Google I/O, we now have two technical periods associated to Android XR. The primary is Constructing differentiated apps for Android XR with 3D content material, which covers many options current in Jetpack SceneCore and ARCore for Jetpack XR. The longer term is now, with Compose and AI on Android XR covers creating XR-differentiated UI and our imaginative and prescient on the intersection of XR with cutting-edge AI capabilities.
What’s new in Developer Preview 2
For the reason that launch of Developer Preview 1, we’ve been centered on making the APIs simpler to make use of and including new immersive Android XR options. Your suggestions has helped us form the event of the instruments, SDKs, and the platform itself.
With the Jetpack XR SDK, now you can play again 180° and 360° movies, which could be stereoscopic by encoding with the MV-HEVC specification or by encoding view-frames adjacently. The MV-HEVC customary is optimized and designed for stereoscopic video, permitting your app to effectively play again immersive movies at nice high quality. Apps constructed with Jetpack Compose for XR can use the SpatialExternalSurface composable to render media, together with stereoscopic movies.
Utilizing Jetpack Compose for XR, now you can additionally outline layouts that adapt to completely different XR show configurations. For instance, use a SubspaceModifier to specify the dimensions of a Subspace as a proportion of the gadget’s really useful viewing measurement, so a panel effortlessly fills the house it is positioned in.
Materials Design for XR now helps extra element overrides for TopAppBar, AlertDialog, and ListDetailPaneScaffold, serving to your large-screen enabled apps that use Materials Design effortlessly adapt to the brand new world of XR.
In ARCore for Jetpack XR, now you can observe arms after requesting the suitable permissions. Arms are a set of 26 posed hand joints that can be utilized to detect hand gestures and convey a complete new degree of interplay to your Android XR apps:
For extra steerage on growing apps for Android XR, try our Android XR Fundamentals codelab, the updates to our Whats up Android XR pattern challenge, and a brand new model of JetStream with Android XR help.
The Android XR Emulator has additionally acquired updates to stability, help for AMD GPUs, and is now absolutely built-in inside the Android Studio UI.
Builders utilizing Unity have already efficiently created and ported present video games and apps to Android XR. Immediately, you’ll be able to improve to the Pre-Launch model 2 of the Unity OpenXR: Android XR package deal! This replace provides many efficiency enhancements similar to help for Dynamic Refresh Fee, which optimizes your app’s efficiency and energy consumption. Shaders made with Shader Graph now help SpaceWarp, making it simpler to make use of SpaceWarp to scale back compute load on the gadget. Hand meshes are actually uncovered with occlusion, which permits lifelike hand visualization.
Take a look at Unity’s improved Blended Actuality template for Android XR, which now consists of help for occlusion and protracted anchors.
We lately launched Android XR Samples for Unity, which reveal capabilities on the Android XR platform similar to hand monitoring, aircraft monitoring, face monitoring, and passthrough.
The Firebase AI Logic for Unity is now in public preview! This makes it straightforward so that you can combine gen AI into your apps, enabling the creation of AI-powered experiences with Gemini and Android XR. The Firebase AI Logic absolutely helps Gemini’s capabilities, together with multimodal enter and output, and bi-directional streaming for immersive conversational interfaces. Constructed with manufacturing readiness in thoughts, Firebase AI Logic is built-in with core Firebase providers like App Test, Distant Config, and Cloud Storage for enhanced safety, configurability, and information administration. Study extra about this on the Firebase weblog or go straight to the Gemini API utilizing Vertex AI in Firebase SDK documentation to get began.
Persevering with to construct the long run collectively
Our dedication to open requirements continues with the glTF Interactivity specification, in collaboration with the Khronos Group. which might be supported in glTF fashions rendered by Jetpack XR later this yr. Fashions utilizing the glTF Interactivity specification are self-contained interactive property that may have many pre-programmed behaviors, like rotating objects on a button press or altering the colour of a cloth over time.
Android XR might be obtainable first on Samsung’s Undertaking Moohan, launching later this yr. Quickly after, our companions at XREAL will launch the following Android XR gadget. Codenamed Undertaking Aura, it’s a transportable and tethered gadget that offers customers entry to their favourite Android apps, together with these which have been constructed for XR. It should launch as a developer version, particularly so that you can start creating and experimenting. The very best information? With the acquainted instruments you utilize to construct Android apps right now, you’ll be able to construct for these gadgets too.
The Google Play Retailer can also be preparing for Android XR. It should checklist supported 2D Android apps on the Android XR Play Retailer when it launches later this yr. If you’re engaged on an Android XR differentiated app, you may get it prepared for the massive launch and be one of many first differentiated apps on the Android XR Play Retailer:
And we all know a lot of you might be excited for the way forward for Android XR on glasses. We’re shaping the developer expertise now and can share extra particulars on how one can take part later this yr.
To get began creating and growing for Android XR, try developer.android.com/develop/xr the place you can see all the instruments, libraries, and sources it is advisable work with the Android XR SDK. Specifically, check out our samples and codelabs.
We welcome your suggestions, solutions, and concepts as you’re serving to form Android XR. Your ardour, experience, and daring concepts are very important as we proceed to develop Android XR collectively. We look ahead to seeing your XR-differentiated apps when Android XR gadgets launch later this yr!
Discover this announcement and all Google I/O 2025 updates on io.google beginning Might 22.
