What Android XR

XR stands for extended reality. It’s an umbrella term that encompasses all technologies that blend the real and virtual worlds including virtual reality, augmented reality, and mixed reality. Android XR is an operating system for extended reality devices that use these technologies, like headsets and glasses. It provides the user interface, the ability to access popular apps, and AI assistance from Gemini to these devices.

Android XR is an operating system for headsets and glasses. The first devices will be available in 2025.

The first devices with Android XR will be available in 2025.

Android XR compatible mobile app

An Android XR compatible mobile app represents an existing mobile app that has not been modified to adapt to a large screen or any other form factor. This type of app is automatically compatible with Android XR as long as it doesn't require any features that are unsupported, such as telephony. Users can complete critical task flows but with a less optimal user experience than an Android XR differentiated app.

This type of app runs full screen on a panel in the user's environment, but its layout might not be ideal at larger sizes. Apps that specify compact sizes in the manifest show up accordingly. The app doesn't run in compatibility mode and is therefore not letterboxed. The app has a functional experience of the core input modalities provided by Android XR (eye tracking + gesture or raycast hands) and basic support for external input devices, including keyboard, mouse, trackpad, and game controllers. It may or may not be capable of resizing.

Android XR compatible mobile apps are automatically opted in and available on the Google Play Store. An app that is not compatible because of unsupported feature requirements is not installable through the Play Store.

Android XR differentiated app

An Android XR differentiated app has a user experience explicitly designed for XR and it implements features that are only offered on XR. You can take full advantage of Android XR capabilities and differentiate your app's experiences by adding XR features (e.g. spatial panels), adding XR content (e.g. 3D video) to your applications by developing with Android Jetpack XR SDK, Unity, or OpenXR.

You can use the Jetpack XR SDK to provide XR-specific capabilities including spatial panels, environments, 3D models, spatial audio, 3D / spatial video / photos, anchors, and other spatial UI such as orbiters.

To be considered an Android XR differentiated app, an app must implement at least one XR-specific feature or piece of XR-specific content. For certain use cases, more features and content requirements may exist. See details below.

All apps built with Unity or OpenXR are considered differentiated. Apps built with Unity or OpenXR must meet quality metrics and minimum requirements to be considered an Android XR-differentiated app. For example, an app with low frame rate, crashes, or other negative user experiences would not qualify.