RIP mobile virtual reality: Samsung drops Gear VR support in Galaxy Note 10
Mobile virtual reality, meant to be the next big thing only a handful of years ago, continues to die a slow death, as Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. Thursday confirmed that its new Galaxy Note 10 and Galaxy 10 Plus will not work with its Gear VR headset.
The Samsung Gear VR was launched with much fanfare in November 2015 with support from Oculus, the Facebook Inc.-owned virtual reality headset and software maker. The device allowed Samsung users to place supported smartphones within the headset to create a virtual reality experience without the need to purchase a dedicated headset and an expensive PC to support it.
The decline and slow death of mobile VR isn’t a Samsung story alone. Google LLC, which arguably created mobile VR with its Cardboard product, has not only dropped support for VR in its latest phones but also seemingly abandoned its Daydream VR platform as well.
The broader VR market has fared much better. As companies such as Oculus and HTC Corp. continue to launch new headsets, the most generous thing you could say about VR is that it has a devoted niche audience. It’s not even especially arguable in 2019 to say that the promises surrounding the second coming of VR in the mid-2010s — two decades after the first one — has failed to live up to its hype.
See the full story here: https://siliconangle.com/2019/08/08/rip-mobile-virtual-reality-samsung-drops-gear-vr-support-galaxy-note-10/