Google brings YouTube VR app to Gear VR

Samsung has put in a lot of effort into building the Gear VR ecosystem, but the platform hasn’t turned into a major success yet. Though the Gear VR is the most dominant mobile VR platform out there, it still lacks many popular apps and services. One of the most glaring deficits in the Gear VR app ecosystem is the absence of an official YouTube VR app. Thankfully, it is going to change soon as Google has announced the YouTube VR app for Gear VR users.

The YouTube VR app was already available for Google’s Daydream VR platform. Considering both the Daydream and Gear VR are based on Android, it is quite surprising that Google took this long to bring the official YouTube app to the Gear VR platform. So far, Gear VR users were relying on a browser to access YouTube videos, which is far from an ideal experience.

Available this week

Google is also adding a new social feature that allows YouTube VR users to chat and watch videos together. The blog post from Google says the app will be available in the Oculus Store beginning this week. At the time of writing of this post, the app is not yet available for download.

Google’s apps and services are extremely popular, and the company is known to use them as bargaining chips, which makes us wonder if Samsung had to make any concessions to get the YouTube app for Gear VR.

Naresh Nekkanti

Virtual Reality Gear VR