At Google I/O 2016, the company announced Daydream, which is their new platform for virtual reality. It’s a step above what Cardboard was, but not quite as feature rich as what HTC Vive and the Oculus Rift offer. Daydream still isn’t officially available, but the company announced today that their Virtual Reality SDK is now out of beta. This SDK was the Cardboard SDK and was updated at Google I/O in May to support Daydream. The Google VR SDK 1.0 is now available on the Daydream developer website. Google mentions in their blog post that the updated SDK has made some of the more common VR development tasks much simpler. The reasoning behind making these tasks easier is so that the developer can focus on other aspects of virtual reality. Like a fully immersive experience, high fidelity spatialized audio and much more.
That’s not all that Google is announcing today. They also announced that developers can now apply to be part of the Daydream Access Program (DAP). The Daydream Access Program is exactly what it sounds like, it’s an early access program for developers to apply to be a part of, which would allow them to put out their apps sooner. Instead of having to submit them with all the other developers that will be doing so in early 2017. This is also a way for Google to have a ton of Daydream enabled apps available right away. If you are a developer and do have a Daydream compatible app ready, you can head to the source link below and fill out the form to apply.
These announcements seem to point to the fact that Google is almost ready to debut Daydream. At Google I/O earlier this year, the company announced that it would be debuting later this year. But didn’t give any specific details as to when it would be available. With Google already having sent out invitations to their October 4th event in San Francisco, it seems fairly likely that it may launch at that event. Alongside a number of other Google products like the new Pixel smartphones that are being built with HTC, as well as Android Wear 2.0 – also shown off at Google I/O.