We should be seeing the next flagship Google Daydream-ready smartphone very soon.
Last week Google sent out invites for a ‘Made by Google Launch Event’ taking place at 11am ET on October 9th in New York City. The name seems like a clear indicator that we’ll be seeing the reveal of the next in Google’s own line of smartphones, the Pixel 3 and likely the enlarged Pixel 3 XL too. This will be the first phone from the company since it acquired the design division of HTC that had made its previous two Pixel phones.
Why should a VR fan care? Well, simply put, the Pixel line usually serves as the flagship device for Google’s Daydream mobile VR ecosystem. That means whatever Google is planning to unveil should have access to the entire breadth of VR content that’s been released on Daydream over the past two years. More importantly, though, there will hopefully be some updates to the kit’s design and processing power that make it the best place to jump into Daydream.
You can also expect the phone to be a great showcase for Google’s Android-based augmented reality platform, ARCore.
We also have to wonder if Google is planning to unveil another iteration of its Daydream View headset at the show. View was first introduced at 2016’s Made by Google event and then updated in the 2017 version, so we’re holding out hope that yet more revisions are on their way.
More than anything, though, we just want to know what Google’s been up to in VR, recently. The company partnered with Lenovo to deliver the excellent Mirage Solo standalone headset earlier this year, but VR was almost entirely absent from its I/O developer conference in May.
