Oculus VR has been working hand in hand with Samsung towards building the mobile virtual reality industry. Samsung has just revealed the Gear VR Innovator Edition for the company's Galaxy Note 4 device.
The Gear VR is powered by the Oculus Mobile software and therefore comes with an official Mobile Software Development Kit that will encourage developers to prepare some apps for the new platform. It has been in the works for more than a year with Samsung.
Oculus said that the first version of the Oculus Mobile SDK is particularly designed for the Gear VR Innovator Edition of Samsung on Note 4.
"We've been working on the mobile SDK for over a year in collaboration with Samsung, optimizing the Note 4 tech stack to deliver the first ultra-low latency, mobile virtual reality headset," said Oculus.
The Gear VR offers several fancy-sounding features that are supported by the Mobile SDK of Oculus. These include direct warped content, real-time CPU threading, fine grained GPU context switching in real time, GPU context priorities, clock frequency locking, direct front buffer rendering, and asynchronous timewarp.
The SDK also features Oculus 360 Videos, Oculus 360 Photos and also Oculus Cinema on an open licensing agreement and with full source code. The company wants the users to jump-start their own VR app development.
In other words, developers have access to the full suite of multimedia interaction that is offered on the Gear VR. Moreover, it comes bundled with a Unity 4.5 integration for the users to have their existing Unity VR program to start working with the new mobile headset.
The Gear VR also makes it possible for users to enjoy the latest company offering known as Oculus Home. Users can discover content that they can also download and launch.
By working with Samsung and developers, Oculus can start building the roadmap of software support for virtual reality.
Brendan Iribe, Oculus CEO, said that the Rift is coming in the near future and that its success would rely deeply on impressive user experiences toward the launch.
It is highly likely that Oculus will continue working with Samsung as the Korean company is said to be providing the displays for the Rift. The collaboration is nevertheless deemed as a win-win situation to both.
The Gear VR is now available for pre-registration and will begin shipping in the U.S. in early December. The $249 version will provide the user with the headset that is bundled with a Bluetooth gamepad. The unbundled headset version is likewise offered at $199.
