WEARVR Weekly Top Ten VR Downloads – May #1

By
Ben Lang
-
7

In May, WEARVR and Road to VR are joining forces to bring you VR goodness from the WEARVR app marketplace, a cross-platform repository of virtual reality experiences. This video gives a glimpse of the top 10 most popular experiences from the last week.

  1. HELIX – the next level

  2. Music in the Air

  3. Storyteller: Fireside Tales

  4. All Is Dust

  5. KNL Station/Batcave: DK2 Remix

  6. South Africa

  7. Abot66 In Space

  8. From Nothing

  9. Cityscape VR Bar

  10. Attack on Rabbit

Which is your favorite?

Interested in listing your app on WEARVR? The company encourages you to reach out to info@wearvr.com. In the next few weeks they’ll allow developers to manage their own listings and upload files directly.

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Ben Lang
Ben is the world's most senior professional analyst solely dedicated to the XR industry, having founded Road to VR in 2011—a year before the Oculus Kickstarter sparked a resurgence that led to the modern XR landscape. He has authored more than 3,000 articles chronicling the evolution of the XR industry over more than a decade. With that unique perspective, Ben has been consistently recognized as one of the most influential voices in XR, giving keynotes and joining panel and podcast discussions at key industry events. He is a self-described "journalist and analyst, not evangelist."
  • Don Gateley

    I’ve been wondering if .apk side load would be available for Gear VR applications. There is a site where the Oculus’ Mobile VR Jam 2015 entries can be downloaded as .apk files for side load and installation on the device directly rather than going through approved Gear VR stores and channels.

    All the entries for Oculus’ Mobile VR Jam 2015 are at http://vrjam.challengepost.com/submissions as .apk files and I’ve been able to download a couple into a directory on my Nexus 7, install them with Package Installer and run them. Of course they crash on that device so I’d love to know if someone who has a Gear VR can do the same and see if it works like a Gear VR app you can get from their store.

    If it works then it would seem that developers could use that path to make their works available outside of the controlled channels and remove my main concern about this device being closed to other than curated content.

    Ben, if you don’t have one you must know someone who does that could try this. Thanks.

  • Don Gateley

    A responsive soul on https://www.reddit.com/r/gearvr named jin8913 tells me, “you can launch the app in android app drawer. When the window that says launch the app in gear Vr appears, u can put ur phone into gear vr and it will launch the app.”

    I think the device can now be considered open.

  • Don Gateley

    To continue this one sided conversation I’ve now been told that an installable .apk for the Gear VR must be signed by the proper authorities to work. Ah, well. For a moment there appeared a sliver of light in this dark landscape of vendor censorship. The device can now be considered closed again. :-(

    • Ben Lang

      Thanks for your research Don. A shame for sure, I think eventually they’ll get there, I think Android folks will demand it.

      • Don Gateley

        Time for another turn of the yo-yo. I now find that there is a way to sign unauthorized Gear VR .apk files so they work and while not terribly difficult it must be done for every app-device combination you have and involves a PC program, an Android app to fetch the ID of your device, logging into the Oculus web site as a developer to do something rather simple before side loading the signed .apk and installing it. Not difficult but tedious and certainly not what will free this device for open app use in a way a general user would be interested in doing it.

        Anyone interested can go here for more info: http://www.sideloadvr.com/

        I hope you’re right, Ben, but I see all these guys going stolidly down the Apple path of complete strategic control and as long as they all do it, whatcha gonna do?

        I just know I’m going to continue to inform and nag about it anywhere I can find a voice. BTW, thanks for providing an excellent place for a voice. :-)

        • Ben Lang

          Haha this is turning into a rollercoaster of emotions!

          Maybe you’d be interested to surmise your findings/feelings about Gear VR’s app ecosystem in a guest article?

          • Don Gateley

            LOL! Merely thinking about constructing an article sent my stomach into knots (it took me half an hour to compose this little response.) Glad to help anyone who does want to do it though.

            Another bit of related info about .apk signing is here (NSFW)

            http://www.vrgirlz.com/news/gearvr-beta/

            I think global .apk signing (as opposed to device specific) will remain in their walled garden so that they can keep such nastiness at arms length but more importantly so that they can keep their cup under the spigot of content profit which is where the big bucks will be. Facebook of course has all kinds of other motivation to keep it tightly under control like information gathering for advertising.

            I will also bet that this means of signing using only an easy to obtain developer account at Oculus will be walled off with a harder to get signature authorization if they see non-developers using it to bypass their controls. Nice went away when Luckey sold out to Zuckerberg.