According to TechSpot, Google introduced its Android XR platform in 2024 as a rival to Apple’s visionOS. In October of this year, Samsung released the first headset for the platform, undercutting the Apple Vision Pro’s price by almost 50 percent. Now, new features announced in a recent presentation are making Android XR more closely resemble Apple’s system. These include a “PC Connect” feature for streaming Windows apps and games to the Samsung Galaxy XR headset, a “travel mode” for use in vehicles, and 3D avatars called “Likenesses” for video calls. Google also outlined plans for Android XR smart glasses, including screenless models and devices with in-lens displays, set to arrive next year.
Strategy: Catch-up and copy
Look, Google‘s playbook here is pretty transparent. They saw Apple lay out a comprehensive vision (no pun intended) for a spatial computing platform with visionOS, and they’re methodically checking off the feature boxes. PC streaming? Check. Travel mode? Check. A 3D digital avatar so you don’t look like a robot on calls? Check, but they’re calling it a “Likeness” instead of a “Persona.” It’s a classic fast-follower strategy. The twist is they’re doing it on a platform—Android—that’s already ubiquitous, and they’re letting hardware partners like Samsung handle the heavy lifting of actually building and selling the headsets. It’s less “Here’s our perfect, walled-garden vision” and more “Here’s the toolkit, go build stuff.” The question is, does that fragmented approach work for a nascent product category that desperately needs a killer app?
The real bet: Smart glasses
Here’s the thing, though. The headset news feels like the immediate game, but Google’s longer-term bet seems to be on smart glasses. They’re talking about two paths: screenless audio-and-camera glasses for chatting with Gemini, and glasses with displays in the lenses for AR overlays. This is where it gets both more interesting and way more complicated. Remember Google Glass? The “Glasshole” stigma and massive privacy concerns sank it. Now, over a decade later, Google and others think we’re ready to try again. But are we? Putting cameras on everyone’s face in public still feels like a societal hurdle they haven’t cleared. A recent incident where a woman broke a man’s Meta Ray-Bans on the subway over recording fears shows the tension is still very real.
A crowded and confusing field
So what we have now is a market in total flux. Apple’s going premium with the Vision Pro but it’s not setting the world on fire. Meta’s all-in on VR and the metaverse. Google is pushing Android XR as a flexible platform for both headsets and glasses. And then you have companies like Valve renewing focus on pure VR with the Steam Frame headset, which might even sideload Android apps. It’s a mess. For developers and consumers, it’s incredibly confusing. Which platform do you build for? Which one do you buy? Google’s strategy of being the underlying software for all of it is clever, but it also means they don’t control the full experience. In a field where seamless, intuitive hardware-software integration is everything—just look at Apple’s pitch—that could be a real weakness. Basically, they’re trying to be the Android of XR. And we all know how that story goes: massive market share, but the most polished and profitable experiences live elsewhere.
