It’s probably safe to say that the biggest rivalry in the mobile phone space is between Apple and Samsung. As the former gets closer to releasing a mixed reality headset, it looks like the latter is also wants in on the extended reality space. A recent report notes that the South Korean tech giant is “working out a roadmap for so-called mixed reality products”.
CNBC cites Patrick Chomet, a senior vice president from the company as saying that it is looking “to push into devices seen by many electronics makers as key for future growth”. He also highlights the partnership of Samsung with Google and Qualcomm, which was announced earlier in February, in this endeavour. That being said, neither company has provided details as to what their partnership means beyond their efforts in the field of mixed reality.
That being said, Chomet says that the partnership is about growing the mixed reality market, rather than just for the benefit of the three companies involved. Which means that the three tech companies will “prepare a whole ecosystem” for developers, content companies and app companies to work in.
Should this take off, this would be the second time that Samsung is stepping in to the field of extended reality. Half a decade ago, the company dabbled with the release of the Gear VR headsets. Rather than working as a standalone device, it basically converted Samsung phones at the time, from the Galaxy S6 to as recent as the Galaxy S10, for VR applications. While the phones were the ones doing all the heavy lifting, the headset served to house the additional sensors needed for VR applications.
The Samsung Gear VR was also done in partnership with another back in the day, specifically the Meta-owned Oculus. Support for the line ended back in 2020.
(Source: CNBC)
