Clarification on Daydream submissions for existing cardboard apps

Hello!

We have an existing Cardboard VR app in the Google Play store. We've been developing a Daydream version and are getting ready to submit and I wanted to clarify how Google Play handles the Daydream build while still supporting Cardboard.

Are these two builds treated separately - e.g. two APKs are available (one for Cardboard, one for Daydream)? Does the Play Store serve up the correct apk based on what VR headset is paired?

Or, is it intended to be a single APK that alters the experience based on what headset is bound?

Anything else I should know about?

Cheers.

 

The Play Store will not do APK management depending on whether the user's device is Daydream-ready - they will show up as separate entries. For Daydream certification, the app cannot open in Cardboard mode on a Daydream-ready phone, while it's paired to a Daydream View.

GVRDemo (in the GVR Unity Plugin) is one example of handling both Daydream and Cardboard mode in the same app. It currently doesn't support runtime switching between modes when the paired viewer changes on a Daydream-ready phone, but that will be fixed in our next release. (The fix is to add a check for currently-paired GvrSettings.ViewerPlatform in DemoInputManager.Update().)

Hope that helps!

 

Hey Mira,

Thanks the info, I will pass along!

Re: separate entries, it seems like Google wants to avoid multiple apps (e.g. "Our App Cardboard", "Our App Daydream") in the store - is there a preferred way to do that if we went the separate entries route? Is a single unified apk that changes input models based on the paired headset the preferred approach for Daydream?

Our app is already Cardboard (iOS/Android) and GearVR supported, and I'm just trying to determine the best approach for adding Daydream to our ecosystem.

 

Don't know about the preferred approach for separate entries, but there are several apps (like this one) that have taken the unified Cardboard / Daydream route, so that should be fine.

 

Hey Mira,

We ended up doing a separate Daydream apk and store listing for now - we'll hopefully have a more graceful unified app down the road.

We did get rejected on an app crashes flag but we cannot produce any of the reported problems on a Pixel or Pixel XL and no crashes were reported in our analytics. So we're a little stumped on how to fix these issues. Any ideas on how to get some more details?