Google Cardboard & BlackBerry 10

As some of you may know, I've been busy as we started our own VR game company this year! It has been awesome, we focus on serious VR experiences ... but I always miss the BlackBerry 10 experience.

So, no promises, but I've been able to make a little bit of progress.

This version of the Cardboard Demo app will work on BB10
http://www.filearchivehaven.com/down...5-minAPI16.apk

Tip: Most third-party apps crash, as they have a minimum SDK of 19, and BlackBerry uses 17. But some do work, you can launch the Tour Guide app from the APK and explore away.

For other developers, I put up a tip for using the Google Cardboard SDK to force it to allow apps and games you make to run on BlackBerry 10 and other older Android devices.

Google Cardboard & Building for Older Runtimes - VRHeads Forum

Full disclosure, I'm having an issue getting the screen to display properly myself as you can see from this environment I put up.

... But I've only had an hour or two to invest into it so far. My initial feelings, is it is quite a bit of extra fluff for BlackBerry 10. I suspect I may be able to roll a custom Unity 5.1.4 SDK for Google-Cardboard (like) apps easier... as really it is just a distortion effect on two split cameras. But for now this will help some people get started :D

Good effort, but I might go blind trying to resolve objects at Cardboard distance with Z10 resolution. :D

Originally Posted by Ment

Good effort, but I might go blind trying to resolve objects at Cardboard distance with Z10 resolution. :D

It isn't as bad as you might think - the resolution seems as good to me as mobile VR ever gets and actually a screen protector helps (blurs pixels) :) Not my personal preference (mobile VR in general). But you could run it on any BB10 device, not specific to Z10. Z10's just easier to test as it is "about the right size".

Although, totally to your point, I wouldn't recommend doing this as something "you should do". Rather, "something you can do that you aren't supposed to be able to do". Cuz yeah, its definitely not a normal case :D

On a side note, I've made progress. I've been able to get some of my own apps to build properly and work full screen.