The Google Glass companion app might find a new life with Android XR

Samsung has been teasing the launch of a new XR product since early last year, but there’s still a lot we don’t know about it. While we know Samsung’s XR hardware is on track for a 2025 release and that it will be powered by a Qualcomm chipset, we don’t know much about its underlying software other than it’s Android-based. We know that Samsung, Qualcomm, and Google are quietly working on a new version of Android for XR devices called Android XR, but we haven’t yet learned how Android on XR devices will integrate with Android on mobile devices. Thankfully, the latest Android beta release may have given us some clues.

Google rolled out the first beta for the second quarterly platform release of Android 15 earlier this week, and it introduces some exciting new features as well as some dormant ones, like a non-functional Linux Terminal app. Some users noticed that Android 15 QPR2 Beta 1 also added a new app called Android Glasses Core. Android Glasses Core is a privileged system app located in the product partition, with the package name of com.google.android.glasses.core. An APK of this app has never been released before, and it cannot be found on any APK hosting sites, or even on Google Play. Plus, the Android Glasses Core APK in Android 15 QPR2 Beta 1 is actually a stub package — i.e. an empty one — meaning there’s extremely little information we can learn from the APK itself.

However, this isn’t the first time I’ve seen the Android Glasses Core app. Last year, a developer (who wishes to remain anonymous) sent me a copy of Android Glasses Core along with some screenshots of it. It seems Android Glasses Core is actually the companion app for the Google Glass Enterprise Edition 2 smart glasses that Google released back in 2019. When installed on an Android phone that’s paired to the Glass Enterprise Edition 2, Android Glasses Core allows for streaming apps from the phone as well as changing a myriad of different options.

Google discontinued and ended support for the Glass Enterprise Edition 2 last year, and it hasn’t announced plans to release another pair. Thus, it wouldn’t appear to make sense for the company to update the Android Glasses Core app, considering the status of Google Glass hardware. However, that’s exactly what Google seems to be doing, as the version of the Android Glasses Core stub package in Android 15 QPR2 Beta 1 is not only newer than the version I was sent last year, but also has a new icon.

That’s why I believe that Google plans to repurpose the Android Glasses Core app for upcoming products running Android XR. If Google does indeed plan to release a companion app for Android phones that will pair with Android XR, then it makes sense for Google to reuse some of the work it did for the companion app it made for Google Glass. It’s likely that Android Glasses Core won’t be user-facing and will instead power a lot of the cross-device features available behind the scenes, but since we only have a stub package, we don’t yet know for sure.

What we do know is that we’re getting closer and closer to the unveiling of Android XR and Samsung’s XR product. We already spotted a hint that the Google Play Store is getting ready for Android XR headset apps, suggesting you’ll be able to install apps onto your headset from any device with Play Store access. Samsung said one of its targets for 2025 is to “improve connectivity among products, including upcoming XR devices, to further elevate user experiences in the Galaxy ecosystem,” so that’s a good hint the product will launch next year. When it does launch, Android Authority will have all the details.