Google’s latest Android XR update gives Galaxy XR some fancy new tricks

Samsung’s Galaxy XR already felt a bit like the opening act for something bigger, and now Google and Samsung are continuing to flesh it out. A new Android XR update rolling out today adds several features aimed at making the headset more immersive and more natural to use.

In a Google blog post published alongside Samsung’s own announcement, the company outlined five new Android XR features coming to Galaxy XR. The most attention-grabbing is auto-spatialization, which launches as an experimental feature and can add depth to almost any app, game, website, image, or video. Google specifically mentions YouTube videos, 2D games, and websites in Chrome, and says you can enable the feature in the Labs tab under Advanced features in Settings. Check out the video at the top of the article to see it in practice.

Another new trick is the ability to pin apps directly to walls in your room so that they stay anchored where you placed them. Google suggests using it for things like keeping a calendar next to your desk or turning part of your wall into a permanent entertainment screen.

The update also changes how interactions look and feel. For example, you can now see your real hands while interacting with virtual content, rather than the white outlines used before. Google says this should make reaching, pinching, and swiping feel more natural, while Samsung also mentions single-eye tracking and pointer customization as accessibility improvements included in the update.

On the less flashy but more practical side, Galaxy XR can now reopen your apps when you resume a session, so you can pick up where you left off instead of having to set everything up again. Samsung’s announcement also mentions saved virtual keyboard positioning, which should make things a bit less fiddly if you actually spend time typing in XR rather than just waving your hands about.

Google also says there are now more than 100 apps designed to better take advantage of XR, which is more than double the number available when Galaxy XR launched. Meanwhile, Samsung is pairing the user-facing upgrades with new Android Enterprise support and says Android XR will get software updates and security patches for up to five years. Galaxy XR may still feel niche, but if every update brings advancements of this scale, its appeal is likely to grow quickly.