When many of us think about VR apps, we think about the promise that they have in entertainment. While it’s okay to get excited about movies and games, VR also has the potential to help us be more productive.
If you use your VR device for productivity, you should know that there’s another productivity app on the market for Oculus.
What is Virtual Desktop?
The Virtual Desktop VR app launched late last month and is compatible with Samsung Gear and Oculus Go (and will be with Oculus Quest as well). The goal of the Virtual Desktop is to turn your usual computer experience into a VR experience. By connecting with your computer and a game controller, Oculus Go controller, or Bluetooth Mouse, Virtual Desktop lets you compute in VR.
By putting your browser on a VR screen, Virtual Desktop lets you watch movies and videos in VR. You can also play games that you can open in your browser window, opening up a world of opportunity.
Granted, you could use the VR app in entirely non-productive ways. Where the real productivity comes in is with its ability to connect to devices. Up to four computers can connect to Virtual Desktop at a time, allowing the user to switch between them. Whether you have multiple devices or want to use the app to work collaboratively with others, having immediate VR access to four computers simultaneously is huge.
Virtual Desktop can also cycle through multiple displays on a single computer. Consider that in conjunction with multiple devices, and Virtual Desktop can become an entire suite of online applications.
How Does It Work With VR Devices?
Despite its recent launch, the VR app already has quite a few reviews. Many of them point out that Virtual Desktop, in allowing you to remotely access your devices through VR, greatly expands the practicality of Oculus Go.
When Oculus Go launched earlier this year, there was some concern over how much the stand-alone device would be able to handle.
Since then we’ve seen that it can do quite a lot. Still, the headset has limited memory. So, being able to cut down on the burden, by accessing applications stored on other devices, is significant.
The impact of this VR app on Samsung Gear is similar to that on Oculus Go. By bringing this service to the mobile phone, that Gear users use as their VR portal, Virtual Desk may allow the freeing up of space on a device with limited memory.
That doesn’t mean that Virtual Desktop should necessarily replace all of your other VR apps for productivity. There can still be a place for other productivity apps like Mozilla’s Firefox Reality on your Go for situations where you have your Go but not your laptop, or if your laptop is turned off or updating.
By acting as a sort of adapter to make your computer function on your Oculus Go, Virtual Desktop drastically increases the functionality and practicality of a standalone headset. Because it is also available for Samsung Gear, it can be another huge productivity boost to Samsung users who use their mobile devices for VR apps.
