Facebook has announced a big update to its Gear VR Facebook 360 app that allows users to watch all video content from Facebook – and not just 360 videos.
Samsung Gear VR users won’t need to leave VR anymore in order to watch other Facebook video content. A recent update announced last week allows users to watch 360 and non-360 videos just the same. The list of new video categories available to users of the app was shared by Facebook product manager Cody Sumter, engineer Genki Kondo, and engineering manager Stanley Wang, in a recent blog post.
Suggested videos, Live and Live 360 videos (also in 4K), shows from Facebook Watch (users in the U.S. only), gaming and e-sports videos, as well as users’ own videos and photos, can now all be viewed through the app. The update also allows users to search for all Facebook Pages on the platform, and follow the ones they want, directly from the Gear VR app. Additionally, the app now also supports the Gear VR Controller that makes video selection, sharing, and reactions, a lot easier.
With the update, content creators get one more way for people to discover and consume their content, and users get to watch a lot more video – not just 360 content.
Since it launched the Gear VR app in March, Facebook has been making it’s VR offering more feature-rich and useful. In April the company launched Spaces, its first foray into social VR, and in October it announced it was working on a new feature that would allow users to meet up with their friends in VR and even watch concerts together.
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