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A little over a year ago, Google capped off its I/O developer conference keynote with a curious device: Cardboard, a cheap virtual reality viewer made primarily out of its namesake material, a pair of lenses, and the Android phone of your choosing.
This week, Google will hold another I/O keynote, full of revelations about the future of Android in your phone, your watch, and maybe even your home. And amidst the technological leaps and gleaming devices that will hit the stage, there is one conspicuously simple product that we're all hoping makes its second big appearance: Google Cardboard.
Sure, it might largely be made out of what fills your recycling bin---but it might also be one of the smartest, quietest, most innovative things going on at Google.
The most recent sales figures we have for Cardboard come from last December, when Google announced that over 500,000 units had been shipped to VR-thirsty customers. That number pales in comparison to, say, what a high-profile smartphone might move in the same time frame; Apple sold 20 times as many iPhone 6 and 6 Plus handsets (combined) in one weekend last fall. But a more useful sales comparison, one that provides both context and insight into Google’s aspirations, would be to other high-profile (and higher-powered) virtual reality headsets like Facebook’s Oculus Rift or Sony’s Project Morpheus. Those have sold a combined zero consumer-ready units---because they aren’t yet for sale. And they won’t be for many months.
What’s most remarkable about Cardboard’s ascension---muted though it might be---is that Google doesn’t actually make it. The company provides downloadable instructions on how to build your own, and otherwise points seekers in the direction of about a dozen Google-approved Cardboard partners, like DODOcase and Knoxlabs, that will send you pre-made units constructed from cardboard or aluminum or everything between, for anywhere from $17 to $85. In the most high-profile collaboration, Mattel recently announced that it will use Google Cardboard tech and specs to revive its View-Master brand this coming fall.
Even these official endorsements are a relatively recent development. Mountain View introduced its Works With Google Cardboard program, which both highlights hardware that’s up to spec and calibrates the Cardboard app to the future-goggles of your choosing, just last month.
One way to look at Google’s lack of direct involvement in Cardboard hardware is that the company views the entire project as little more than a lark. That seems unlikely though; even if it started out as such, those 500,000 units—likely much higher by now—make the project impossible to ignore. Besides, Cardboard’s not about cardboard at all.
It’s important to separate the physical manifestation of Cardboard from Google’s larger Cardboard program, which serves as a blanket for many of its phone-based virtual reality interests. And that Cardboard, the real Cardboard, has grander aspirations than upcycling a few old pizza delivery boxes.
“It’s an attractive outlet for developer community engagement,” says Ryan Martin of 451 Research. “For Google it’s a low-risk way to see what kinds of applications people are keen to create, and then just as importantly keen to consume.”
Indeed, it’s when you frame Cardboard in terms of developer outreach versus consumer plaything that you realize its real value.
The importance of virtual and augmented reality to Google by now is clear. In addition to Cardboard, the company has invested heavily in experiments like Project Tango, a tablet that can produce realistic models of the world around it, and Magic Leap, a mystery-shrouded augmented reality company that should pose a serious threat to Microsoft’s Hololens. And let’s not forget Google Glass---disappeared but not abandoned---set to make a comeback under the design guidance of Tony Fadell, the man responsible for the original iPod and the Nest thermostat.
Those projects don’t currently overlap, but they all share a common need: A critical mass of developers willing to devote their time and energy to virtual and augmented reality. That’s not a simple thing to find (or more accurately, to generate), but Google’s doing everything it can to expedite the process.
“Developers who need technologies like dual displays, realtime graphics or depth sensors just don’t have that support today,” says Brian Blau, a research director at Gartner specializing in consumer technology. “But you can see Google has been taking immersive technologies more seriously.”
In that sense, Cardboard’s primary function is to help solve the chicken-and-egg scenario that plagues so many emerging technologies. Developers don’t want to put resources into platforms no one uses, and no one wants to use a platform without apps. Throw in the historically prohibitive expense of virtual reality head-mounted displays—the original Oculus Rift developer kit cost its Kickstarter backers $300, while the Samsung Gear VR costs $250 while still requiring the use of a smartphone—and it’s a wonder consumer-focused virtual reality exists in any quantity at all.
Cardboard’s affordability eases much of that friction on the consumer side, and its high-profile outing at Google’s developer conference was enough to jumpstart app activity. There are currently over 500 Cardboard-friendly apps in the Google Play store, including at least two—-the main Cardboard app and a roller coaster simulator—that have been downloaded over a million times.
None of these apps has truly broken out. But breaking out’s not really the point; the focus for now appears to be embracing trial and error on a small scale. “Google basically diversifies some of the risk, but also continues to push the technology forward,” says Martin.
Forward, sure. But toward what?
That question should be answered in part during Google’s upcoming I/O keynote, during which Cardboard specifically and the company’s broader virtual reality aspirations will play a role. There are already a few hints of what might be ahead, though, or at least of how important those things are to Google’s future.
Earlier this month, Fast Company first reported that Jon Wiley, who had previously headed up Google Search design, had been shifted over to lead Google Cardboard. Wiley’s a big deal, and Search is a big job. In his previous post, the designer developed the information-packed, link-replacing cards that appear in Google Now and elsewhere. And search, while overshadowed by splashier Google efforts like, say, armies of robo-dogs, still accounts for 90 percent of the company’s revenue. You don’t send Lou Gehrig down to the minors just for kicks, and you don’t send Jon Wiley to work on a low-profile flight of fancy.
You do, though, put him in charge of a project that could someday be vital to your company’s continued growth. Especially if virtual reality goes from being a side project to an integral part of Android itself.
“We could see a new version of Android or Android Wear have deeper support for immersive technologies,” says Blau, echoing a recent Wall Street Journal report that Google is currently building “a version of the Android operating system to power virtual-reality applications.” No surprise, in that case, that “Designing for virtual reality” will be one of just a dozen live-streamed sessions (out of nearly 150 total) on the second day of I/O.
That’s the real point of Cardboard, then, beyond fun View-Master gimmicks and riding roller coasters from the comfort of your recliner. It’s a head start, a small experiment to figure out exactly what virtual reality is and how people will use it before pushing it on the masses. In a way, it's everything the equally experimental, much more expensive Google Glass should have been. If Cardboard had failed, at least it would have done so quietly, and at little expense to either Google or its customers, rather than the high-profile flameout of the company’s previous faceputer.
Instead, precisely because of its low-key accessibility, Cardboard has been a small success. One that, more importantly, Google hopes will pay off real dividends at this year's I/O and beyond.
