Wikimedia Apps/Exploring VR Integration and Browsing in Wikimedia Mobile Apps
Background
[edit]As part of the apps team’s mission to enhance the user experience, and based on a valuable user suggestion, the Wikimedia Mobile Apps Team is creating this space to explore the potential of integrating Virtual Reality (VR) into the Wikipedia mobile applications on Android and iOS, and how VR technology can enrich the ways users interact with and contribute to Wikipedia through their mobile devices. We welcome your ideas, thoughts, suggestions, and feedback on this page to help shape the future of VR integration in Wikipedia mobile apps.
The Wikimedia Foundation has not identified integrations with VR as a priority for this coming fiscal year 2024-2025, and there is currently no planned work in this space. However this page will provide a useful future resource if the Foundation decides to invest in building VR experiences in the future.
The primary objectives of this space
[edit]- Collect potential use cases for VR within the Wikipedia mobile applications.
- Provide a discussion space for the benefits of VR integration, and suitable VR technologies
- Gather community feedback specific to mobile users.
Wikipedia mobile apps states
[edit]iOS
The Wikipedia iOS App works on Vision Pro but was not specifically built for Vision Pro, similar to the News App. It displays as a giant window that can be engaged within your environment.
Android
No compatible version of the Android app is currently available.
List of ideas:
User's suggestions and feedback
[edit]- Extension:3D currently supports display of monochrome 3d objects, but not in a format that Safari reads natively. Conversion to a compatible format for native display may provide a smoother experience of 3D objects in Safari on both regular iPhones (where it can pan based on device movement) and Vision Pro (where it could appear in actual 3-D). This at least requires file format conversion work which has not yet been researched. --Brooke Vibber (WMF) (talk) 17:12, 1 July 2024 (UTC)
- I documented thoughts at phab:T363868 during the 2024 hackathon. I think it would be important to support more than just ios/android - in particular, meta quest devices are worth exploring. Always happy to talk more on this topic. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 13:53, 21 August 2024 (UTC)