1) A new product standard that will be supported by all upcoming flagship Android phones. Your criticism is that they're announcing something ... new? 2) Provi

1) A new product standard that will be supported by all upcoming flagship Android phones. Your criticism is that they're announcing something ... new? 2) Providing a cheap VR experience for everyone seems pretty reasonable. It fills out the price/performance curve between Cardboard and Samsung Gear VR, and probably doesn't suck. Finally, since it's so cheap, they can literally give it away to all Pixel pre-orders. Also, they're building on a VR platform established by Cardboard. While Cardboard was an obviously cheap experience, it was also a 20% project / experiment that I'm glad they released. Why not enable your developers to build fun / cheap experiences?