The Best VR Apps
You don’t need an expensive VR headset to enjoy Virtual Reality!
Table of Contents
Here are the Top VR Apps for iPhone and Android
Until recently, you had to rely on a VR headset to explore the same types of virtual experiences that you can now find on apps that enable you to play/view with VR and create your virtual reality experience … from an app.
If you are looking to experience virtual reality from the comfort of your own living room, there are plenty of VR apps you can use. And if you want to create your own VR experiences, we’ve reviewed some great apps for that too.
There are so many different VR apps these days, it can be hard to know where to start. So we did the legwork for you, testing dozens and narrowing the list down to our favorites. Perfect if you’re looking to get started on your first VR experience or want to create your own VR app.
The Best VR Video
Player Apps
YouTube VR is another free app available on Android that allows you to enjoy 360-degree videos. Users can also search for videos with their voice without having to type directly on their phones.
The VR app works with your regular YouTube account or YouTube premium.
Although the UI can be challenging to navigate, it works well most of the time.
All you need is to select your device on the link provided or head to YouTube and look for VR videos. An icon will pop up on the thumbnail confirming that your chosen video is in VR.
Littlstar provides free access to virtual reality videos, movies, television shows, photos, and more. Whether or not you have a virtual reality headset, you can watch this content including standard, 3D, 180 degrees, 360, and even AR. Included with the app is content for kids to adults, such as sporting, theater and more. You can even upload your own VR content for others to watch. Interestingly, interacting with the app is gamified, earning you ‘ARA rewards’ that can be used to pay for licenses to music, art, film, games, shows and more.
Within VR is a shining example of how some of the best VR Apps can be used to create amazing experiences. Within VR is one of the highly-rated VR apps that provides an immersive VR experience from around the world. The app distributes AR, VR, and XR experiences on mobile, web, and other consoles.
Users get to experience quality videos in different genres like fitness, mindfulness, horror, music, documentaries, and more. You’ll find the visuals stunning featuring CGI-powered pixels and high resolution.
Within VR is available on iOS, Android, PlayStation, Oculus Rift, and Gear VR. The app is free to use and doesn’t have any ads.
Google Cardboard is one of Google’s VR apps. It’s designed to help a user learn how to set up the Cardboard VR headset properly and also explore other virtual reality features.
The Android-based app is free to use and you can scan the QR code of your headset.
Furthermore, the app also has an inbuilt photo viewer, video player, arctic journey, and more.
The Best VR News Apps
As The Guardian VR makes abundantly clear, reading a news story is nothing compared to viewing it in virtual reality. Similar to Within VR, this app creates documentaries and news videos, only in a shorter form than most documentary production companies.
When viewing a documentary with the Guardian App, you get more context than you might get from reading an article. You also see the subjects face-to-face for a more in-depth experience.
Available on both Google Play and Apple App Store.
The Best VR
Meditation Apps
At the opposite end of the spectrum is an app called Provata VR that offers meditation and mindfulness classes in virtual reality. The app allows you to visit a variety of beautiful and calming sites, including coral reefs and breathtaking waterfalls, as well as the awe-inspiring northern lights.
Available on both Google Play and Apple App Store.
The Best VR Apps for
Creating and Drawing
For an immersive sculpting experience, Oculus Medium is one of the best apps to play around with. The app has a robust set of features ideal for painting, sculpting and stamping. Notably, the app also utilizes a built-in light and camera system, making it a perfect app for quick concept work.
This app has been compared to Illustrator and we think that’s fair compression of apples to apples. Gravity Sketch is a full-featured 3D creation app for VR, full of cool and intuitive tools for creating shapes, using splines and curves. Product visualization, modelling vehicles, rendering and the like are areas where this app really excels.
Tilt Brush was one of the earliest art apps in virtual reality to gain notoriety. The app offers a pro mode for the more advanced artist, and it has some interesting animated brushes that can aid in creating some fascinating works. It may be among the most casual/basic of all of these tools, but it’s a fun way to rough out ideas or simply doodle in VR.
The Best VR Apps for Exploring
Discovery VR is another app available on both iOS and Android. The official app from the Discovery Channel runs on any device that is iOS 7+ and Android 4.0.
The app provides you with an immersive experience of animal habitats, cityscapes, and landscapes. It’s a fun way to learn about science in a virtual reality world. It also has simple controls.
All you need is Google Cardboard to enjoy the fantastic video quality and impressive directional and binaural audio.
While you can’t watch everything available on the Discovery Channel on this app, there’s still plenty of content to view.
The internet and VR have opened up countless avenues of experience and culture to people who, a century ago, wouldn’t have had access to them.
Instead of flying out to Everest just to wait in line behind rich tourists hiring local sherpas to carry them up the mountain for a killer Insta pic, enjoy the mountain top Google’s Expeditions app. Expeditions offers VR tours of landmarks like the Coliseum, the Great Pyramid of Giza, Taj Mahal and more. The images are so detailed they can give you the sense that you’re standing in the middle of the landscape yourself.
Google Earth VR lets you visit amazing sites and landmarks in virtual reality, using HTC Vive headsets and Oculus Rift headsets. But the good news is, Google Earth is also compatible with Google Cardboard, making its way onto our ‘best of’ apps list.
The app starts you out in virtual space, but you can zoom in on any location in the world for a bird’s-eye view of that location. Google Earth is arguably one of the best VR apps for students studying geography and history excavations.
Virtual reality has many tour options, such as VR Mojo Orbulus, which enables you to explore the universe and travel destinations like the Great Wall of China. Or Ocean Rift and ‘Sites’ in VR, the former of which allows the user to explore marine and land wildlife, underwater ecosystems and more.
InCell VR is available both on Android and iOS. The free-to-use VR-based educational game app places the player in a strange world where they start small and work their way up. Players get to learn about the human body and how the cell structure works.
The app is compatible with Archos, Homido, View-Master, and more. Additionally, you can switch off the VR mode from the app menu. If you’re looking for an app that allows you to explore something innovative, you should check out InCell VR.
The Best VR Game Apps
Fulldive VR is an android-based app that is free to use for anyone looking to earn from the time spent browsing the internet.
Users can browse the internet for 360 and 3D photos, watch their favorite videos and do more to earn cryptocurrency-based rewards.
Furthermore, you’re not restricted to one site as you get plenty of options to browse on.
Developers plan to come up with features like a VR browser, VR player, and a VR camera in upcoming updates.
With an all-encompassing setting and the ability to transport you to another world, VR makes a perfect location for horror stories to play out in front of your very eyes. In a scary nutshell, 11:57 is a 360-degree nightmare that puts you at the center of the nightmarish action. Instead of observing what is happening, the characters in a movie revolve around you, drawing you into the story and making you feel like part of the storyline and landscape.
As fun as the apps mentioned above are and as great as they are at giving you a reason to play with the headset on, and we all need some downtime. Beat Saber is a fantastic way to get that time in, but while still tapping into your creative side by creating mix tracks and custom beats for the game.
VR Thrills is one of the popular apps on the Play Store with over 10 million downloads. The game allows you to experience real-life roller coasters. You can enjoy the adventure in 3D-modeled roller coasters or opt for the pre-recorded 360 videos. What makes this app different is that it allows users to create customized roller coaster rides that they get to experience after creation. The free-to-use app can be used with Google Cardboard headsets, but you can also play the game using the phone’s touch controls.
Ever look up at the night sky and marvel at the universe’s vastness and infinite endless space? Wish you could explore the galaxies in VR? This app makes that possible, taking you on a space journey to the moons and planets in our solar system. This immersive (and educational) experience takes you on a flight through the cosmos that is as exhilarating as it is informative. Within the app are educational activities, but you can also explore on your own skipping the lesson plans.
If you enjoy watching TV shows like The Walking dead, you’ll love Zombie Shooter VR. It’s one of the best VR apps for iPhone users.
The game allows you to kill zombies in a virtual world. It starts in a dark, small room where you pick a weapon, go through the door, and you get to kill zombies with different levels. It’s an easy-to-use app, especially for anyone new to VR.
Zombie Shooter VR has a free version that only allows you to enjoy a trial scene that lasts for some minutes. For you to continue playing the game, you’ll need to pay $1.99 for the full version.
VR Zombie Warfare is another game created by Zombie Shooter VR developers.
The Best VR Apps for Porn
The SLR App is like the Swiss Army knife of VR porn. If you are into adult VR entertainment you need to check this one out. This app allows you to access your entire library of videos from any headset in addition to deploying the latest immersive VR technology. You can use this app on the Oculus Quest or Quest 2, Oculus Rift, Valve Index, HTC Vive, Pimax 8k and tons of other VR headsets.
Sexlikereal.com makes it a point to partner with the best in the business to bring you deep integration of VR Sex Toys like the Lovesense, Nora, and Handy! Devices as well as many others.
Most of the larger studios release their content onto the SLR app so you will always get updated with the latest content, videos, and scenes without having to visit each site individually.
The app features tilt and zoom which is something you can’t find currently in any other adult VR apps. They remaster a large number of their videos to bring you the highest quality.
They currently list access to over 18,000 adult videos under one roof, that’s a huge catalog!
PIN protection is available in your application settings to keep everything private. They also feature SSL secure connections, anonymized data, they don’t share data with third parties, and they don’t store your credit card data. These are are all huge bonus points in our book!
Final Thoughts on the Best VR Apps for 2022 and Beyond
With the VR app technology still in its infancy, developers are working hard to ensure that virtual reality becomes mainstream and is easily accessible to everyone. With the best VR apps, you can experience VR at your convenience and on your phone, even if you don’t have a VR headset.
