HTC Vive launched its iOS companion app on the app store. HTC Vive is the virtual reality headset from HTC. The companion app is meant to keep users connected to their phone, and updated with real world events while they are spending time immersed in virtual reality.
At time of launch, the HTC Vive app offers notifications in three key areas. Users get notified about incoming calls, new text messages and reminders from calendars. The messaging alerts is restricted to text messages only at the moment, third party instant messaging or chat applications are not supported at this time.
This is the same on both ecosystems, not supporting WhatsApp notifications is one of the most frequent complaints for the Android version of the app. The HTC Vive companion app on Android, allows users to respond to text messages as well, a feature not supported in the iOS version.
The notifications pop up during the VR experience, and are stored for later viewing or retrieval in the HTC Vive dashboard. Android and iOS versions of the app also require a connection to a computer, apart from the VR headset itself. The computer also has to have Bluetooth connectivity, as the apps use Bluetooth only to pair with the machine.
