Google Cardboard vs ARium
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Google Cardboard
Experience virtual reality on your iPhone. This app guides you through setting up a compatible viewer and offers initial immersive experiences to explore.
- VR viewer setup
- Introductory VR experiences
- iPhone compatibility
- Cardboard viewer integration
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Cardboard puts virtual reality on your iPhone. The Google Cardboard app helps you set up a Cardboard viewer and includes a few experiences to get you started. To fully enjoy this app you'll need a Cardboard viewer. Learn more and get your own Cardboard viewer at http://g.co/cardboard. Do not use this app while driving, walking, or otherwise by being distracted or disoriented from real world situations that prevent you from obeying traffic or safety laws.
ARium
Explore augmented reality scenes by placing objects and then discovering hidden elements. Personalize your experience by applying photos from your library to specific objects within the virtual environment.
- Place objects in AR scenes
- Discover hidden occluding objects
- Skin objects with custom photos
- Experiment with object placement
- Explore AR environments
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After initialization, select the location for 4 objects in the scene by tapping on the small yellow dots. When the 4th object is placed, the program will randomly place fifty small occluding objects around them. The scene is now ready for exploration. I find objects placed approximately 3 ft. (1m) away work from the device the best, but I encourage you to experiment. Skinnable and Noise Objects can be "skinned" (wrapped) with photos from your Photo Library. Tap on a thumbnail in the preferences screen to open the Photo Library and select an image. NOTE: "Skinnable Objects" will not appear in the scene until they have been assigned photos.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is review sentiment: ARium at 100% against Google Cardboard's 24%. ARium also leads on rating (4.6 vs 2.8). Google Cardboard's advantage is ratings volume (598 vs 10) and update cadence (every 3 months vs every 7 months). On price, ads, in-app purchases and monetization model there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
ARium holds the better App Store score, 4.6 against 2.8. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Google Cardboard has 598 ratings behind it against 10, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 24% of Google Cardboard's written reviews are positive against 100% of ARium's.
Google Cardboard ships an update every 3 months, ARium every 7 months. The most recent releases landed on September 23, 2026 and September 26, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Google Cardboard | ARium |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 2.8 (598 ratings) | 4.6 (10 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 24.2% of reviews | 100.0% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 598 — better | 10 |
| Update frequency | Every 3 months — better | Every 7 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Devices | iPhone, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better |
| Requires iOS | 15.0 | 14.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 60 MB | 41 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | RichardFerrante.com | |
Customer experience
Google Cardboard
ARium
Bugs and requests
Google Cardboard
Reported bugs
3 issues- Constant spinning/shaking on some devices
- Crashes and freezes on launch
- Incompatibility with certain VR headsets
Requested features
4 requests- More VR games and interactive experiences
- Ability to view own photos/videos in VR
- Support for newer iOS versions
- Improved navigation and controls
ARium
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
Google Cardboard
No in-app purchases
ARium
No in-app purchases
