“Digital reality has been a big deal for the past couple of years, both virtual and augmented. Google has its foot in both of these areas, and for the longest time, I thought its AR development Tango was the more impressive,” Ben Schoon writes for 9to5Google. “Then Apple showed off iOS 11 with ARKit.”
“So far, Tango has only appeared on two different smartphones — the monstrous Lenovo Phab 2 Pro and the yet-to-be-released ASUS Zenfone AR. In both cases, the software requires a lot of hardware sensors in order to properly function,” Schoon writes. “Tango is going to face a lot of challenges. For one, it only works with select hardware… Along with that, and potentially even more damaging, is app development. For the most part, developers are only going to be interested in making apps for an ecosystem that is expansive enough to give them a good chance at turning a profit.”
“With iOS 11, Apple introduced ARKit, a new platform built into every iOS device that does basically everything Tango does,” Schoon writes. “As 9to5Mac highlighted, there are already quite a few very impressive ARKit demos available for iOS 11 and from the looks of it, they seem to be just as accurate as Tango is. Of course, this is still early, but that only makes things more impressive.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Google’s Tango is stillborn.
Google. Frantically skating toward wherever Apple puts the puck next – and never getting there before Apple advances it again. – MacDailyNews, June 26, 2017
SEE ALSO:
Augmented Reality: Apple’s revolutionary offering leaves Google’s Android woefully behind – June 26, 2017
Apple’s AR is much closer to reality than Google’s – June 26, 2017
IKEA’s forthcoming Augmented Reality furniture app powered by Apple’s ARKit – June 19, 2017
Apple’s single most important WWDC 2017 announcement: ARKit – June 11, 2017
Apple CEO Cook discusses philosophy behind HomePod, ARKit’s potential market impact – June 6, 2017
Overnight, Apple will own the world’s largest augmented reality platform – June 7, 2017
Like Apple Pay, where Apple was “late” with NFC but ended up kick-starting authenticated tap-to-pay into high gear, Google and the Android phone makers will rush to put the necessary but barely-adeqquate hardware in place into lower-end hardware. And they’ll do a sufficiently sub-par job at it that it’ll sour the majority Android users to the very idea for several years.
Of all the phone-tap payments I’ve seen in the wild, only a single one was an Android.
That super elementary demo,…I guess it’s a proof of concept.
One has to take into consideration that ARKit was released just a few weeks ago. We are seeing just the very tippity top top top of the iceberg.
May have been released a few weeks ago but from what we hear from Apple it has been years in the making.
I suspect Google’s hiring of the Apple chip architect earlier this month was not to design a Android cpu. I’m leaning more towards Google Tango on a chip.
My response was to the comment that the demo was “elementary”. The demo was produced post launch of ARKit by a third party new to the software. Apple’s time of internal development really has no relevance to this particular conversation.
Ah, my mistake. Here’s to more in depth demos to come! And maybe some vids from those 3rd party devs that have had access for a while.
I consistently find AR/VR demoes to be worthy of children. I don’t understand why except possibly the people developing AR/VR aren’t gamers, or they aren’t provided with budgets and time to create demos anyone cares to see. I remember Oculus foisting VR demos worthy of 3D from two (2) decades ago. Why bother?! Total buzz kill.
Plus, you don’t use creepy voices in your demo music. Raising the pitch of the human voice is amusing. Lowering the pitch of the human voice is disturbing.
For the most part, developers are only going to be interested in making apps for an ecosystem that is expansive enough to give them a good chance at turning a profit.
Yes! Locking down VR/AR to only a rare, high end hardware configuration is downright dumbass. (Hello Facebook/Oculus, Microsoft & Google). It doesn’t have to be that way, obviously. Apple is taking the wiser, user-enabling route. Hurray.