“At WWDC this year, Apple unveiled ARKit, a new suite of developer tools and frameworks that make creating immersive augmented reality applications easier than ever before,” Yoni Heisler writes for BGR. ” Indeed, just days after the first iOS 11 beta was released to developers, we began seeing incredible ARKit demos hit the web. All the more impressive is that even existing iPhone owners will be able to enjoy advanced augmented reality apps without the need for supplemental hardware. ”
“Now what makes Apple’s foray into the augmented reality space interesting is that it’s far from the first tech giant to go after the market,” Heisler writes. “You might recall that Google, for example, unveiled Project Tango three years ago. Nonetheless, it appears as if Google’s head-start won’t be able to stop Apple from swooping in and owning the mobile-based augmented reality market outright.”
“Part of Google’s problem is that Project Tango requires specialized hardware, and given the fragmentation problem that still plagues Android, the vast majority of Android users aren’t even running Project Tango compatible devices,” Heisler writes. “Bloomberg [notes] that there ‘are currently only two mobile phones’ that support Project Tango, the Phab 2 Pro and the ZenFone AR.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: The Phab-what and the Zen-who?
Garbage.
If it’s not an iPhone, it’s not an iPhone.
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:
Apple’s billion devices provide a massive augmented reality edge over Google – July 13, 2017
Apple’s next-gen iPhone to feature rear-facing 3D laser for augmented reality and autofocus – July 13, 2017
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
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Dan K.” for the heads up.]
Don’t forget Microsoft, which announced HoloLens three years ago and still isn’t anywhere close to shipping a product. HoloLens suffers from the same hurdles that Google’s “Project Tango” does just in an even more extreme way: It requires a huge piece of hardware to make it work. HoloLens might be a shipping product in 2020, but with Apple’s three-year head start in shipping consumer AR devices and three-year head start in AR app development, Microsoft will be playing catch-up yet again.
Catch-up and yet never catching as consumer apathy kills yet another ill-thought out MS product.
The problem is they will start out strong like they did with Siri and then ignore it to allow everyone else to overtake them
Maverick camera company RED Digital Cinema announced their glasses-free Holographic/3D/AR/VR phone called Hydrogen about a week ago. Should be pretty amazing but the one thing I’m not crazy about is that they are using Android OS… wish it was iOS
Click to access hydrogen.pdf
AR is a much larger ‘field’ than dealing with just 3D virtual objects. Google Translate does a great AR job of translating and overlaying the result in the same style and position as the ‘source’ text in images you view via the camera (and offline to boot). Being great in one area of AR does not necessarily make you ‘ahead’ in all. I see Apple and the competition constantly making strides to catch-up in their ‘weak’ AR areas.
We have been awash in news about ARKit and 3D objects. It should be noted that ARKit supports both 3D objects via Scene Kit, and 2D objects via Sprite Kit. While 3D is getting the press, I think we can see many AR apps making use of 2D sprites.
Google and Microsoft as always bring on half baked stuff in the market and always fails to deliver on the promise, but never fails to excite Investors.
Don’t think that an iPhone supporting AR will allow it to get or hold any type of market share. As with nearly everything Apple does, they may get some early market share lead but then Apple always gives it up to more aggressive companies willing to take almost non-existent profit margins. Alphabet will definitely find a way to get AR on some really cheap Android smartphones even if they have to beg or bribe partner manufacturers to do so. Alphabet will never stand for Apple getting any type of edge in the smartphone business.
Some company like Samsung is going to figure out how to build some all-in-one module that will handle all the necessary functions needed for AR in a smartphone and package it cheaply enough so a high-end smartphone won’t be required. Then it will be business as usual as Android OS continues to easily dominate in smartphone market share. In the end, it will be Apple left sucking fumes in the form of ever dwindling market share.
Wait, you mean not even Google’s own Pixel phones won’t run their own AR?