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ARKit

developer.apple.com

121–130 of 185 posts

Re: ARKit

#121

The Wingnut AR demo that Apple showed during WWDC featuring the Unreal Engine was just mindblowing! Thankfully, it's available on Unreal's Youtube channel so you can still watch if you don't have Safari or the app - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S14AVwaBF-Y

It's just a 3D videogame and pardon I guess I'm missing the point of an AR video game vs. just sitting down and playing a 360 degree video game?

The content itself wasn't that big of a deal; it's the fact that the AR technology worked so well, and is available to anyone using the SDK is what was impressive and hype-worthy.

Doing AR from scratch is a huge endeavour but this should make it simple enough so that we start seeing more applications using it for more useful stuff.

Re: ARKit

#122

The Wingnut AR demo that Apple showed during WWDC featuring the Unreal Engine was just mindblowing! Thankfully, it's available on Unreal's Youtube channel so you can still watch if you don't have Safari or the app - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S14AVwaBF-Y

I don't get the point of seeing anything in the background of the table, in this case the audience. Why not paint it with sky, then it's less distracting?

Oh, I get it, then it's not AR. Well, maybe AR is not such a good fit in this case to begin with.

Re: ARKit

#123

The Wingnut AR demo that Apple showed during WWDC featuring the Unreal Engine was just mindblowing! Thankfully, it's available on Unreal's Youtube channel so you can still watch if you don't have Safari or the app - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S14AVwaBF-Y

I don't get the point of seeing anything in the background of the table, in this case the audience. Why not paint it with sky, then it's less distracting? Oh, I get it, then it's not AR. Well, maybe AR is not such a good fit in this case to begin with.

The it's just watching a 360 youtube video on your phone.

This is still new and doesn't quite make full use, but there are many reason why you'd want to see the environment. For one, it gives a sense of scale. For example if you put a real life size dinosaur, seeing the surrounding allows you to understand the scale better. Next up, the AR application could very well interact with the world too, which brings new possibilities.

These are pretty new technology and no one knows the best way to use it yet. Maybe in the future we'll start putting a sky in the background. Maybe we'll find better ways to use AR. Both AR and VR are still in their infancy.

Re: ARKit

#124
post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a Apple developer conference for software developers that care about making beautiful applications that take full advantage of native experiences on Apple platforms. Any developer on this community can watch the video.

It does seem like a lost opportunity to do some outreach though. It's not hard to provide streams both in HLS and DASH, and streaming the developer conference to everyone could surely attract new developers to their platform (and not only developers, the same thing applies to presentations of new devices and consumer software). To me it really looks like a statement against people without macs; Apple doesn't care abo…

All computer ecosystems up to the late 90's were like that, the only thing special about Apple is that they are the surviving ones from those days.

It were IBM "mistakes" that made the PC different from all other computer eco-systems, however the current trends of commodity hardware and race to bottom prices are making PC OEMs go back to the 80-90's full integration of hardware/software culture.

Re: ARKit

#125
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google is already doing similar, custom hardware and all: https://get.google.com/tango/ But it's definitely on fewer total devices, so Apple has a real edge here.

The fact that Tango isn't on the Pixel means Google has no confidence in it and nobody should invest in it as Google will likely abandon it quickly. It's a shame, I think it's great idea, and they'll only end up playing catch up later if they do.

The reason Tango wasn't on the first pixel is

1. The technology is still new and not yet polished

2. Pixel 1 was a rushed job made in 9 months

3. Tango needs extra hardware that increases cost

I have a feeling that Pixel 2 might have it though, as they had much more time working on it and the technology itself has matured a lot more since, as we saw at IO. Not only that, they also showed off VPS which is a visual position system for indoors using Tango. Definitely a killer feature for the Pixel.

Re: ARKit

#126
post #7

Most apps these days run on Android, too, which makes using a single-platform framework like this a lot harder to justify. It's the same reason you don't see many games using SpriteKit -- it just doesn't make sense when you know you'll need to support Android in the future. I wonder if it would make sense for Apple itself to support frameworks like ARKit and SpriteKit on Android. I think it would make people a lot mo…

Apple keeps doubling down on platform specific services and APIs but as their market share dwindles this becomes increasingly untenable. Porting Apple Music to Android was a step in the right direction but they have a long way to go in the new world where services are more important than devices.

> Porting Apple Music to Android was a step in the right direction but they have a long way to go in the new world where services are more important than devices.

Are they though? There's still a huge amount of people buying phones and computers, which cost a lot of money, periodically. There's paid services, sure, like Apple Music, which might become self-sustaining businesses, but a lot of these other "services" by the big tech companies are operated at a loss, like email, maps, cloud-storage, messaging, vide-calling, AI assistants, etc.

The only reason to make free services like all those at a loss is to bring value to a platform so users will stick to it, and Apple keeping its services platform-specific makes its platform even more sticky. Apple benefits from this directly, because it makes money selling its platform. To use iOS you need a device from which Apple makes loads of cash.

Google on the other hand is still essentially just an ads company with hobbies, and its profit from the platform its building is much less murky, indirect, and IMHO flimsy. The only way their platform brings them substantial profits is by collecting data to better target ads, which is concerning too.

The lifetime of devices is growing, so in the long term we have to see if Apple can keep selling as many devices as it does; their main source of income is not entirely future-proof. If you ask me, however, Google might be in a more delicate position, especially considering the growing issues with internet ads (concerning privacy, tracking, obnoxiousness etc) and that so many players are in the ads business nowadays. Some, like Facebook, are moving in deep-- challenging Google in user data analytics and engagement time.

tl;dr: Only some services (like Music) make money. All the rest are more valuable if they serve your core business, and Apple is very much doing that.

Re: ARKit

#127

Purpose? Other then keeping consumer heads planted in the device? (The demo was neat, though)

That's for the developers to figure out! Which is why it's an SDK and not some app with an API for extensions.

Re: ARKit

#128
post #2

Ooph, this is game changing. There is a LOT of hardware out there that supports this. The iPhone is the most popular game platform on the planet and, just like that, it will be the most popular platform for developing AR applications.

This isn't game changing at all. AR without glasses is pretty weak. What it is, is a great platform to develop on to get ready for AR glasses.

I personally disagree. Give me some good AR maps app, or just something that will put wikipedia on top the real world and I'll have to buy battery packs to make for all the extra time I'll be on my phone.

Re: ARKit

#129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you sure the iPhone is the most popular game platform? It is not even the most popular phone.

You don't need the most market share to have the most gaming activity. People that use iPhones are much more active with gaming apps for whatever reason.

Not the least is probably that a lot of Android phones are underpowered, cheap phones, or the kind of phones people who don't case about games buy.

Re: ARKit

#130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Although to be honest, this is close to how I always wanted warhammer 40k to be...

Yes! Combining miniatures with overlaid graphics and handling the dice roles etc would be awesome.

Finally, tabletop gaming gets the multi-billion dollar backing it deserves!
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