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ARKit

developer.apple.com

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Re: ARKit

#31

Post by cageface »

algesten wrote: post #28
cageface wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

How do you mean it dwindles? It seems to hold steady and increase in some countries. This is a somewhat recent figure I found. https://9to5mac.com/2017/01/11/ios-market-share-kantar/

Depends what stats you consider:

http://fortune.com/2017/05/23/apple-iphone-gartner-market-sh...

But the essential point is that nobody can afford to ignore Android and building to iOS-specific APIs doesn't make sense.

Re: ARKit

#32

Post by MBCook »

astrodust wrote: post #13
coda_ wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious, which phone is more popular?

In a general sense the iPhone (platform) isn't the most popular in terms of market share.

No, but they're easily the best selling phones due to the incredible number of different options on the android side.

Platform wise you're right worldwide, in the US I think it's still roughly 50-50.

Re: ARKit

#33

Post by callumjones »

Why has this comment thread devolved into comparing the number of Android OS installs versus the number of iPhones sold.

They are apples and oranges and the point is that the iPhone for a few years back is a guaranteed hardware specification that you can guarantee ARKit will work on. If you think about this for Android, you'd need to slice it by the devices that are compatible - it's not going to be a guarantee by OS.

Re: ARKit

#34

Post by cageface »

MBCook wrote: post #30
cageface wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm willing to bet the only reason they did that is because they already had beats customers on android. The whole point of these APIs is to let developers make a better apps on iOS so people want an iOS device. If they port any of them to android all they're doing is making it easier for people to leave their platform.

Sure that's the goal but in practice I don't think it's working. People use cross platform tools like Unity or React Native or OpenCV because they know they have to support Android and can't kick that can a year or two down the road like they used to.

Re: ARKit

#35

Post by threeseed »

cageface wrote: post #21
panic wrote: 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.

Why would Apple port core technologies to a competing platform ? Did Google port Play Services to Windows ? No. And no one would expect them to since it is a core differentiator for their platform.

ARKit isn't a backend service it's an OS library so doesn't make sense to be cross platform.

Re: ARKit

#36

Post by ClassyJacket »

callumjones wrote: post #33

Why has this comment thread devolved into comparing the number of Android OS installs versus the number of iPhones sold. They are apples and oranges and the point is that the iPhone for a few years back is a guaranteed hardware specification that you can guarantee ARKit will work on. If you think about this for Android, you'd need to slice it by the devices that are compatible - it's not going to be a guarantee by OS…

I hope that ARKit can be a lesson in what works well and what doesn't, and spur the open source community to create something like it, but cross platform. As more phones get dual cameras, what we can do with software like this will only get better.

Look at OpenCV for example.

Re: ARKit

#37

Post by threeseed »

cageface wrote: post #31
algesten wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you mean it dwindles? It seems to hold steady and increase in some countries. This is a somewhat recent figure I found. https://9to5mac.com/2017/01/11/ios-market-share-kantar/

Depends what stats you consider: http://fortune.com/2017/05/23/apple-iphone-gartner-market-sh... But the essential point is that nobody can afford to ignore Android and building to iOS-specific APIs doesn't make sense.

Of course Apple and developers can choose to ignore Android.

The market within the iOS space is huge and if building an iOS only app using ARKit is more profitable then why not ? It's all about ROI. There isn't an equivalent for ARKit on Android and building one would be costly and time consuming.

Re: ARKit

#39

Post by threeseed »

nxcho wrote: post #26
panic wrote: 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…

Unreal Engine and Unity is going to have ARKit support. If your ambition is to make an AR app for both iOS and Android I suspect that one of those engines are better. I don't believe giving ARKit to away makes sense for Apple at all. It is, from what I can see, a pretty advanced technology and widespread adoption of it on other platforms will not help them selling more iPhones.

Of course it makes sense and of course it will help sell phones.

This only works on iPhones/iPads with the A9 or A10 chip. Which means that if you want to use AR then you need to upgrade from your iPhone 6. It also will create a suite of AR apps which only run on iOS.

Re: ARKit

#40

Post by MBCook »

ClassyJacket wrote: post #36
callumjones wrote: post #33

Why has this comment thread devolved into comparing the number of Android OS installs versus the number of iPhones sold. They are apples and oranges and the point is that the iPhone for a few years back is a guaranteed hardware specification that you can guarantee ARKit will work on. If you think about this for Android, you'd need to slice it by the devices that are compatible - it's not going to be a guarantee by OS…

I hope that ARKit can be a lesson in what works well and what doesn't, and spur the open source community to create something like it, but cross platform. As more phones get dual cameras, what we can do with software like this will only get better. Look at OpenCV for example.

ARKit doesn't seem to require dual cameras because it runs on iPads too. I do wonder if it uses the depth sensing second camera in the iPhone 7 Plus, or if that data isn't fast/precise enough to be useful.
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