Augmented reality (AR) has played prominently in nearly all of Apple’s events since iOS 11 was introduced, Tim Cook has said he believes it will be as revolutionary as the smartphone itself, and AR was Apple’s biggest focus in sessions with developers at WWDC this year.
But why? Most users don’t think the killer app for AR has arrived yet – unless you count Pokémon Go. The use cases so far are cool, but they’re not necessary and they’re arguably a lot less cool on an iPhone or iPad screen than they would be if you had glasses or contacts that did the same things.
From this year’s WWDC keynote to Apple’s various developer sessions hosted at the San Jose Convention Center and posted online for everyone to view, though, it’s clear that Apple is investing heavily in augmented reality for the future.
We’re going to comb through what Apple has said about AR and ARKit this week, go over exactly what the toolkit does and how it works, and speculate about the company’s strategy – why Apple seems to care so much about AR, and why it thinks it’s going to get there first in a coming gold rush.
While AR clearly has a role to play in professional settings (e.g construction work, medical settings, and so on), I still haven’t seen a general purpose application that justifies the heavy investment in AR by Apple. All demos usually come down to “oh, that’s neat, I guess” and “that is incredibly uncomfortable“. Where’s the killer app?
Just because you haven’t see the killer app doesn’t mean it doesn’t have one. For certain types of games I’d love to have always available AR (Ingress more than Pokemon Go). There are other types of information I’d love to have at my finger tips, from the internet of things, my car, etc.
It can be a problem though – what’s the killer app for a smart-watch? For my wife it’s fitness tracking, so she has a fitbit. I don’t really understand the appeal of Apple’s offerings though, other than fashion.
What’s the killer app for a MacBook’s touch bar?
Anger management training:
Have you played with the ikea app? There are a few other furniture stores that have similar apps. You can virtual place furniture in your house. Its neat, but the available options are limited. If you’re looking for furniture, it would be useful to see how everything really fits in the room. It would be great for painting and maybe landscaping and gardening as well.
Also an animated AR version of ikea instructions would be pretty sweat too. It could alert you before you screw up
They could even just make it a game and have some fans even. Ikeacraft.
Someone should make an Ikea themed escape room. I swear that store… once you enter, you get lost in the maze and can’t come out for hours!
They did… they called it Ikea…
Apple have included a couple of demo apps but they need to also inspire the general public as well, I’m surprised Apple haven’t added AR to Apple maps. Hold it horizontal and it gives you standard maps, hold it up and it gives you an augmented direction overlaid on the real world, with large arrows and directions or information about stores on the street, something like that would be useful and inspire the general public and developers.
Yeah, but that would mean making Maps good. I’m not sure they have dedicated enough resources to that project. And really, other than being a good platform for things like AR, I’m not sure there is really a good use for Apple maps. Its vastly inferior to google.
In my area, Apple’s maps are actually better than Google’s, and their turn-by-turn directions are also more accurate. I’m not sure if this is simply not the case in most areas or, as so often happens, Maps got off with a bad reputation (deservedly so) and is just naturally assumed to be awful. And, no, I do not live anywhere near California nor one of Apple’s typically targeted markets.
I have an Android phone, but still prefer the old Nokia Here maps over the Google Maps. It had offline maps long before any of the others did.
Same here. I wouldn’t say Apple Maps are better overall, but the navigation is definitely smoother (better integration into the OS) and in general they work just perfectly for 99% of my searches. I do still have Google Maps on the phone though for those rare cases Apple maps doesn’t find something I know exists.
There are some useful apps but nothing revolutionary. Also it’s somewhat cumbersome.
Where I see it can be a hit is with something like an evolved version of the Google glasses, hololens or in a VR headset with a camera.
I think Apple is thinking long term. Here are the dots that I can see, not sure exactly how they are connected.
VR glasses have all failed because – other than in very specialist and limited professional settings – nobody in their right mind would wear them. Too big, too ugly. That’s because they are mostly standalone products that have to pack all the recessing and sensors into the actual headsets.
Apple has hundreds of millions of very powerful computers in people’s hands and pockets right now, and they are packed with sensors and processing power. Given Apple’s chip design expertise the iPhone will soon be as powerful as most laptops.
Apple, especially after the success of the Apple Watch, is a well established fashion brand with all the in-house design, retail infrastructure, partnerships and marketing skills that a fashion brand needs.
Apple has a deeply integrated hardware and software stack which means it can do things that the non-integrated Android ecosystem would find it hard to match.
Apple already has a lot of experience with wearables (Watch and AirPods).
Apple is steadily building a powerful set of AR APIs and developer community very familiar with building AR apps.
So I would not be surprised if Apple were to launch a range of very stylish and slimline AR glasses where all the processor and data heavy lifting, the networking, and many of the sensor system inputs are all handled by your iPhone connected wirelessly to your glasses. This means the Glasses can just look like very lighweight spectacles and sunglasses available in a wide range of styles and finishes. If most of the processing is handled by your iPhone then the Glasses could be relatively cheap.
In addition Apple has the privacy trump card. Its business model is not dependent at all on collecting user data so users may well feel a lot happier about carrying the sort of personal data that compelling AR will require.
The question is whether given all these advantages Apple can really deliver a compelling, and therefore commercially successful, AR experience. I wouldn’t bet against.
Zombie Jobs, is that you?
Namaste