At Apple’s developer conference in June, Lego demonstrated an app built with ARkit that placed real Lego sets in virtual environments. The first version of that software just launched today.
Lego Ninjago AR lets players interact with certain Dragon Hunters sets. And two people can play together thanks to the multi-player capabilities added in ARkit 2.
Recent job listings on Apple’s hiring page suggest the company is considering giving Apple Maps an AR overhaul.
The move would keep pace with Google, which showed off an AR mapping feature for Google Maps at its I/O event earlier this year. It comes at a particularly interesting time for Apple, as the company recently acquired an AR headset maker. It’s yet another hint that augmented reality won’t stay confined to our iOS devices for long!
iOS 12 adds a brand-new Apple app to your iPhone and iPad. It’s called Measure, and that’s exactly what it does. With it, you can use your iPhone’s camera to measure distances instead of breaking out a tape measure or ruler. Also, the level tool has moved from its old home in the Compass app, and now lives in Measure. Let’s see how the new app works.
The iPhone X’s ugly notch could pave the way for Apple to dominate the smart glasses market.
Augmented reality glasses are poised to become the hottest tech gadget of the next decade and Apple’s already laying the foundation with the iPhone X. It may not seem like the two will be directly related, but this clever concept shows how the key lays in the TrueDepth camera hidden in the notch.
Check it out:
Apple has recruited popular science YouTuber Mark Rober to work as part of its top secret special projects group, developing a VR on-board entertainment system for self-driving cars.
Rober has been working with Apple for the past several years, although he has kept news of Apple’s identity secret. In a Reddit AmA, he described it as a “large tech company in the Bay Area.” His name was revealed as part of several patent applications Apple has recently filed.
Apple’s ARKit technology is poised to change the way we interact with everything, including business cards.
iOS & ARKit developer Oscar Falmer previewed his newest AR business card concept on Twitter and it looks freaking rad. Using ARKit 2.0 with image tracking, Falmer’s concept pulls up all of the person’s contact info, website, social media accounts and more for you to interact with digitally.
Check it out:
Avi Cieplinski, the former Apple engineer who co-invented the 3D Touch and Taptic Engine iPhone features, has joined mapping startup Mapbox to create AR software tools.
Hot off the heels of Apple’s announcement of ARKit 2.0, creative software giant Adobe revealed its own foray into augmented reality. Soon many more people should be able to create 3D, animated content that seems to float in the real world.
ARKit was last year’s big WWDC announcement. This year Apple introduced ARKit 2.0 and, if we weren’t convinced before about the potential of augmented reality, Apple’s presentation went a long way to changing our minds!
The update to the world’s largest AR platform introduces a new more easily sharable file system, improved face tracking, more realistic rendering, 3D object detection, and — most exciting of all — shared experiences.
At WWDC, Apple could debut new multiplayer AR tools which allow two iPhone users to share the same augmented reality space.
The news was shared in a recent Reuters report. While short on details, the report suggests that it will be able to do this while minimizing the amount of personal data that is sent to servers.
