
Minecraft augmented reality app announced for iOS - jipumarino
http://mojang.com/2012/11/announcing-minecraft-reality-for-ios/
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josteink
So creater of Minecraft rejects Microsoft's platform (Windows RT/8) because
it's closed, moves on to develop for iOS.

Yes, I remember the idea, being that Windows used to be an open platform, so
closing it down is bad. But so was Mac OS.

This is still hypocritical as heck.

~~~
alanfalcon
PCs need to be open, cell phones less so. PCs have ever been so, cell phones
have not. That's not actually hypocritical however dischordant it may sound to
some.

~~~
jbackus
I'm not rejecting your statement here, I'm simply interested in hearing your
rationale:

> PCs need to be open, cell phones less so

Why is it more important for PCs to be important?

I'd argue that, because PCs and smartphones were open and closed respectively
when they gained popularity, we've been conditioned to assume those states are
permissible. I think if those initial conditions did not influence our
perception of the products so strongly we would value openness equally across
both. Since we are influenced though, we seem to be inclined to focus on the
negative of the each's alternative option (anti-competitive PC market places
and virus-ridden cell phones, respectively).

~~~
jbackus
> Why is it more important for PCs to be important?

Woops, meant to say why is it more important for PCs to be open.

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jbranchaud
"You could put an exploding creeper in your school..."

I am not sure the placement of an explosive thing in a school was the best
example they could have come up with. It's not that big of a deal, but it is
just generally better to stay away from it.

~~~
dyeje
Interesting observation, I didn't even notice that.

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geuis
Been using this on iPhone 5 for a few minutes. It works really well. The UI is
well put together. 3d tracking is pretty spot on. I'm in a low-light room and
it works fine. They seem to be having some server load issues at the moment,
as I frequently am getting network connection errors from the app when it's
looking for new models. That's a minor issue that I'm sure they'll get fixed.

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braco_alva
I have a group of friends that were thinking about doing something similar,
unfortunately for them, they were just starting to shape the idea, while
Mojang seems very ahead in development.

~~~
alanfalcon
Plenty of room for more alternate/augmented reality worlds. See Gibson's Zero
History for more examples (though not actually live and available, as in this
case).

~~~
braco_alva
Thanks for the reference, I'm going to pass it to them, and yeah, there is
still plenty of room in the AR worlds, but they are really dissapointed with
this as they were pitching their game as "A minecraft but in the real world".

They are now looking for an alternative, I hope they find one.

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Groxx
Wow, anyone have the app? Is the tracking that good? That's way better than I
tend to see.

That said, can't you define precise hardware requirements for apps? Why don't
they restrict the sale of the app to exclude iPod 4th gen users, if it won't
work on it?

~~~
andrewfelix
Seems suspiciously good, especially the lighting. One shot in particular where
the plane reaches out of the laptop screen is unimaginably impressive.

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jellyksong
The actual iOS app seems pretty buggy at the moment. Many of the ratings are
exceedingly negative.

[https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/minecraft-
reality/id57799155...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/minecraft-
reality/id577991556)

~~~
Maxious
"Note: Not supported for iPod Touch 4G or earlier. Most functionality is not
available on iPhone 4."

... with many negative comments from iPhone 4 users who ignored that note. The
video looked so good compared to Layar on Android - is the hardware in the
iPhone 5 "better" for AR somehow? Or is the video just picking the best case
scenarios?

~~~
andrewfelix
That note is rather disingenuous considering the requirements on the left hand
side state: _"Compatible with iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPhone 5, iPod touch (4th
generation)"_

~~~
forrestthewoods
That's because Apple doesn't have support for flagging specific devices. You
can't for example click check boxes that enable an app to be downloaded for
iphone 5 and iphone 4s but not iphone4. There are a variety of clever tricks
you can use in some but not all cases. For example you can require a front
facing camera to eliminate ipad1 but not ipad2.

Unfortunately such tricks don't give devs complete coverage. It's a major
issue that many devs struggle with. Apple is entirely at fault here for not
supporting a very straight forward feature.

~~~
andrewfelix
Thanks, I wasn't aware of that. Seems rather ridiculous considering the marked
difference between devices.

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sukuriant
I'm hoping there's some sort of flagging models as unacceptable. If anyone can
put anything anywhere, then I expect a large number of trolling images like
penises and schwasticas to be ... everywhere.

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jbackus
Kind of funny that Microsoft, Sony, and Mojang all attempted to solve their
market saturation based profit deceleration (Xbox 360, PS3, and Minecraft
respectively) issues with computer vision supplements (Kinect, PlayStation
Move, augmented reality app respectively). Any doubt that further integrating
and improving computer vision in gaming will be the dominant industry move
over the next few years?

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NathanKP
In the demo video the augmented elements seem to blend very well into the
surrounding dynamic lighting. In the real world it never looks that good,
especially in an outdoor setting where the lighting changes throughout the
day.

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popopje
anyone curious what similar apps were available for android,
<http://www.augmentedev.com/home.php> seems quite nice - i'm not entirely
convinced by the process, it could use some streamlining.. but it is
reasonably easy to upload your own 3d model and use a qr code to view/share
and the result is pretty good.

I assume this mojang app uses markers too?

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mendocino
> I assume this mojang app uses markers too?

No! That's what makes it so awesome. It analyses the scenery and infers your
position as you walk around.

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popopje
that is awesome.

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dmauro
Word of warning, this definitely did NOT work as well as in the video for me.
I can not get any models to lay flat on my hardwood floor, or anywhere for
that matter. Pretty disappointing.

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kakali
That tracking is amazing! Is there an open variant so that I can look under
the hood? Or could anyone cite what their implementation is based off?

~~~
strife25
The implementation and developer SDK uses a SLAM-based algorithm:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simultaneous_localization_and_m...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simultaneous_localization_and_mapping)

Here's a link to the SDK: <http://developer.pointcloud.io/sdk/>

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phil
This is genius. It's like the art from William Gibson's Spook Country come to
life, but made practical and tied to a huge fan base.

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djisjke
There really is not much more to say about this than that it is very, very
cool.

