
Apple’s AR is closer to reality than Google’s - okket
https://www.theverge.com/2017/6/26/15872332/apple-arkit-ios-11-augmented-reality-developer-excitement
======
roymurdock
Apple's ARKit is the result of work going back to 2003 by Metaio, a leading AR
SDK vendor that spun out of Volkswagen. Apple acquired Metaio in 2015 and
shuttered operations, including Metaio's popular AR conference [1].

Google Tango emerged out of Google Advanced Technology and Project Group
(ATAP) in 2015 after a 2 year incubation period [2].

Both do a great job of Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) - the
foundational tech needed for AR applications. ARKit is tied to development for
iOS applications and form factors - all handheld at the moment. Tango is tied
to development for Android applications and Asus/Lenovo phablets - all
handheld at the moment. This tech isn't new, but Apple and Google and bringing
it to the masses, whereas it had mainly been confined to niche advertising
uses previously.

The author glossed over many of the smaller vendors that have been doing AR
SDKs and cloud services for years. Also skipped over Microsoft's play in this
market, which currently revolves around PTC Vuforia and Unity development of
Windows 10 AR apps for Hololens.

Here's an overview of where the players in the AR development solutions market
have plays: [http://www.vdcresearch.com/News-events/iot-
blog/images/ARKit...](http://www.vdcresearch.com/News-events/iot-
blog/images/ARKit.png)

[1] [https://techcrunch.com/2015/05/28/apple-
metaio/](https://techcrunch.com/2015/05/28/apple-metaio/)

[2]
[https://plus.google.com/+GoogleATAP/posts/c3nZ3a12NKa](https://plus.google.com/+GoogleATAP/posts/c3nZ3a12NKa)

~~~
scarface74
You just made the same point that the article made. How many people will be
able to use ARKit based apps when iOS 11 ships in September - all 64 bit iOS
devices that Apple has ever sold.

What percentage of Android devices will get to use Google's AR solution? How
many devices that have hardware capable of using Google's solution will ever
see the OS update?

~~~
bhouston
Google can shift strategy - AR for all even without tango - and I hope they
can do it quickly, otherwise they are at a significant disadvantage.

~~~
scarface74
What strategy could that be with the majority of phones with Android running
really old OS's and lowend hardware?

~~~
bhouston
Just markerless AR based on video analysis combined with gyroscope. It isn't
the hardest thing. Even if it is just 30% of Android phones that is still a
larger userbase than iOS.

Android's fault is over reliance on tango hardware because they are going for
perfection rather than good enough.

~~~
hedgehog
Google has a much harder job here given that Android hardware is more diverse
and that the OS images are not under their control. Apple has a significant
advantage in that the lowest-end iOS 11 devices ever shipped are >100 GFLOPs
with GPU, the lowest end they sell now is about 172, and they control all of
the software so they can use the GPU on every device.

~~~
pjmlp
They have chosen to do that.

I am quite happy that one year later Android N only managed to acquire 9% and
KitKat is still rocking with 18%.

Maybe now that Google sees no one gets their new shinny OS every single year,
they change their attitude.

Trello is not the solution as it is only available in Android O, it still
leaves to the OEMs the choice to actually make it work and with Android N at
9% one year later, who knows how many years it will take until Android O
becomes relevant at all.

~~~
EddieRingle
For a moment I was confused why Trello was being mentioned and this and the
other reply are the only mentions of it on the page. Easy typo to make or
autocomplete false-positive, I suppose.

I'm excited for Treble, personally. I'd like to slightly modify your statement
to say that it's available for any device that supports it. Google Pixel and
Pixel XL shipped with Nougat but they are using it to test the transition from
a non-Treble system layer to a Treble-ized (?) one with Android O's release.
So other OEMs could choose to support Treble on older devices, given that they
meet the requirements and also have support from the BSP vendors like
Qualcomm.

That said, I agree with you that it probably will still take some time before
we see a huge impact, and it's a shame it's taken this long; better late than
never, I suppose?

~~~
pjmlp
> Easy typo to make or autocomplete false-positive, I suppose.

Thanks for the remark, yeah my device auto-correct does funny things and I do
not always notice what it did.

> So other OEMs could choose to support Treble on older devices, given that
> they meet the requirements and also have support from the BSP vendors like
> Qualcomm.

The thing is Treble is nothing new, it is just the attempt N + 1 to sort out
the update situation in a technical way, where the all issue is political.

Android already has an HAL that OEMs should adhere to [1], so if they haven't
adopted correct behaviours willingly, it is not now that they will start doing
it.

[1] [https://source.android.com/devices/](https://source.android.com/devices/)

------
mortenjorck
I was somewhat amused by the contrast between Google's partnership with Lowe's
for Tango and Apple's partnership with IKEA for ARKit
([https://www.macrumors.com/2017/06/19/ikea-plans-furniture-
ap...](https://www.macrumors.com/2017/06/19/ikea-plans-furniture-app-arkit/)).
Judging by Tango demo videos, they've only authored 3D models of a tiny subset
of the appliances and furniture Lowe's carries, which, unless you were really
leaning toward that one model of LG oven, makes it more of a proof-of-concept
than a practical tool.

Meanwhile, Apple went and partnered with the one vertically-integrated big-box
store that happens to have 3D models of every single thing they carry.

~~~
kevin_b_er
That's surprising that IKEA partnered with Apple. IKEA's concept is, to quote
them, "providing a range of home furnishing products that are affordable to
the many people, not just the few." while Apple is about premium end.

I fail to see how Apple's walled garden lock-in approach melds with the IKEA
Concept.

~~~
taneq
> IKEA's concept is, to quote them, "providing a range of home furnishing
> products that are affordable to the many people, not just the few." while
> Apple is about premium end.

No, no. You've bought in to Apple's marketing (as they want you to). Apple
sells nice enough devices at high enough prices that they _feel_ premium, but
are still accessible to practically everyone. Their pitch isn't "we sell
premium devices", it's "if you stretch a little more, and buy this phone, then
_you too_ could feel like you're premium".

~~~
gutnor
Apple devices are decently priced when they are refreshed. The premium
marketing pitch or more precisely the focus on the premium experience however
allows Apple to keep the release day price for the whole life of the product.

That alone is serious money. Up to 1 month before releasing a new version, an
Apple product still has the same margin or more than on day 1.

~~~
ballenf
All true, but if you factor in average usable life, Apple devices are cheaper
than any competitor. In my opinion and experience -- thinking about phones and
tablets in particular. Laptops might be a closer call.

All this assumes that the purchaser takes care of their stuff. Other people
seem to actually want disposable gear and treat it as such.

------
pavlakoos
Seriously, can anyone longer-than-5 list AR use cases that make sense?

Today I learned about that restaurant menu app, which shows food on top of the
empty plate. Luckily, you can even rotate it! Making the world a better
place...

~~~
malux85
As vision models get better there's lots of future applications - a database
of all known insect and plant life with realtime overlay. Guided plumbing /
electrical repair and teaching. Virtual pets that interact with each other and
real objects. Redesign / repaint your interior. Optimal flooring / carpet
cutting with easy measurement tool in the demo. The technology is in its
infancy, give it a chance

~~~
MBCook
The last time I bought a couch a few years ago I had a horrible time trying to
figure out exactly what size to get and what it would look like in my place.

The announcement of the IKEA app that let you try out their furniture in your
house by showing it in AR is amazing to me. That would've been SO helpful.

It seems like it be a lot of possibilities for games, some of the things I've
seen posted to Twitter have included people making virtual ruler that's
accurate to within an inch or so. That alone would be a pretty useful app just
for rough calculations of space sizes.

But more than anything… There's probably some pretty cool stuff none of us are
going to be able to think of until it shows up in the next six months. And
that's what I really want to see.

------
raghavkhanna
The article seems to point out Apple's advantages, however, using a dedicated
global shutter fisheye camera, in the case of tango makes it much more
suitable for large scale AR apps, imo, which would make it much more suitable
for games etc. Also, ASUS already released phones with tango hardware [1].

[1] [https://www.asus.com/Phone/ZenFone-AR-
ZS571KL/](https://www.asus.com/Phone/ZenFone-AR-ZS571KL/)

~~~
scarface74
Which do you think will get more developer support - Apple's solution that
runs on every phone shipped since 2013 or a solution that only runs on a
relatively few Android phones?

~~~
raghavkhanna
Apple's offering is currently further reaching, but I won't be surprised, if
in the coming years, most high end smartphones start shipping with tango-like
hardware, especially if AR's appeals broadens. ARKit should certainly be a
contributor to that.

~~~
scarface74
If you are a developer, still which one is more appealing?

iOS ARKit requirements - any phone that runs iOS 11.

Android Tango requirements -

a) the latest Android OS -- judging by history a year out it will only get
around 10% penetration
([https://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/index.html](https://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/index.html))

b) a high end Android device - with the average selling price of an Android
phone hovering around $220 ([http://fortune.com/2016/02/15/apple-android-
asps/](http://fortune.com/2016/02/15/apple-android-asps/)), there aren't that
many high end Android phones being sold.

~~~
sjwright
To be fair, requirement (b) implies (a)... Except when it doesn't. Yay,
Android ecosystem.

------
nstj
One thing which sucks a bit is that ARKit doesn't appear to have vertical
plane detection yet[0]. This makes stuff like hanging virtual paintings on
walls rather difficult.

[0]: [https://stackoverflow.com/questions/44422118/how-to-
detect-v...](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/44422118/how-to-detect-
vertical-planes-in-arkit)

~~~
mendeza
ARKit enables you to get 3D points or features correct? I was thinking maybe
doing some geometric processing to detect planes can handle vertical plane
detection

------
bjd2385
Why not just use a simple LiDAR sensor? In the near future small solid state
sensors could become far more affordable.

~~~
simonh
All the LIDAR sensors I've seen are bigger than a phone and cost about as
much.

~~~
bjd2385
Ah yes, I'm aware that today's sensors are pretty large and extremely costly.
But in the near future I wouldn't be surprised if a small, far more affordable
sensor became available, even if at the cost of some range and
precision/accuracy.

------
jayd16
I really don't understand the hype for ARKit. What is so unique about it that
you can't do with Qualcomm's Vuforia? What makes it a game changer?

~~~
nstj
Much much easier to code with on iOS. Also gives lighting adjustment and
scaling.

------
ice109
i submitted an ask hn and got no substantive responses so i'm asking here: if
i want to build a cross-platform ar app which sdk should i use? vuforia?

~~~
pavlakoos
Unity?

~~~
pat2man
Yeah probably unity with ARKit on iOS and Tango on Android.

------
yalogin
Why does the article say Google’s Tango is about the future where as ARKit is
now. It feels like they are implying that somehow ARKit is inferior to Tango.
Is it true? Is Tango considered to be better somehow?

~~~
cptn_brittish
Some of the higher comments go into this and it appears that ARKit only
implements some of a full AR Stack (Visual Inertial Odometry) while Tango
supports it all (SLAM) so it can also have persistence between device reboots
and be useful in bigger applications.

I will note I am just repeating the comment and you can see it here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14640682](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14640682)

------
aub3bhat
The article is typical clickbait, with little content let alone nuanced
analysis. For those looking for a quick technical overview of SLAM take a look
at blog post (by now head of vision at Magic Leap)

[http://www.computervisionblog.com/2016/01/why-slam-
matters-f...](http://www.computervisionblog.com/2016/01/why-slam-matters-
future-of-real-time.html?m=1)

ARkit looks like a prelude to AR glasses. Where given the ability to control
hardware specs, the advantage is not transferable.

