
ARKit - forgingahead
https://developer.apple.com/arkit/
======
krat0sprakhar
The Wingnut AR demo that Apple showed during WWDC featuring the Unreal Engine
was just mindblowing! Thankfully, it's available on Unreal's Youtube channel
so you can still watch if you don't have Safari or the app -
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S14AVwaBF-Y](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S14AVwaBF-Y)

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paul9290
It's just a 3D videogame and pardon I guess I'm missing the point of an AR
video game vs. just sitting down and playing a 360 degree video game?

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jayd16
It's great because it does away with convenient touch controls and adds the
fun of filming a table with an iPad.

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King-Aaron
Although to be honest, this is close to how I always wanted warhammer 40k to
be...

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abrookewood
Yes! Combining miniatures with overlaid graphics and handling the dice roles
etc would be awesome.

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_pmf_
Finally, tabletop gaming gets the multi-billion dollar backing it deserves!

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panic
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 more
comfortable relying on them.

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cageface
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.

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algesten
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/](https://9to5mac.com/2017/01/11/ios-market-share-kantar/)

~~~
cageface
Depends what stats you consider:

[http://fortune.com/2017/05/23/apple-iphone-gartner-market-
sh...](http://fortune.com/2017/05/23/apple-iphone-gartner-market-share/)

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

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threeseed
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.

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pier25
There have been AR libraries for years. Apple is pretty late to the game.

For example ARToolKit is available for Unity, or even Anddroid.

[https://artoolkit.org/documentation/doku.php?id=6_Unity:unit...](https://artoolkit.org/documentation/doku.php?id=6_Unity:unity_about)

Unless you are targeting a specific audience (for example artists that use the
iPad Pro) for most developers it really doesn't make sense to confine yourself
to iOS.

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jawngee
ARToolKit isn't markerless like ARKit though.

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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.

~~~
ClassyJacket
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.

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MBCook
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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lawik
I believe they mentioned using the dual camera specifically during the
keynote.

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madeofpalk
ARKit does not require dual cameras. I'm running it now on a single camera
iPhone.

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lawik
So I hear, but parent wondered if they used the depth data so I figured I'd
mention it. Not saying it doesn't work with a single camera :)

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marcusestes
I'm currently working on a client project that uses the Vuforia library paired
with an array of iPad Pros to pull off this sort of AR-light effect. But
Vuforia relies on a tracking marker, and it's a huge pain in the ass for us.
The idea of using lower-level camera and inertia sensor data to perform
tracking without a marker is something I didn't expect to see without a Tango-
like cluster of depth sensors.

Can't wait to try this out.

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dcgoss
AR goes beyond gaming - I thought the idea of using it for things like
interior design was great. I remember Apple mentioning that IKEA used ARKit to
project models of their furniture into rooms.

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alasdair_
It's probably worth noting that Google had a partnership with Lowes to do this
with Project Tango about two years ago.

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runesoerensen
Saw this small test earlier today, pretty impressive stuff:
[https://twitter.com/kylebrussell/status/872123141346140160](https://twitter.com/kylebrussell/status/872123141346140160)

Also, ARKit was discussed here yesterday
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14490239](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14490239)

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HeyItsShuga
The demo shown off in that video is available as a template in Xcode 9.

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joejohnson
demo of it already in action:
[https://twitter.com/heyadam/status/872278723700994048](https://twitter.com/heyadam/status/872278723700994048)

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tbrock
Ooph, this is game changing.

There is a LOT of hardware out there that supports this.

The iPhone is the most popular game platform on the planet and, just like
that, it will be the most popular platform for developing AR applications.

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felipelemos
Are you sure the iPhone is the most popular game platform? It is not even the
most popular phone.

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IBM
It's by far the most popular phone.

[https://www.statista.com/statistics/276306/global-apple-
ipho...](https://www.statista.com/statistics/276306/global-apple-iphone-sales-
since-fiscal-year-2007/)

~~~
ekianjo
Who care about actual phones, what matters if the OS it runs, and Android is
far larger in that sense.

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jeffhuys
A large portion of Android devices are very slow.

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ekianjo
A large portion of Android games are not that demanding. If you saw what
people spend their time on in the metro/train...

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oliyoung
Because Safari is supporting WebRTC, ar.js is working on iOS now

[https://twitter.com/fr3ino/status/872228441390813185](https://twitter.com/fr3ino/status/872228441390813185)

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marcusbrown
The guy from "Pair" in the first episode of "Planet of the Apps"
[[https://www.planetoftheapps.com/en-us](https://www.planetoftheapps.com/en-
us)] tried to make a similar SDK his main business model but eventually failed
to get the fundings from the VC.

I hope in the end he decided to stick his focus on the app (which is quite
amazing), otherwise he's in big trouble now!

I really think that a lot of new apps will come out in this space, now that
the technology is much more approachable.

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lern_too_spel
What does this have over Qualcomm's AR SDK (now Vuforia) that has been
available on iOS since 2011 and on Android a few years longer?

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suyash
ARKit is free and directly by the OS and device manufacturer.

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Macsenour
I said it for years... acceptance by mainstream will be AR then VR.

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random123456
Demos of ARKit from twitter blows away Tango demos, even though Tango requires
additional hardware. Will Google discontinue Tango?

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jobigoud
Can you link some of those demos? I haven't seen anything very impressive so
far. Also it doesn't do area learning as far as I can see.

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tuyguntn
[https://twitter.com/fr3ino/status/872228441390813185](https://twitter.com/fr3ino/status/872228441390813185)

[https://twitter.com/heyadam/status/872278723700994048](https://twitter.com/heyadam/status/872278723700994048)

[https://twitter.com/kylebrussell/status/872123141346140160](https://twitter.com/kylebrussell/status/872123141346140160)

~~~
jobigoud
These are also the ones I've seen, I fail to see how any of those "blow away
Tango demos" as the parent comment states.

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WhiteNoiz3
Not many people mention it, but ARKit also theoretically makes it possible to
have 6DoF Google cardboard style VR as well.

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alexbilbie
They should have called it TableView

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Kyro38
I've seen this pun multiple times. Could you explain it ?

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jpttsn
I'd guess it makes reference to UITableView, a piece of the UI framework most
people use to code iOS apps.

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blt
Anyone know what VIO method they use?

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jdauriemma
Anyone know whether a JavaScript API is in the works?

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MBCook
Apple does not provide JavaScript access to their APIs, so I doubt it. You'll
only be able to use this in native apps. Something like PhoneGap or Cordova
could try, but I wouldn't be surprised if they were serious performance
issues.

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qrbLPHiKpiux
Purpose? Other then keeping consumer heads planted in the device? (The demo
was neat, though)

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aylmao
That's for the developers to figure out! Which is why it's an SDK and not some
app with an API for extensions.

