Report: Despite Apple’s hype, early developer adoption of ARKit has been slow

Despite Apple and Tim Cook continually hyping augmented reality, early adoption of the technology has been slower than expected, according to new data. App research firm Apptopia today released a new report outlining the adoption of Apple’s ARKit over the last 4 months…

Apptopia’s research shows that developers were quick to adopt ARKit following its launch in September, but interested quickly fell in the following months.

In September, developers released roughly 300 ARKit-enabled applications, while October saw the release of another 200. In November, the number of ARKit applications released fell to around 155 and rebounded slightly to 170 in December.

All in all, Apptopia estimates that there are under 1,000 applications currently in the App Store that take advantage of ARKit.

Of the currently available ARKit applications, some 30 percent are categorized as Games, while 13.2 percent are Entertainment. Furthermore, 11.9 percent are Utilities, 7.8 percent are Education, 7.5 percent are Photo & Video, and 5.4 percent are Lifestyle. Surprisingly, 24.2 percent of the ARKit applications fall into the “Other” category.

Tim Cook has been vocal about his love of augmented reality and ARKit, stating in multiple interviews that the technology has incredible potential. For instance, in one interview earlier this year, Cook heralded augmented realty as “a big idea like the smartphone.”

“I regard AR as a big idea like the smartphone. The smartphone is for everyone, we don’t have to think the iPhone is about a certain demographic, or country or vertical market: it’s for everyone. I think AR is that big, it’s huge.

I get excited because of the things that could be done that could improve a lot of lives. And be entertaining. I view AR like I view the silicon here in my iPhone, it’s not a product per se, it’s a core technology.”

While Apptopia’s data is notable, it’s important to remember that ARKit is most certainly still in its early days and there is still plenty of time for refinement and for more developers to adopt it.

What do you think of ARKit? Is Tim Cook’s continual hype warranted or is it too early to tell? Let us know down in the comments.

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