Augmented Reality (AR)

Even when moving home is for all the right reasons, it still has to count as one of life’s most mixed experiences. While the end result is hopefully a better home in a better location, the process also involves a great deal of stress, work and expense. In the case of our own recent move, we can tick all five boxes …

But one of the fun parts is the chance to start again with a blank sheet in terms of designing your home the way you’d like it to be. For most of us, that’s a DIY process. We look for inspiration online and in stores, then sit down at the computer – or pencil and paper – to play with ideas.

The posher approach is to hire an interior designer to do it all for you. You tell them your tastes, and what you’re looking to achieve, and let them come up with designs. You then say yes or no to the various elements, and they rework the designs until you end up with a final one you approve …

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A new report from Bloomberg today shares that Apple manufacturer Quanta has closed a deal to start producing lenses for augmented reality smart glasses. While this deal isn’t specifically with Apple, it could pave the way for Apple to bring its next wearable to market.

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Nikkei is out today with a new report that one of Apple’s assemblers expects a “significant AR device” to launch by 2019. Similar to the news last week from another Apple supplier, today’s report doesn’t specifically name Apple, but expectations are starting to build for the company and a future AR device release even though Tim Cook has recently said “but today I can tell you the technology itself doesn’t exist to do that in a quality way.”

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Back in the summer, when rumors of Apple working on augmented reality glasses gained momentum, I wrote an opinion piece addressing the question of whether the Cupertino company could succeed where Google failed.

I ran through the six reasons why I believe Google Glass failed as a consumer product, and looked at the lessons Apple would need to learn.

We heard earlier today that Apple is working toward a target date of no earlier than 2020 for its rumored augmented reality headset, or glasses. And that date gives me more faith in the idea that Apple could indeed pull it off …

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Apple is reportedly gearing up to release its own augmented reality ‘headset’ as early as 2020, according to a new report from Bloomberg. The device would feature an independent screen and integrated chipsets. Bloomberg says the device could ship by 2020, but the plan is ‘very aggressive’ and timelines can always slip back.

Apple is engineering its own system-on-a-package for the headset, similar to the Apple Watch S1 chip. The product would run a new ‘rOS’ operating system, based off of an iOS core.

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Tim Cook may have recently poured cold water on rumors that Apple was on the verge of announcing its own version of Google Glass, but that isn’t stopping the supply chain from pushing the rumors forward. Nikkei reports that Apple casing supplier Catcher Technology may be developing lightweight frames for Apple AR glasses.

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Target is the latest retailer to offer augmented reality shopping, allowing customers to see how furniture would look in their own homes. It currently offers the feature with 200 items, but says it plans to offer hundreds more by the end of the year and ‘thousands’ of products next year.

The feature works much the same way as Ikea’s app, but doesn’t (yet) take advantage of ARKit …

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Buzzfeed briefly interviewed Apple CEO Tim Cook and retail head Angela Ahrendts at the recent opening of the new waterfront Chicago store, with Cook discussing augmented reality, rumors of his successor, and making a one-sentence comment on iPhone X availability.

Cook thinks AR is going to be as big in the future as mobile apps are today …

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An augmented reality drone simulator powered by Apple’s ARKit allows users to fly a virtual quadrocopter wherever they are.

“ARKit is a game-changer,” says Taylor Moore, co-founder of CircleSquare Entertainment. “We were actually working very hard on a drone racing game – but dropped everything when we realized that we could offer iOS users the kind of augmented reality no one has ever seen before. DroneTopolis AR is like having a Drone in your Pocket.”

You can fly your virtual drone in places the real thing wouldn’t be allowed, fly through virtual ‘hoops’ and record and stream your flights to share with friends …

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Phil Schiller teased an augmented reality overlay on a live baseball game during the iPhone 8 keynote presentation. Fans viewing the match could instantly see things like how far a ball was thrown, how hard it was hit and how fast a player is running.

But while those features are coming to the MBL At Bat app, fans won’t get them until the 2018 season …

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An augmented reality Sudoku-solving app that only works with completely empty puzzles might be kind of pointless, but it definitely serves as an impressive demonstration of just what can be done when you use the combined power of three Apple frameworks.

Magic Sudoku uses Apple’s image analysis software Vision to read the puzzles, the Core ML framework to solve them and ARKit to present the solution as an overlay on the puzzle itself …

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Apple’s public release of iOS 11 yesterday includes a lot of great new updates. One of the most anticipated new features is the ability for iPhones and iPads with an A9 chip or later to run augmented reality apps made possible by Apple’s ARKit platform. Let’s take a look at some of the best AR enabled apps available now.

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If you enjoy reviewing your cycle rides, runs or hikes in Strava, a new app lets you do this in augmented reality.

Fitness AR projects a 3D terrain map of your path onto a table-top, and allows you to walk around it, viewing it from different angles, as well as move in close to check out details …

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During Apple’s Special Event today, they used some onstage time to demo off the power of ARKit and Augmented Reality in the new iPhone 8. Apple announced that each camera on the new iPhone 8 is individually calibrated to work as best as possible within ARKit.

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Augmented reality looks set to have quite an impact on the beauty sector. After recently looking at a demo app for lipstick and other make-up, AR specialist ModiFace is back with a new demo app – this one allowing you to see how different hair colors would look before you take the plunge.

Using AI powered by analysing a staggering 220,000 hair color photos, the app shows in real-time video how your hair would look in any color of your choice …

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ARKit will be available to everyone in just a couple of weeks, and while we’ve seen a variety of applications that take advantage of it thus far, more polished implementations are emerging as we near the public release. Today, developer Rinat Khanov has unveiled his new augmented reality app, MeasureKit.

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Augmented Reality may have been around for decades in various forms, but it’s clear that Apple’s enthusiastic backing in the form of ARKit has breathed new life into the medium.

We’ve already seen demo apps for such diverse things as virtual make-up counters, car manuals, film-making, music videos, navigation and much more. And the latest examples allow you to try out paintings by seeing how they’ll look when hung in your home, and track down your misplaced belongings visually …

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We’ve been learning more about ARKit over the past couple of days, Apple yesterday sharing its Human Interface Guidelines for the technology – and getting a better look at the Ikea app first teased at WWDC back in June.

CNET has teased out a few more details from developers working with the framework, including the somewhat surprising fact that ARKit can’t detect walls …

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Update: Apple has announced that the Swift app development curriculum noted below is being expanded to more community colleges.

Apple today announced the App Development with Swift curriculum will now be offered in more than 30 community college systems across the country in the 2017-2018 school year, providing opportunities to millions of students to build apps that will prepare them for careers in software development and information technology. The Austin Community College District (ACC), one of the nation’s largest higher learning institutions, will begin offering the course to its 74,000 students this fall.

It will be a bit of a disappointment if this turns out to be the entirety of Apple’s announcements today …

Tim Cook is currently travelling around the USA, with stops in Ohio and Iowa before moving on to Austin, Texas. According to a speech by Austin mayor Steve Adler, Apple will be announcing a new nationwide training program later today.

I’m in a press conference tomorrow with Apple, and Tim Cook is here as we’re announcing a training program for people. They’re announcing it all over the country.

The visit to Iowa came ahead of Apple confirming plans for a new $1.3B data center in Waukee …

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