A new generation of iOS augmented reality apps are coming.
Apple is jumping firmly into the world of augmented reality. Announced during WWDC, ARKit brings AR development tools to iOS, allowing your phone’s sensors to detect things like depth, ambient light, and motion.
Craig Federighi, senior vice president of software engineering, claimed that with ARKit, it’s now “overnight, the largest AR platform in the world,” because of how many people own iOS devices.
A second demo from Wingnut AR showed how ARKit could place an entire imaginary world on top of a real-world platform on the stage. The more sophisticated demo, made in Unreal Engine, shows a complex world war taking place with spaceships and explosions. The demo is expected to be released as a game “later this year.”
ARKit has support for Unity, Unreal Engine and Scenekit and will be coming to iPad and iPhone.
Earlier during the keynote, Apple set the stage for VR with a killer Star Wars demo on the HTC Vive.