Will iPhone X lead the Way?

to incorporate AR into their apps. (AR is a technology that allows the phone’s camera to mix virtual and physical objects).

Apple has confirmed its commitment to AR by stating that iPhone X was purpose-built for AR apps with its cameras calibrated for AR and with its facial recognition software making it easier for apps like Snapchat to map virtual masks onto the owner’s face for selfies.

AR, like its cousin VR (virtual reality, which I wrote about recently), has been around for a long time but hasn’t really taken off in a big way yet. This will probably change with the launch of the iPhone X. In the years to come, hundreds of millions of people will own AR-capable devices.

ARKit coupled with iPhone’s depthsensing camera technologies could lead to revolutionary new developments in mobile AR applications. Initially we’ll see great enhancements in the gaming and selfie areas. Pokemon Go is the best example of AR in use in the mobile gaming industry and Snapchat’s filters are an example of AR being used for self-expression. But in time, AR will definitely become integrated into many other types of apps as well.

What kind of killer app for AR will emerge, we don’t know yet. But what we do know is that these app developers will now be able to use the camera, accelerometer and gyroscope in a more precise way than ever before.

You can count on some big breakthroughs to emerge from the tens of thousands of developers out there. Some of them are likely to become as regularly used as Whatsapp or Waze are today (for all we know, AR might be integrated into Whatsapp and Waze too). AR-enabled apps will be become such a part of our daily lives that we won’t even wonder at how incredibly advanced and useful they are.

Android will naturally dive deeply into AR as a direct result of what Apple is doing with ARKit (Android’s version of this is called ARCore). Apple has one advantage though. It controls both the hardware and software and can thus more seamlessly integrate these two than can Android as their phones are made by various companies.

Most Android phones function the same way but there are subtle differences, enough that there’s a learning curve involved when you switch from one Android brand to another. In contrast, there’s only one company making the iPhone.

The iPhone X will be available in early November and the base model is priced at a whopping US$999 (RM4,193). That’s a pretty hefty price tag for a premium product like an iPhone. There’ll be many takers and there’ll also be many who’ll hesitate because of the price. But whether you are an iPhone owner or not, the phones you buy in the future will have features similar to it, especially in the areas of facial recognition and AR.