AUGMENTED REALITY REVOLUTION APPS YOU NEED TO GET YOUR HANDS ON
APPS YOU NEED TO GET YOUR HANDS ON
WWDC 2018 EXCITING ANNOUNCEMENTS
This year’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC 2018) is taking place in San Jose, CA, from June 4 to June 8. Attendees can enjoy valuable sessions, labs, consultations, gettogethers, guest speakers and more. Over 1,000 Apple engineers typically attend. Tickets are offered on a lottery system, and registration opened on March 13 2018.
Most importantly, it is a platform for Apple to unveil their most exciting developments, technology, and products coming this year. The event’s first-day keynote allows Apple to introduce upcoming software and hardware. This keynote not only sets the stage for the rest of the week, but it sets the precedent for technology to come in the next year.
Apple officially announced the event this week and designer Martin Hajek created a set of 16 wallpapers, inspired by the artwork for WWDC 2018. He has made different versions of the event’s invite, turning it 3D, showing the logo from various angles and playing with different colours. He has even made a “dark mode” version. Apple enthusiasts are hoping “dark mode”, designed to reduce eye strain and improve night time viewing experience, will officially be released for iOS at this year’s event.
A SERIES OF HIGHLY ANTICIPATED ANNOUNCEMENTS
At WWDC 2018, we are expecting big announcements focusing on iOS, macOS, watchOS, and tvOS. Speculation around iOS 12 focuses around new Animoji, Animoji integration into FaceTime, an upgraded version
of Do Not Disturb, more parental controls, stability enhancements and more. Rumors around macOS focus around new filters, FaceTime improvements, Animoji support, and better Mac Graphics.
However, the biggest announcements and perhaps the most highly anticipated announcements focus around AR. These rumors only seemed more probable as the invitation and publicity shot for this year’s event looks like an AR city map. This could mean improvements are coming to Maps, particularly with Apple Maps cars, but it also shows we could see major improvements to ARKit.
In anticipation of these major improvements to AR, this week we are running you through our favorite AR apps, that all AR lovers should get their hands on. We are very excited to see these apps will continue to push the boundaries of AR as Apple continues to develop their ARKit.
POKEMON GO: THE APP THAT INTRODUCED MANY USERS TO AR FOR THE FIRST TIME
It is only right to start our AR apps roundup, with the app that arguably set the president for AR games. This app really took off in the summer of 2016 and by June 2017, the app had surpassed $1.2 billion in revenue and had been downloaded 752 million times. The app became mainstream and was talked about and downloaded worldwide. In August 2016 it had about 100 million monthly players, and 38% of these were millennials (aged 19 to 34). It made the mainstream news on multiple occasions and introduced many users to the world of AR for the first time.
THE PARALLAX VIEW: A WORLD OF ILLUSIONS
However, Pokemon Go is not the only popular AR app. The Parallax View, which currently only works on the iPhone X, tracks your eye movement to trick you into seeing objects in front of and behind the screen. This app is becoming increasingly popular as an introduction to AR. The illusion based app pushes AR to its limits and demonstrates exactly what Apple has achieved, and could achieve in the future.
JIGSPACE: INTERACTIVE LEARNING IN 3D
This free app, is an interactive learning app that helps users learn in 3D. This is a valuable education tool that breaks down complex ideas, or products to help users better understand the world around them. The app does not currently accept public submission, but they are working on a Jig Workshop tool that would allow anyone to create Jigs to share.
CIVILISATION AR BY BBC: BRINGING ART AND CULTURE TO YOU
This app works to bring both art and culture from across the world straight to your phone. Civilisations is a BBC Two series presented by Simon Schama, Mary Beard, and David Olusoga, and it already has its own Civilisations Festival which brings together museums and galleries. Now, the series has also introduced an app that brings history straight into people’s home, providing an interactive experience on their phone.
KNIGHTFALL AR: A COMPLETE IMMERSIVE GAMING EXPERIENCE
In this AR game, you are sent to the world of The Knights Templar to defend the city of Acre and protect the Holy Grail. This game has a rating of 3.2 stars on Apple’s app store.
THE MACHINES: THE ULTIMATE AR BATTLE
This app was featured in the Apple Keynote and was voted as one of the best AR games for iPhone and iPad by Macworld earlier this year: “The Machines is a perfect example of the future of AR, and we can’t wait to see how it’s improved in future.” This multiplayer app allows you to transform your table top into a battlefield to challenge your friends online or in the same room. The number of maps and heroes are currently limited, but big updates as rumored to be announced at WWDC 2018.
RC CLUB: DRIVE A VIRTUAL TOY CAR AROUND YOUR OWN HOME
This exciting app lets users drive toy cars as if they are in the real world, controlling them as they negotiate around the terrain you see in front of you in real life, whether that is your own living room or an outdoor space. This virtual remote controlled car can drive on flat terrain or negotiate ramps and half-pipes you set up! Users have experienced a few problems with the app as when the car sometimes drives straight through your wall, the illusion is consequently broken, but we are confident new updates will soon fix these issues.
AR DRAGON: RAISE YOUR VERY OWN AR PET
Virtual pet stimulators are becoming increasingly popular, and AR Dragon is one of the best apps available. In this game, you can raise your very own virtual pet dragon. No two pets will ever look the same and you can summon your adorable dragon, play with it, entertain it and just have fun with your new pet.
ZOMBIE GUNSHIP REVENANT AR: STOP THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE FROM THE SKIES
What better way to pass your time than by taking control of a helicopter and shoot zombies from the sky? Defend against a zombie apocalypse in this intense game and fly a helicopter that is controlled by your movements. This game has been named one of the most popular ARKit games on the app store.
MAKEUP GENIUS & MODIFACE: L’OREAL’S NEW BEAUTY APP
L’Oreal is in the process of buying Modiface, a major AR beauty company, in order to promote its brands in a high-tech way. This AR beauty company has had a hand in creating many AR beauty apps, and L’Oreal has worked with Modiface multiple times, including when they launched the Style My Hair mobile app that allows users to try on different hairstyles. AR is fast becoming an integral part of the beauty industry, and L’Oreal is striving to stay one step ahead of the game.
STAR WALK 2: DISCOVER THE STARS WITH AR
If you are interested in astronomy, this is the app for you. This is the perfect guide for studying the stars, day and night, and all you have to do is point your device to the skies. Discover the constellation, comets and thousands of stars above you.
THE FUTURE FOR AR
The updates we are expecting to be announced at WWDC 2018 will hopefully be unveiled in conjunction with iOS 12. Rumors suggest the iOS 12 interface will include 3D elements, which are also hinted at in the WWDC invitation and would work to vastly improve the AR experience. Typically, Apple loves dropping hints through their invitation and the depth in this invite could equally suggest improvements to AR or a redesign for iOS 12.
These are just a handful of the most popular AR apps at the moment. We can only speculate what the future will be for these apps if Apple continues to push the limits of AR. We only have a few more months to wait before Apple unveils their latest projects and developments. We can safely say that we have only see the beginning of what we can achieve with AR.