Snapchat’s latest updates shows tech leading towards AR and why the iPhone X is overpriced
Originally published at linkedin.com on September 14, 2017.
Within its latest update, Snapchat gave a new light to “your digital self.” The camera company has included an upgrade for users via Lenses with help of Bitmoji. The update adds the user’s Bitmoji (a digital avatar that the account holder created) and lets them interact with it in real time.
How Your New Bitmoji Lenses Work
As of now, it has four different interactions: standing by the water fountain, playing guitar, drinking coffee, and playing with a butterfly. Each version can be unlocked by touch and holding the background your Snapchat camera screen, letting the app scan the landscape, and then swiping through the Lenses menu.
You can edit the way your Bitmoji looks in its Augmented Reality. As of now, it only engages in four activities through each Lense, but you can enlarge, minimize, and move around your avatar through space by either pinching or dragging it around.
The Augmented Reality Landscape
It’s hard to deny that the sensation of Summer 2016, Pokemon Go, did not influence and/or give a push to mainstream Augmented Reality. In comparison to Virtual Reality, the set up for Augmented Reality is much simpler. The Daydream, for example, costs $75 but it is only the viewing slate, you still need a phone that is capable to handle VR settings to be able to experience it. AR, however, expands on your phone’s camera capabilities: it adds a 3D model to your camera while also recognizing background to better position the model.
As we continue to innovate with technology, Augmented Reality will become more mainstream and more accessible as more companies (and advertisers) begin to give it a harder push into the mass audiences. You can expect more applications in your phone to start to update and begin to integrate AR technology to give you a more engaging experience.
On more on why I won’t be buying an iPhone X, check out my LinkedIn status:
What Does It Mean For The iPhone X’s Main Feature
At the Apple Event, Phil Schiller, an executive at Apple, introduced the new feature built within its native camera app: “The camera itself gets a new sensor… But it’s the software where the cameras are getting impressive changes. Schiller also calls the iPhone the first phone ‘designed for augmented reality’ (that doesn’t sound true, given Google’s Project Tango was explicitly just that, but hey), and shows some AR apps,” as per Alex Hern, from his The Guardian article.
In short, by the time the iPhone X roles out in November, many more apps may have already introduced the awe-inducing feature that Apple utilized in their Apple Event. If the main feature of your product becomes mainstream, what is its attractiveness? Mashable Tech has put up a chart on their Facebook account to help you compare the iPhone X to its competitors:
What do you think? Have you utilized Snapchat’s latest update and shared your Bitmoji in new scenarios? Does the standardization of Augmented Reality affect your will to buy an iPhone X? Comment below!
Got any thoughts to add? Tweet me @juliangumbo or comment below!
Julian Gamboa is a UC Berkeley graduate with a focus on marketing. Julian was selected as a LinkedIn Top Voice for Marketing and #Social Media (2017) and a Course Instructor of the marketing and digital publishing course Digital Marketing Today at the Haas School of Business. He is also the founder of Digiviewpoint, a millennial publishing account.
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