The Evolution of Mobile
Are you ready to get your AR on?
Sometime after September 12, when Apple unveils the iPhone 8, the company also will release OS 11 — and just like that, a half billion of us will not only be looking at our devices while we stomp around, we’ll also be able to view the world through them.
You can blame augmented reality, which superimposes computer graphics and data onto the environs, for this ever-more obnoxious, mobile-user behavior. Or, blame Apple, which in June gave to its developers ARKit, a software framework to create new and cool apps in anticipation of the upcoming iOS release.
Apple’s ARKit…took things from niche to mainstream overnight. Because it works on all phones running iOS 11, Apple instantly created a giant market of hundreds of millions of devices capable of running AR apps. — Ina Fried, writing in Axios
Blame whatever you want, but prepare to see more and more people walking around on the street, looking distracted, as they peer through their phones like portholes into their own reality. Apple’s release will mark the moment the great AR war gets underway and, says long-time mobile-industry observer Ina Fried, whoever wins “will define the next generation of smartphones.”
Last week, the tech press got a peek at some of the more interesting apps into which companies as diverse as Ikea (here’s how our furniture will look in your living room!) and AMC (here’s how our zombies will look in your living room!) are putting the new technology to work. Games, cooking, kids’ books — the Apple presser showed off some tantalizing stuff, piquing anticipation for the upcoming phone.
While all iPhones that can upgrade to iOS 11 will be AR compatible, you can assume that the newest model, the 10th anniversary edition, will do it best. Fast Company reported that Apple’s been working on a super-zowie, rear-facing 3D laser, for instance, which will more precisely place items in one’s field of vision, making the AR experience that much more realistic.
It’s not just Apple that’s betting on AR, of course. Google, Samsung, Microsoft, even Facebook via its Oculus headset are squaring off in the AR market. The Guardian figures that AR is “the next big battleground between the titans of the smartphone industry.”
In fact, Mashable asserts that Apple is “already winning the AR wars,” though Bloomberg reports that Google just struck back last week with ARCore, an Android framework that overcomes some of the technical challenges that stalled augmented reality’s uptake on that operating system’s diverse hardware ecosystem. And Microsoft? Just the other day it announced an update to Windows 10 that will support AR and VR devices, though Ars Technica says it seems to be eating everyone else’s virtual, laser-guided 3D dust.
Ah, well. We love a good war in Techland — the battle metaphor probably stuck after the first monkey figured out how to bash his enemy over the head with a stick.
Augmented reality isn’t a particularly new idea. The first known reference to it (though it wasn’t called AR) dates to 1901, when L. Frank Baum, the guy who wrote the Wizard of Oz series, described a “character marker” in a fantasy novel called The Master Key. In the book, a demon (!) gives a young dabbler in electrical inventions special spectacles that allow him to look at folks and see, right there on their foreheads, coded letters indicating their character — smart, foolish, kind, cruel, etc. Had Baum been born a hundred years later, his startup would be worth billions.
Perhaps Baum would have been smart enough to steer clear of virtual reality, which has yet to pay out. VR, as you probably know, offers up a far more immersive, completely simulated environment.
While the hype machine worked around the clock on that one — Facebook bought VR pioneer Oculus for $2 billion a mere three years ago — the industry has yet to live up to expectations. It turns out even the slightest bit of lag between head movement and eye tracking is enough to make many people nauseous, giving rise to a new malady: VR Sickness. Also, wearing those goggles is a bit uncomfortable, not very social and makes you look like Dweebish is your native tongue.
Happily, AR suffers from none of those problems. When Niantic Inc. launched its smash hit Pokemon Go to a wildly receptive audience a year ago, we almost got whiplash as the mobile industry pivoted from a V to an A.
Never mind that some of the earlier apps that used AR didn’t exactly rock our world. Anyone remember when “Monocle” was a double-secret Easter egg you could unlock on Yelp by shaking your phone three times? It was going to “murder all other restaurant apps.” But now, it’s just a feature, nestled among other, mostly unused, “More” options.
While AR shows more promise than VR, there has yet to be a “killer app” that everyone must have, the way smartphones have become essential for navigation and everyday snapshots. — The Associated Press
I loved Monocle. Like so much whizzy new technology, it made for a great demo (“Hey, honey! Look at this!”) But it turned out to be something I needed to remind myself to use, rather than something I simply, reflexively used.
If this new generation of AR, on better devices, really does find an eager market, the first casualty will likely be the smartphone itself. That’s not a coincidence, but part of mobile’s evolution, its steady march to devices that we don’t have to think about using — they’re just there, always on, always part of us. Like, say, our eyeglasses.
Smartglasses, such as Google Glass, will finally have critical applications that make them indispensable. Though Google Glass went on hiatus, it’s not forgotten. And soon we’ll get to see Magic Leap’s hardware: Just last week, that poster child for the sexiest whispered promises of AR received a patent for tech that will power its glasses. Meanwhile, Snapchat’s Spectacles’s have supposedly stalled. But just imagine how stylish Apple’s shades will be, creating a new billion-dollar market…
Onward, then, to battle! In the meantime, I’m hoping someone builds us a decent character marker.
Quick Flips
Roomba competitor Neato’s new robotic vacuum cleaner, D7, generates a map of the rooms its cleaning… This is cool because you can edit the map, telling the vacuum which areas to avoid…Best Buy will offer same-day delivery in some 40 cities in time for the holidays….Molecule-sized, light-activated nanomachines can drill into cancer cells and kill them, reports the journal Nature. Smartwatches are more popular than you might think, according to a new IDC report. (I really want to buy one of the rumored cellular watches Apple is supposedly unveiling September 12.)
Keep flipping,
JQ
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