Apple calls developers’ rapid response to ARKit “unbelievable.” The company unveiled the framework for making augmented reality apps at the Worldwide Developers Conference earlier this month. Already, coders have created tons of amazing AR experiences that inject virtual objects into the real world.
“They’ve built everything from virtual tape measures [to] ballerinas made out of wood dancing on floors,” said Greg “Joz” Joswiak, Apple’s vice president of product marketing. “It’s absolutely incredible what people are doing in so little time.”
While he wouldn’t share details about a rumored standalone AR headset Apple has hundreds of engineers working on, Joswiak stressed how the widespread usage of Apple mobile devices could make augmented reality mainstream overnight.
“I think there is a gigantic runway that we have here with the iPhone and the iPad,” he told The Australian. “The fact we have a billion of these devices out there is quite an opportunity for developers.
Joswiak also predicted the main uses for augmented reality likely will involve shopping, furniture placement, education, training and services.
In addition, he touched on several other topics. Apple is currently working on new male and female voices for Siri, he said. The company has been “implementing machine learning in our products long before it was fashionable to call it machine learning,” he added.
Jowswiak brought up the fact that Apple used machine learning to improve its iPhone keyboard prior to the device’s launch in 2007. (Although he didn’t mention it, Apple also used early artificial intelligence for its original Newton MessagePad device in 1993.)
Everyone at Apple loves AR
Joswiak isn’t the first Apple exec to talk up augmented reality in a big way. Recently, CEO Tim Cook told Bloomberg that AR’s impact is likely to be “profound.”
“I am so excited about it, I just want to yell out and scream,” Cook said.
You can check out some of the great developer-driven augmented reality apps Joswiak alluded to here.
When it comes to embracing the developer community, Apple has certainly come a long way from the days before the App Store, when Steve Jobs worried that third-party apps would sully his beautiful creation.
Are you excited about augmented reality? Leave your thoughts below.
Source: The Australian
