Well supported both on native and web platforms, AR provides the ultimate creative interactive experience.
© TAPPTIC - 2019
ARKit (Apple) and ARCore (Google) have opened a wide range of creative opportunities for developers.
A smartphone is now capable of understanding its environment, dynamically positioning virtual objects in the real world as if they were part of reality, without the need of a specific marker.
The third iteration of ARKit, released in October 2019, will add a new set of capabilities to our toolkit.
Smart triggers, the ultimate AR experience
Until recently you had to provide a visual marker to trigger an AR experience (QR code, bracelet, purpose-made ad creative,...).
It's now possible to trigger AR experiences for a certain shape in the real world (e.g. someone's wrist, a face, a vehicle, a table, a sofa,...), smartly mapped thanks to the advances in machine learning.
This brings another level to the AR experience! A popular in-app example are Snapchat lenses.
If native apps provide the ultimate UX on mobile, mobile web solutions are adapted to one-off use cases (vs repeat usage), when it doesn't make sense to ask the user to download an app.
And the good news is that some AR capabilities can be leveraged in the mobile browser.
Possibilities are still limited but recent advances (WebXR) are bringing more AR features to the mobile web.
At time of writing (September 2019), world
tracking, scene understanding and GPS triggers are only available in native apps.
You can trigger an AR experience in the mobile browser with a marker or place a 3D object in a real environment leveraging AR Quick Look (Apple) / Scene Viewer (Google).
This illustration is an example of Google Scene Viewer.
Here's an example of AR triggered by markers, in the browser..
The mobile device makes sense of its environment to properly position a virtual object, which won't move after being placed.
The device will then act as a camera, moving around the object, as the eye would do in a real world situation.
In native apps, GPS coordinates can be used to trigger an AR experience.
The most well-known application of this technology is the wildly popular Pokemon Go.
L'Oréal has launched a virtual make up application leveraging AR.
Wanna Kicks offers an AR shoes fitting experience.
Tim Cook
CEO - Apple