Again, all of it is cool, but what advantage is there for the regular consumer? That's my continuing question in all of this.
The furniture stores are are an example. Someone will make a "will this fit?" App that takes an image of your current cupboard and a space on your wall and tells you if it can be moved. ... There'll come a time when you raise your phone in the supermarket, and it overlays health information on the image. Crosses out your allergen foods and highlights your favourites (green highlight on all the non-dairy Indian curries?). Or circles the items from your shopping list so you can pick them up. This won't happen for a few years but it's where it's heading. ... I imagine my kids will will have an imaginary friend app, probably linked with a toy. My kids would like to think there's an invisible Mickey Mouse they can only see through the Disney Magic Mirror, who lives in their room and is always there with them. And perhaps they'll buy a Lego "Invisible jet" that will land next to their hand built plane, but they can watch it fly around and follow it. Or they'll have a game with a path for them to follow and hidden treasures.
Thanks for your example of using it in the supermarket, that's something most people could find useful and be excited about, especially in a supermarket they were unfamiliar with. It reminds me of the (former?) AR mode of the AroundMe app. In short, you could search for a category like 'restaurants' or 'gas stations' and the app presented you a list of matches and their distance from you. If you rotated to your iPhone to landscape the camera came on and the same results would be presented as labels overlayed on the live view. The labels would have the name of the location, it's distance and be relatively close to the actual destination. If you turned to face another direction the labels would update and give the relevant results for that direction. Handy!
You brought up the Lego example, and I think I've seen an AR demo showing a Lego car on a kitchen table. To me that makes about as much sense as playing an AR game on the table. But, from a kid's perspective it may be a lot of fun. Still, I feel like the demographic that that sort of usage will hit is going to be more limited, though it may be wildly popular in said demographic.
I guess the point I'm trying to make that maybe I'm not being clear on is this: there is a lot of excitement around what Apple announced with AR kit, but MOST of the examples that get shown don't seem like strong, real world use cases that people will care about. Again, I think it's all very cool, and in some cases just amazing, what is being done. But not so much useful or long term.
Things like measuring your space, placing/testing virtual furniture and highlighting items in the grocery store all seem like stronger uses than playing a game on a table or making a music video. I think those things are cool but I'm not going to be making a music video in my house (maybe once for fun) and neither are most people I know.
I'm still failing to see how most of this is useful at all. Measuring a room could be handy, or maybe a yard. I can see how placing furniture in your room could be helpful in making a purchasing decision.
But most of the other stuff just seems like a cool demo, a "Hey, look what we can do." Don't get me wrong, the tech is impressive. But placing a virtual Mickey Mouse outside of D23, or anywhere really, seems like something someone may do once or twice just to try it and then forget about it.
I still don't understand how an AR version of the game presented above improves the game play. If anything it seems like it would make it unnecessarily harder. What is the advantage to playing the game "on your table" versus just playing it on your phone normally? Seriously, am I missing something?
Again, all of it is cool, but what advantage is there for the regular consumer? That's my continuing question in all of this.
So far no one has shown anything other than an auxiliary usage for the technology. I've even heard someone say it will replace displays, which is like saying CDs will replace music.
That's what I mean, most of the uses shown are cool demos but I don't find them to be compelling otherwise. And, yeah, I'm not sure how AR will replace displays. Ummm, what? (I kind of wish I could put the "Haha" text bubble from Messages on your CDs comment)
I'm still failing to see how most of this is useful at all. Measuring a room could be handy, or maybe a yard. I can see how placing furniture in your room could be helpful in making a purchasing decision.
But most of the other stuff just seems like a cool demo, a "Hey, look what we can do." Don't get me wrong, the tech is impressive. But placing a virtual Mickey Mouse outside of D23, or anywhere really, seems like something someone may do once or twice just to try it and then forget about it.
I still don't understand how an AR version of the game presented above improves the game play. If anything it seems like it would make it unnecessarily harder. What is the advantage to playing the game "on your table" versus just playing it on your phone normally? Seriously, am I missing something?
Again, all of it is cool, but what advantage is there for the regular consumer? That's my continuing question in all of this.
That's always a question for any product. What advantage is there in the Apple Watch for the regular consumer? If there's a compatible use-case, then there's a market.
There's some form of market, since Pokemon Go is AR. It'll go big with historians, and educators.
Regarding games, ARKit can be integrated with Machine Vision. Think fields of fire and range measurement from miniature X to Y. I play Destiny, other people I know don't play shooters like that, and may be more interested in a clicker in at the bus stop, or something like that. Let the developers figure it out before you crap on it.
You're right - some developers will bail after making a digital whatever. Many won't.
Really, I'm not trying to crap on it and I hope my post doesn't come off as me being AR-negative because I'm not. I'm just trying to see what kind of a draw there will be regarding AR to get regular people excited enough to see it as a reason (or another reason) to purchase an iPhone or iPad. Placing virtual characters in my living room doesn't seem compelling enough but @gregalexander's supermarket example might be (not being limited to just the supermarket, mind you).
I don't play Pokémon Go myself but I worked with a bunch of people who were CONSUMED by it for a few weeks. However, several of them would be playing it (discretely at work) in non-AR mode. They didn't actually have to be out walking around to play. If there was no AR mode would the game still have been as popular? Was the AR part of it the real draw or just icing on the cake?
Again, all of it is cool, but what advantage is there for the regular consumer? That's my continuing question in all of this.
I imagine my kids will will have an imaginary friend app, probably linked with a toy. My kids would like to think there's an invisible Mickey Mouse they can only see through the Disney Magic Mirror, who lives in their room and is always there with them. And perhaps they'll buy a Lego "Invisible jet" that will land next to their hand built plane, but they can watch it fly around and follow it. Or they'll have a game with a path for them to follow and hidden treasures.
It would allow for a more advanced version of a Tamagotchi (76m units sold):
Instead of a really low quality LCD showing the animal:
the animal can be fully 3D. The following is pre-rendered but gives an idea how it can look:
It doesn't have to be a normal pet either, it can be a fantasy pet like a unicorn:
If the pet needs a bath, it can have fleas and dirt on it. If it's hungry or tired, the phone can notify you and show the animal in different states and you have to get food or help it sleep. You can throw a virtual ball across the room to a dog, you can give cats balls of wool to play with. You can have a virtual menagerie of birds. A kid can play hide and seek with the pet and go find it somewhere in the house, it can leave clues like paw prints or a trail of crumbs.
Ihatescreennames said: I'm not sure how AR will replace displays
With glasses it can, you can see the HoloLens view here:
At 1:53, it shows a virtual browser window hovering in mid-air. Instead of having desktop windows in a stack contained on a fixed display form factor, the display is all around you and can be as small as a smartphone or as big as a wall.
There are issues to solve with it like getting the virtual display fully opaque and having intuitive interaction, which might need a new input peripheral. The glasses need to be lightweight. These things will be solved eventually. Computers used to be the size of a room and now fit on your wrist. The technology that looks cumbersome now in wearables will eventually be much more portable, not just due to the computing components but display and power improvements.
Comments
You brought up the Lego example, and I think I've seen an AR demo showing a Lego car on a kitchen table. To me that makes about as much sense as playing an AR game on the table. But, from a kid's perspective it may be a lot of fun. Still, I feel like the demographic that that sort of usage will hit is going to be more limited, though it may be wildly popular in said demographic.
I guess the point I'm trying to make that maybe I'm not being clear on is this: there is a lot of excitement around what Apple announced with AR kit, but MOST of the examples that get shown don't seem like strong, real world use cases that people will care about. Again, I think it's all very cool, and in some cases just amazing, what is being done. But not so much useful or long term.
Things like measuring your space, placing/testing virtual furniture and highlighting items in the grocery store all seem like stronger uses than playing a game on a table or making a music video. I think those things are cool but I'm not going to be making a music video in my house (maybe once for fun) and neither are most people I know.
I don't play Pokémon Go myself but I worked with a bunch of people who were CONSUMED by it for a few weeks. However, several of them would be playing it (discretely at work) in non-AR mode. They didn't actually have to be out walking around to play. If there was no AR mode would the game still have been as popular? Was the AR part of it the real draw or just icing on the cake?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamagotchi
Instead of a really low quality LCD showing the animal:
the animal can be fully 3D. The following is pre-rendered but gives an idea how it can look:
It doesn't have to be a normal pet either, it can be a fantasy pet like a unicorn:
If the pet needs a bath, it can have fleas and dirt on it. If it's hungry or tired, the phone can notify you and show the animal in different states and you have to get food or help it sleep. You can throw a virtual ball across the room to a dog, you can give cats balls of wool to play with. You can have a virtual menagerie of birds. A kid can play hide and seek with the pet and go find it somewhere in the house, it can leave clues like paw prints or a trail of crumbs.
With glasses it can, you can see the HoloLens view here:
At 1:53, it shows a virtual browser window hovering in mid-air. Instead of having desktop windows in a stack contained on a fixed display form factor, the display is all around you and can be as small as a smartphone or as big as a wall.
There are issues to solve with it like getting the virtual display fully opaque and having intuitive interaction, which might need a new input peripheral. The glasses need to be lightweight. These things will be solved eventually. Computers used to be the size of a room and now fit on your wrist. The technology that looks cumbersome now in wearables will eventually be much more portable, not just due to the computing components but display and power improvements.