[keyle]

So I'm an indie game dev and I have experimented quite a bit with the previous version of AR from Apple and the biggest issue was of game design.

Making a game where people have to sit in front of a table, or stand, or hold the device up, is very restrictive and instantly makes you niche. You get more of a potential slice of the market making a cool 2D puzzle.

The tech was cool, worked reasonably well until -A- you moved a lot -B- low light. But unfortunately the market is about playing on the toilet, in public transport; or playing late at night in bed, in the dark. None of which really worked with AR.

As far as I see this going, it's still is looking for a "killer app" (I hate that term).

My best guess is we'll see this used a lot more in a business environment and even then, glasses are a far better approach (hint hint, hold on to your whiskers).

[gonehome]

Yeah I think it needs killer hardware before a killer app.

They're laying the platform groundwork early which makes sense since it's a bet on what's next for human computer interaction.

If they can pull the glasses off there's huge opportunity there for all sorts of things which will be really interesting and better than looking at little glass screens. Without that hardware it's super niche and I don't think has much broad use.

If anyone can pull it off when the hardware is ready it'll probably be Apple.

FB is obviously trying really hard to be there too, but I just don't think people will want it to come from FB (and forcing Oculus under their brand makes it so that it would have to be).

Magic Leap will be to whatever Apple ends up making as General Magic was to the iPhone.

The rough idea was directionally correct, but way too early with hardware that just wasn't good enough.

[NicoJuicy]

I don't think most people "care" it's from Facebook, as someone who bought the Oculus Quest 2 and thought about a long time before that to buy the valve index.

The same could have been said about the chromecast.

I think price matters a lot and Apple already loses a big audience because of that ( it's not their market, i know).

By reference, the IPad is still priced reasonable cheap.

Ps. The Oculus works well with minimal setup.

[gonehome]

Yeah you’re probably right.

Facebook’s other big disadvantage is that their platform (oculus) is separate from mobile and Apple’s platform (iOS) isn’t.

This makes it a lot easier for a Apple to leverage existing devices in laying platform groundwork (which they have now been doing for years).

It also makes it easier for them to leverage the phone computing for the glasses hardware similarly to how they did that for the watch.

FB doesn’t have this option really and I’m not sure how they’d do it without it. Try and put all the hardware in the headset itself? Seems less likely to be able to ship first or be as nice as what Apple will be able to do.

[definitelyhuman]

Totally agree, AR in games is more of a toy. The progress with lidar is... progress - but still not great even in basic scenes, helps with low light. Visual issues break the immersion and pull the user from the experience, which is supposed to be the point. AR as a tech is interesting, and has practical business uses as you point out - but has a long way to go to be useful for games, let alone an engaging centerpiece. Like everything else, it’ll improve steadily, and I’m excited for where it could go

[emllnd]

Agree.

One of the most interesting AR games I’ve tried was Kings of Pool same-space multiplayer. So you set up a pool table (=billiard?) and walk around the room around the same table. Worked quite well, the game (AR & network) could keep up with the relatively low tempo of a turn-based game well enough. But that was mostly interesting because of novelty, not necessarily sticky for long-term repeat play.

What prompted me to explore the tech and write the blog post was indeed work on something else than a game.

[nine_k]

From what I observed, the killer AR game so far was the one involving Pokémons.

Even though people rarely play it while on a sofa, would it be workable with the current Apple AR hardware?

[folli]

I never played the game myself, but wasn't AR just a decorative add-on to pokemonGo and not a necessary part of the game?

[InvaderFizz]

Not necessary at all, and one of the first things I turned off as it was distracting and would sometimes force you into weird positions in order to catch a pokemon.

[k__]

Doesn't LIDAR solve these technical problems?

[doomlaser]

It will once it rolls out onto more phones. Right now it is only available on iPhone 12 Pro models

[AceJohnny2]

Where the use-case currently is more photogrammetry

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photogrammetry