Window On The World

With ARKit, Apple brings augmented reality to hundreds of millions of devices overnight.

The consensus has it that augmented reality will have a more dramatic impact on the world than its virtual cousin. Freed from cumbersome headsets, and designed to ameliorate the real world instead of inviting users to step into an entirely different one, AR clearly has great potential – not just for games, but the world at large. Yet until very recently, the largest tech company on the planet appeared to have only limited interest in it. Yes, CEO Tim Cook said in 2016 that Apple was investing in AR, and acknowledged it could be “huge”. But it was only at this year’s Apple Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) this June that the company made its move. It announced ARKit, and made it available immediately in the SDK for its new mobile operating system, iOS 11. Since then, progress has been rapid.

Travis Ryan, a co-founder of Sheffield studio Dumpling Design and former staffer at Sumo Digital, had binned a concept for an AR-powered tabletop board game, feeling the technology available at the time simply wasn’t good enough to bring the idea to life. Within two hours of downloading the SDK, Smash Tanks was up and running in Unity. Dave Ranyard, meanwhile, started up his VR/AR venture Dream Reality Interactive. His team began work on an ARKit game, a playful riff on mini-golf named Orbu, as soon as the technology was available. It will launch in November.