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Report: Apple to enhance its augmented reality offerings at WWDC in June
Apple Inc. is set to upgrade its augmented reality push at its forthcoming Worldwide Developers Conference, according to a report published Monday.
9to5Mac said Apple will deliver developer support for stereo AR headsets alongside a revised ARKit, the company’s only occasionally used platform for developing AR apps. Aimed at third-party developers, the extended support for Apple-enabled AR headsets comes as the company tries to deal itself into AR after years of talk with little action.
Famed Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said in March that Apple was on its way to building its own augmented reality headset that would act as a lightweight display. It would require an iPhone to do much of the heavy lifting in terms of augmented reality computations, positioning, networking, location services and other features.
Like Apple’s history with its operating system, the Mac OS 7 licensing program aside, the company has not allowed its software to be licensed by others but in this case, that’s what Apple wants.
The revised ARKit, version 3.0, may also get the ability to detect human poses along with support for touchpad controllers. Human posing detection is critical in making virtual objects interact with real people, something lacking in ARKit to date.
With support for touchpad controllers, ARKit opens up to a wider variety of gaming options for third-party developers, something that may play an important part in having Apple’s AR platform more widely adopted.
Other reports for WWDC include Apple opening up access to the near-field communication functions in iOS. Apple has strictly controlled access to NFC to date, limiting support for third-party developers in how they can use a feature that is already available on Android devices. According to Engadget, the more open support would allow app developers have the option “to read NFC tags based on ISO 7816 (usually ID and access cards), FeliCa (Japan’s tap-based system) and MiFare (a popular mass transit format).”
WWDC is scheduled to start June 3.
Image: Photozou
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